Heathrow guilty of exaggerating support for third runway
Heathrow Airport has exaggerated the level of support it has from local communities for its plans for of a third runway, according to advertising watchdogs.
A Heathrow billboard poster stated: "Those around us are behind us", yet the Advertising Standards Authority said an independent Populus poll commissioned by the airport showed only 50% of local residents were in favour of the expansion.
In upholding complaints against the airport’s advertising campaign, which was repeated on social media, the ASA said the poll revealed 50% of local people were against the airport’s expansion or neither supported or opposed it.
In its defence, Heathrow claimed its poll had focused on those areas that were most impacted by the airport, in terms of noise, and those that were most vocal about the airport’s operations, or had MPs who strongly opposed expansion.
It had actively tried to include local constituencies with the highest profile opposition to Heathrow, it said, at the expense of those with lower noise complaints or MPs who endorsed expansion.
For example, it had chosen to include Ealing Central and Acton because the local MP at the time was an active opponent of expansion and it received relatively a high number of noise complaints from individuals in the constituency. It had also included Uxbridge and South Ruislip after discovering that Boris Johnson had been selected to stand, as he was their highest profile and most vocal opponent.
Working with Populus, it had also checked to ensure that the 10 constituencies reflected the diverse political, socio-economic, ethnic and geographical nature of the region around Heathrow, it said.
However, the ASA said most people would assume the claim "Those around us are behind us" referred to people living closest to the airport, whereas three of the closest constituencies to Heathrow were missed out of the poll.
It said: "Because we had concerns that most readers would interpret the ad to mean that individuals living in the ten constituencies closest to Heathrow Airport, in terms of proximity, were in favour of expansion, and Heathrow had not provided evidence to confirm that that was the case, we considered that the claim had not been substantiated.
"For those reasons, we concluded that the claim exaggerated the level of support for expansion, had not been substantiated and was misleading."
Heathrow has been ordered not to repeat the ad and to ensure it has adequate evidence to substantiate objective marketing claims in future.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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