National policy is against additional runway but north-east councillors back airport�s expansion
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor

THE Liberal Democrats have been accused of being "cynical and hypocritical" about environmental policy after it emerged that they are split over plans to expand Heathrow airport.

The Conservatives are also divided on the issue, which pits leading councillors in the north east of Scotland against their party colleagues in Edinburgh and London.

The divisions have opened up over the Labour government's highly contentious plan to build a third runway at Heathrow airport, outside London. Although it is LibDem and Conservative policy to cancel the plan, it has been strongly backed by councillors in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.

Nationally, the two parties argue the new runway will increase dangerous climate pollution. But in the north east they say it is needed to support the region's economic development by giving flights from Aberdeen airport more landing slots.

Three LibDem councillors are on record as supporting the expansion of Heathrow. They are Kate Dean, the leader of Aberdeen Council; Anne Robertson, the leader of Aberdeenshire Council, and Peter Argyll, chairman of Aberdeenshire Council's Infrastructure Services Committee. Dean argued that runway expansion was vital to the economy of Aberdeen. "I felt it essential to support the plans for Heathrow," she told the Sunday Herald.

"I was elected to represent the people of Aberdeen, and the needs and welfare of the city come first for me."

Argyll maintained that Heathrow was a vital link between the north east and the rest of the world economy. "It is party policy to oppose the third runway at Heathrow," he said. "However, on this matter, promoting the interests of Aberdeenshire and of our constituents must take priority over political considerations."

Robertson, along with the Conservative vice-chairwoman of Aberdeenshire Council's Infrastructure Services Committee, Jill Webster, backed a third runway at Heathrow at a regional transport meeting last year.

Neither councillor responded to requests to comment. But their views were brushed aside by LibDem and Conservative spokesmen in London. "There can be no doubt that national LibDem policy is to oppose a third runway at Heathrow for environmental reasons," said LibDem transport spokesman Norman Baker MP.

He pointed out that Aberdeen airport was exempt from the LibDems' proposed domestic airline surcharge and that the city could benefit from new high-speed rail links.

A spokesman for the Conservative Party in London said: "If the Conservatives win the next election, there will be no third runway at Heathrow."

The LibDems were attacked as "unco-ordinated and unthinking" by the Green MSP, Robin Harper. "For local north-east LibDems to support a giant, climate-busting third runway for Heathrow, while their Westminster colleagues are opposing it, shows just how cynical and hypocritical they can be with regard to the environment," he said. Harper condemned the position adopted by LibDem councillors as "narrow-minded, short-termist, self-serving and nonsensical".

The LibDems, he said, "lacked the courage to stand up for the environment in the face of commercial pressure".

Aberdeenshire Council has blocked two attempts by independent councillor Martin Ford to discuss the Heathrow expansion. Ford resigned from the LibDems after opposing the golf complex proposed by American billionaire tycoon Donald Trump.

"Nationally, cancellation of the additional runway at Heathrow is a flagship LibDem policy cited as proof that the party is serious about the environment," Ford said. "Locally, my experience inside and now outside the LibDems is completely different. Councillors who actually agree with their party's stated policy are vilified or ignored and excluded from relevant decisions."

The LibDem party was being "completely undermined by the Scottish party leadership's backing for a party establishment here in the north east that supports a completely contradictory position on airport expansion", he said.

Ford was backed by Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland. "The sheer chutzpah of these councillors is astonishing," he said. "This is the sort of blinkered 20th century thinking that got the world into the climate crisis."