Campaigners launch 'flyagra' website and spoof e-mail
11.01.08
A campaign with a great spoof website has been launched by campaigners fighting the planned expansion of Birmingham Airport. Environmental activists Friends of the Earth and local residents group Birmingham Airport anti-Noise Group (BANG) have teamed up to create a tongue-in-cheek website - www.flyagra.co.uk - satirising the proposal to extend the airport's runway.
In addition to the website, a spoof spam e-mail campaign has been launched, advertising 'Flyagra, the revolutionary treatment that really keeps you up!' This will direct web users to the site, which compares the runway extension plans to a dodgy 'male organ' enlargement treatment!
Despite the humour of the campaign, the website has a serious message, a spokesman said - that airport expansion is bad news for local residents and the environment, and time is running out in which to stop the development going ahead.
In November the airport published its new 'master plan' setting out its expansion proposals, including a £120 million 400-metre extension to the south-east end of the main runway and a third passenger terminal. The airport submitted planning permission to Solihull Council this week.
The spokesman said that, if the airport gets permission, the longer runway could be operating by 2012. Additional work to develop the airfield will allow Birmingham Airport to handle 27.2 million passengers a year, three times as many as in 2006, by 2030.
The campaigners also point to evidence that extending the runway and increasing the runway capacity will result in a doubling of the number of local people exposed to significant aircraft noise pollution and a trebling in aircraft carbon dioxide emissions from flights out of Birmingham.
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