Actors, politicians and the country’s leading poet; today all joined forces in opposition against the proposed third runway at Heathrow – they planted an orchard which a symbolic step in claiming the site on behalf of the environmentalists who are against the airports expansion. 

Actors Alison Steadman and Richard Briers, Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg and Poet Laureate Carol-Ann Duffy joined residents and activists.  

Greenpeace bought the site last year and 60,000 people own a stake in it.  

They planted Cox’s apples in memory of Richard Cox, who introduced them to the area and is buried on the site.  

Groups including Greenpeace, the Woodland Trust, the RSPB and World Development Movement were represented on the site, which is the size of a football field.  

Alison Steadman said: “We’re re-introducing Cox apple trees to this village and building a bridge between the past and the future, because this community will have a future. 

“The British Airports Authority and the government now know that if they try to build this new runway they will have to dig up trees owned by and on behalf of millions of people from every area of British society.  

“Some of those people will be there to stand in front of the bulldozers if they ever roll into the new orchard. The third runway cannot and will not be built.”  

The government gave the go-ahead for a third runway at Heathrow in January, saying it is “right” for the UK, but opponents have vowed to fight it.  

Opponents of the scheme say transport infrastructure around Heathrow already struggles and the extra demands would create gridlock.  

They say that to make way for the runway, Sipson – a village of 700 houses – would be demolished and hundreds of acres of greenbelt land would be swallowed up.  

Nick Clegg said: “The Government is absolutely wrong to stubbornly push ahead with a third runway at Heathrow. How can Gordon Brown go to Copenhagen and credibly call for big reductions in carbon when he has such a dire environmental track record at home? 

  “A third runway at Heathrow would be a disaster for the local area as well as a disaster for the whole country.” 

  The orchard plot is located behind the William IV pub in Sipson, on the junction of Harmondsworth Lane and Sipson Road.