Rich S's blog

Manchester airport plans to press ahead with its expansion plans, demolishing local homes and green spaces, and doubling air freight capacity. Local group Manchester Airport on Trial are hosting a camp for a weekend in the woods at the end of the runway. They are asking people to come and join them to get to know the local area and local residents and to learn more about the campaign against expansion.

Plans for the weekend include: walk and cycle caravan to look at sites of campaigning significance such as Arthur's Wood, the World Freight Centre, Hasty Lane and the sites of the 2nd runway protest camp.

The first group who are heading down there are meeting at 5:30pm at Piccadilly station on Friday 27th May or at 6pm outside Manchester Central Library for a critical mass which is heading straight for the camp.

There is an alternative meet time of 11am at Heald Green Station on Saturday 28th May for a walk and cycle caravan.

See you there.

Link to the FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

Double whammy! With two consultations ending this April, Scottish Minister John Swinney is pulling off a fabulously nefarious coup. Two proposed reforms - one to planning, one to climate change - will massively increase emissions, cutting democracy out of the deal. A whole generation of Scotland's development is being removed from public debate.

The planning reforms and climate change laws look like very different beasts, but both will have the same impact - increased emissions. The National Planning Framework, alongside the Planning Scotland Act 2006, gives Government central control over planning. The Climate Change Bill takes the most important thing we need to plan for –- control of emissions -– and gifts it to the big polluters. One centralises government, the other decentralises - but both lock citizens out of politics.