Letter to local residents regarding Heathrow's Property Policies
August 2020
Dear Resident,
Heathrow wrote to residents in June 2020 informing them “as a result of the delay to our expansion proposals, the development and progress of our Property Policies has been suspended at this time.”
The policy suspension took effect on 27th February 2020, but residents were not informed of this until June 2020 – we have to ask why there was a 4-month delay in informing residents of this decision?
Our particular concern is the suspension of the Interim Property Hardship Policy – a policy which was opened on 1st February 2017 to qualifying residents who had experienced difficulty selling their property due to the expansion proposals.
Heathrow says the reason for this change is because their priority is countering the impacts of COVID-19 and “there is currently no enabling policy in place for the expansion of the airport”. There was no “enabling policy” in place on 1st February 2017 since the Airports National Policy Statement was not adopted until 26th June 2018, so this should not be a reason to suspend the Interim Property Hardship Policy now.
The amended version of the Interim Property Hardship Scheme, dated 26th June 2018, clearly states “The Interim Property Hardship Scheme and any associated agreements which have not yet been satisfied will cease in the event of the DCO application being refused, or a decision to not proceed with the Project” – nowhere in the document does it say that the scheme could be suspended for other reasons.
Stop Heathrow Expansion believes there is no good reason to suspend this particular scheme. Proposals for expansion are paused, the DCO application has been delayed but there has been no “decision to not proceed with the Project.” Heathrow is challenging the Court of Appeal decision of 27th February 2020 and this will be heard by the Supreme Court in October – please see overleaf for more information on the legal process.
The property market is still blighted by Heathrow’s proposals. Unless Heathrow withdraws the expansion proposals completely, all existing/current/recent property schemes should remain in place.
Heathrow has a simple choice, scrap Heathrow Expansion or re-instate the Property Policies. We’re campaigning so Heathrow can’t have its cake and eat it!
Kind regards and stay safe,
Stop Heathrow Expansion