Thousands sign up to buy slice of third runway site

Greenpeace said 1,000 people an hour were adding their names to a list to buy the title deeds of a parcel of land in the village of Sipson. The village is scheduled to disappear under the new landing strip and sixth terminal.

The environmental group said it expected 10,000 people to sign up tonight to the scheme. It was started by Emma Thompson, Alistair McGowan and Conservative Party green adviser Zac Goldsmith who bought the land for an undisclosed fee.

Local Labour MP John McDonnell, Conservative front bench spokeswoman Justine Greening, Liberal Democrat MP Susan Kramer and climate scientist Dr Simon Lewis have also signed up. Contracts on the site, which is half the size of a football pitch, were exchanged last week. The campaigners insist they will never sell it to the airport operator and would fight any attempts at compulsory purchase through the courts.

They believe it could take years for Heathrow's owner BAA to gain control as the opposition groups pursue every legal appeal they can, running up massive legal bills for the airport operator.

Greenpeace has already got its lawyers working on blocking the runway and, as a last resort, has threatened to enlist activists to prevent bulldozers from gaining access to the site.

The revelation that the group has bought the land from under BAA and the Government's noses will be embarrassing for the Spanish-owned company and Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon who is expected to give expansion the go-ahead this week.

Greenpeace director John Sauven said: "We've thrown a massive spanner in the engine driving Heathrow expansion. As the new owners of the land where the Government wants to build the runway, we'll resist all attempts at compulsory purchase. If it comes to it, Greenpeace will be joined by huge numbers of people to block BAA's bulldozers from getting onto our land. This site will become a focus for climate campaigners across Britain and the wider world because this new runway cannot and will not be built."

New owners will be included in a legal deed of trust and represented in any court battle for the land by the new owners. Planning experts said dividing up the land into thousands of plots which would be sold to people around the world - for example Inuits near the Polar ice cap - could slow down the compulsory purchase order process. They claimed that any Government agency wanting to carry out a CPO has to physically serve it to the landowner.

Opponents to the runway claim that at full capacity, an expanded Heathrow would become the biggest single source of CO2 emissions in Britain. They argue that environmental concerns should outweigh the argument by business that expansion is crucial to the British economy.

Thompson said: "I don't understand how any government remotely serious about committing to reversing climate change can even consider these ridiculous plans. It's laughably hypocritical, that's why we've bought a plot on the runway."

McGowan accused the Government of "sticking two fingers up" at the environment despite pledges to cut emissions.

He said: "BAA was so confident of getting the Government's go-ahead, but we have cunningly bought the land they need to build their runway. Now that we own it, we'll never sell it to them."

Hayes and Harlington MP Mr McDonnell added: "We've bought the runway from under the Government's nose. We'll defend this land in the courts."