“Don’t believe the hype. Most people living in communities near Heathrow Airport support its expansion.” You probably have seen this ad ran by a pro third Runway at Heathrow group. Well, the ad has been banned following complaints that the claim that they had majority local support was quite misleading.
The Advertising Standards Authority is reported to have received five complaints which lead to the ban as Back Heathrow maintains that the survey of residents had come from constituencies the ASA deems ‘local to Heathrow.’ According to the group 50% of 12 constituencies polled supported the expansion while 33% didn’t. A footnote to the ad stated that 60% of Heathrow locals were in support of the expansion.
ASA argues that the Back Heathrow campaign had excluded 15% of those surveyed but failed to express their opinion, making the 60% untrue. By doing so, the number provided in the campaign was merely the group’s own analysis.
The ASA ruled that, “Given that a significant number of respondents, who had expressed an opinion albeit a neutral one, had been excluded from the sample, we considered that this was not a suitable methodology by which to draw such a conclusion,”
“We considered that the evidence held back by Back Heathrow demonstrated that only 50% of all those polled were in support of expansion.”
According to the authority, the campaign claim that “most” people living near Heathrow were in support of the expansion was therefore unjustified.
“We told Back Heathrow not to repeat the claims … unless it held robust substantiation for them.” ASA added.
In their defense, Back Heathrow later tweeted: “One of our adverts has been banned by the ASA. Apparently we believed 53% was a majority! Read the ruling against us...”
The competition for a new runway between Heathrow in Gatwick is getting fiercer by the day. It remains to be seen how Back Heathrow will recover from this setback. It’s only until summer that the government will announce a decision. Until then, the battle rages on!
