Thousands rush to buy land in path of Heathrow expansion

Lawyers for Greenpeace - one of four co-owners of the land near Sipson village - say the group's website has been swamped with requests to buy in to the scheme
John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 January 2009 17.31 GMT

In one of the southern England's greatest modern property rushes, more than 5,000 people signed up today to become joint owners of an acre of farmland on the line of the proposed third runway at Heathrow airport. They join Oscar winner Emma Thompson, comedian Alistair McGowan and Conservative party green adviser Zac Goldsmith who bought the land from under the nose of Heathrow airport owners BAA last week to try to slow airport expansion plans.
Lawyers for Greenpeace, one of the four owners of the land on the edge of the village of Sipson which will be demolished if permission for the runway is given, said that it had been inundated with requests to become legally recognised "beneficial owners".
"We have been receiving nearly 1,000 requests an hour and expect to have 10,000 applications by tomorrow. Our lawyers are examining ways in which these people can act as a legal obstacle to plans for a third runway. Their names will appear on the title deeds of the plot, and the individuals will be formally represented at future planning enquiries and challenges to compulsory purchase orders", said a Greenpeace spokesman.
It emerged that the environment group paid the landowner £20,000 for the plot, considerably less than the land would be worth in a normal market, but that no money would be asked from the public. "We do not need to charge people. We are not physically dividing up the land , so people will not physically own a blade of grass", said the spokesman. Co-ownership confers specific property rights to a person even though legal title of the property may belongs to another person.
The aviation industry condemned what it called a "stunt". Former Labour MP Brian Wilson, chair of lobby group FlyingMatters, said: "If anti-aviation groups are really serious about climate change, they would be engaging in constructive dialogue with the industry about how we can protect the economic and social benefits it brings whilst dealing with its environmental impact. Instead they seem more interested in PR stunts with eco-celebrities."
Airport owner BAA, a unit of Spain's Grupo Ferrovial SA, said in a statement: "Until the government makes a policy decision, questions around legal standing on potential property purchases are purely hypothetical. BAA has put schemes in place to deal with the difficult issues facing local residents and if growth proceeds, we are committed to working with the community in a sensitive manner."