STANSTED: Airport group flies in help from France

2:43pm Thursday 18th December 2003

As the Government announces proposals for Stansted Airport, Pete Henshaw meets a leading figure in the anti-expansion fight, who is fighting the cause from home in France AMID the battle to thwart the proposals to expand Stansted Airport the commitment and passion of a mother-of-three from north west France has proved perhaps the biggest thorn in the Government's side.

It is fair to say that when the Government's eye fell on the airport as a site for up to three more runways it did not count on Carol Barbone.

The 43-year-old commutes fortnightly to Essex from her home in the Mayenne region of France to work as campaign director with the Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) group and with unflappable dedication she is leading the charge against expansion.

But this is much more than a job. It is a passion. An obsession.

The public relations expert could command an impressive salary working for any number of London firms but has chosen the campaign, a reduced wage and a five-and-a-half-hour journey to work, albeit fortnightly, instead.

All through her life Mrs Barbone has had a passion for the environment and if development of extra runways at Stansted can be stopped with her help she says it will be her "proudest achievement".

Mrs Barbone lives and breathes Stansted Airport. She is constantly "on the runway", as her husband Steve puts it.

She works nine-hour days at her home in the tranquil French countryside and even longer days when she is in Essex staying at her friend's 400-year-old listed cottage, which would disappear under any additional runway.

Sitting in the corner of a small country pub in the shadow of Stansted Airport having just rushed back from a meeting in London, Mrs Barbone manages a quick bite and talks about her life with the campaign before having to rush off to her next meeting.

She comes over regularly either by ferry from Caen to Portsmouth, through the tunnel, taking Eurostar or occasionally flying from Tours, outside Paris. "It's important to say that SSE is not against flying or airports but rather two runways at Stansted," she said.

Mrs Barbone is one of three paid members of the campaign team but this is a reduced rate and with none of the perks or travel expenses, which she pays herself.

She said: "It's so important to us all. It's a measure of how strong we feel about it. This is really a personal mission as much as a professional one and if we can succeed in this it will be the thing I'm most proud of in my career. It's about people and if this campaign can halt the threat of a second runway it will make such a tremendous difference to so many thousands of people that it has to count for something."

Mrs Barbone was recommended to group chairman Norman Mead and was originally employed for three days working on a study to prove how 70 towns and villages in Essex would be affected by noise from an expanding airport.

She said: "At the end of three days they asked me to do an extra week, then another month and then another and in February I was appointed campaign director."

The move was a simple one for Mrs Barbone, whose career seems to have revolved around environmental issues.

She is founding director of MXC Communications and as such was involved in Railtrack's first corporate social responsibility review in 1998 and has now been with the campaign for more than a year.

She has previously worked as an independent PR officer for numerous companies dealing with environmental issues and has worked with the Corporation of London on green campaigns and before that was the head of UK PR for the European Year of the Environment.

Even growing up with planes played a part in her life. She vividly remembers living in Ealing, London, and being frightened when the planes used to fly overhead during storms.

She said: "I'm interested in environmental issues and the whole corporate social responsibility field. It's important companies act with integrity and balance the need of the stockholder and commercial objectives with environmental issues.

"This is the most important thing I've ever worked on, on both a personal and professional level. The impact of a second runway at Stansted would be so devastating for the people of this community."

Indeed nothing can hide her bursting desire to stop the developers but it is a passion she says is beyond her control. She said: "When you spend so much time with people who will feel the significant change that would come about in the region, the massive urbanisation that would occur and the total transformation from a rural to an urban character, you cannot help but be committed.

"Whatever the economic gain that those in favour of expansion refer to, the environmental and social pain is simply too high a price to pay."

Mrs Barbone's commitment does take its toll on family life at home in France, where she has lived with husband Steve since 1997.

She said: "Because he worked in the City he understands that when we're working on something big that's a 24-hour-a-day job and I wouldn't be happy unless I was 110 per cent committed, that's how I have to be. I cannot do things by half, it's all or nothing."

She calls her husband the "linchpin" of family life but does her best to keep involved, taking the children Prisca, three, Eliot, ten, and Harry, eight to school before starting work, for example.

She said: "The office is at home but they know when Mummy is in there she's working and they're on a three-line whip not to disturb her, although my three-year-old has a great knack of sneaking in occasionally."

The countryside around her home provides the perfect setting for Mrs Barbone's work although the tranquillity is occasionally disturbed by fighter planes shooting by, an irony not lost on her. "I only have to suffer one or two a day, not like the people around Stansted," she said.

She added: "The view is stunning, the house is built near the top of a hill overlooking rolling valleys. It was the reason we moved there so I understand the power that landscape can have in motivating people to fight for their heritage."

Mrs Barbone sees the publication of the Government White Paper as not perhaps the start of the fight, but the beginning of a second phase of attack.

Mrs Barbone and her team think Stansted is a "dead duck".

Mr Norman Mead, chairman of the SSE, said: "It's developers not governments that build runways. Ultimately BAA could only proceed at Stansted if there were no legal or regulatory barriers, if there was clear market demand and if the project was sustainable, commercially viable and could be financed. It's increasingly obvious that Stansted cannot meet these criteria."

Does Mrs Barbone hate BAA and the runway-hungry airlines? "BAA is a public limited company that sees its first duty as protection of its profits and its future development," she said. "There's nothing unusual in that but what I find particularly galling is the total disregard that BAA has for the local community and the environment."

Mrs Barbone maintains the Government has changed its stance since the start of campaigning.

She added: "It's very clear the Government agenda has shifted. They were talking about massive expansion of three extra runways and are now scrabbling around for one extra runway. We don't believe the White Paper is going to be as prescriptive as to say one runway at Stansted. We think it will be more of a fudge. They will probably rule out certain options but leave the way open for developers to come forward with proposals for certain other things."

Another fight for Mrs Barbone will see her mounting opposition to moves to increase the usage of the current runway, which now stands at 18 million passengers a year.

BAA has permission for up to 25 million passengers and will probably want to push up to the 35 million capacity.

"They're going to find opposition to that is considerable. I will be here as long as it's needed," said Mrs Barbone.

Whatever happens the Government knows it has a fight on its hands.

She said: "I sincerely believe this is a battle we have to fight and I will do everything in my power to achieve my objectives of defeating the threat of a second runway."