Molehill Green pic: http://www.stopstanstedexpansion.com/PRESS RELEASE
ISSUED BY STOP STANSTED EXPANSION 31 March 2009
MOUNTAIN SAVES MOLEHILL?
BAA’s debt mountain seems likely to prevent it from obtaining the compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) it would need to allow a new runway to be built at Stansted. As a consequence, Molehill Green, the picturesque Essex village threatened with extinction by the proposed new runway now seems far less likely to be buried under concrete.
This latest blow for BAA was identified in an Appendix to last week’s Competition Commission report which ordered the airport operator to sell Stansted Airport but gave it up to two years to do so, raising the possibility that BAA might press ahead with its second runway application in the hope of obtaining approval and achieving a higher selling price.
Legally, however, CPOs can only be granted if a developer can demonstrate that he has sufficient financial resources to implement the project within a reasonable timescale. It seems very unlikely that BAA could demonstrate this because its latest financial accounts show debts of £18.1 billion and negative equity of £1.7 billion as at 31 December 2008.
In the light of the new information, Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) has written to the Secretaries of State for Transport and Communities and to the Chief Executive of BAA calling for the proposed Public Inquiry to be abandoned.
SSE Campaign Director Carol Barbone commented: “Without CPO powers, plans for a second Stansted runway are dead in the water. The list of obstacles just gets longer and longer. It’s time for BAA to do a reality check.”
Ms Barbone added: “We recognise of course that a new owner could be in a stronger financial position but a change in ownership would give rise to all sorts of other issues. Either way, the current plans are going nowhere and both BAA and the Government must realise that by now.”
A copy of SSE’s letter of 26 March to the Secretaries of State is available online at: http://www.stopstanstedexpansion.com/second_runway_public_inquiry.html.
The Competition Commission’s final Market Inquiry report into BAA (including Appendix 10.6 on the interaction of Stansted divestiture and the second runway planning inquiry) is available online at: http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/rep_pub/reports/2009/545baa.htm.
cbarbone@mxc.co.uk
Pictures of listed buildings threatened:
Other threatened buildings:
Previous posts linked to this:
http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/01/its-mad-mad-mad-mad-world.html
Worrying news also from here:
http://hazel-abearoflittlebrain.blogspot.com/2009/03/newcastle-literary-and-philosophical.html
I have posted before about this magnificent institution:
http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/02/interlude-lit-and-phil-newcastle-upon.html
and the sad news about what has happened to the Stephenson Trust:
http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/02/derailed.html
Both the Lit and Phil and the Mining Institute are wonderful historic buildings and any threat to their continuing existence, no matter how glitzy the bauble offered in the short term, should be strongly resisted.
Yes we are in desperate need of funds but selling our souls to corporate external funding is not the way to do it...
Apologies for the pauses in blogging, but my mind and fingers have been busy on weighty matters connected with trying to save historic buildings, and no time for much else over the past few days. I think knackered is the technical term.
What I need is a few sessions of R and R and TLC at Nether Cottage:
http://nethercottage.net/
Holistic therapies in a historic building. Wonderful!
Special offer also:
Special offer for March & April:
Recommend a friend: if your friend books and pays for a treatment then you can claim a treatment for yourself to the equivalent value absolutely FREE!
Best of luck Jayne, lovely new website. Great pics!
http://www.colinrose.net/
Nem
HERITAGE FORUM:
http://www.joylandbooks.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=11
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