'No Heathrow in Essex'

A major row is looming between the Government and people living near Stansted Airport over a possible huge expansion that could turn it into the "Heathrow of Essex".

Ministers have earmarked the airport for a possible extra runway to help cope with a massive increase in UK air passengers over coming years. It would potentially double Stansted's capacity to around 80 million passengers a year.

But the plan faces furious opposition from tens of thousands of residents, who say planning inspectors recommended 20 years ago that any such expansion would have an "intolerable" effect on nearby towns and the countryside. They are promising a campaign of protest that could prove as bitter as the row over Heathrow Terminal 5.

"This would be utter desecration in terms of noise and pollution," said Norman Mead, 75, who has led opposition to the airport's expansion in recent years. "It flies in the face of planning inspectors' guarantees and reduces planning system credibility to tatters."

The Government predicts a neartrebling of passenger journeys over the next three decades, from 180 million a year now to 500 million by 2030. Up to 300 million will be in the South-East. Earlier this year Transport Minister John Spellar warned: "If we allow capacity to be limited to existing infrastructure ... fares would rise by perhaps more than £100 per return trip."

The Government stresses no decisions have been made. The options are thought to be either three more runways around the region's existing airports, or a new airport at Cliffe, Kent.

Gatwick is bound by a legal agreement with councils not to build an extra runway until 2019. Heathrow has only limited extra space, so Stansted appears a likely candidate at present.

With the boom in cheap air travel over the past decade, Stansted has already expanded vastly beyond local expectations, from 1.5 million passengers a year in 1991 to 14 million now. Its present capacity is 40 million a year. Later this month it will ask Uttlesford district council for permission to expand passenger facilities to take up to 25 million more over 10 years.

Residents are virtually resigned to that, but say an extra runway will be fiercely opposed. Mr Mead of Great Hallingbury, in the airport's flightpath, said: "Lying down in front of bulldozers and that sort of thing is foreign to us, but we shall see."

A public inquiry in the Eighties into a second runway at Stansted rejected the idea. Planning inspector Graham Eyre QC said: "A major two-runway airport with ultimate capacity of up to 50 million passengers per annum should never be developed at Stansted.

"What may be a comfortable solution for government would represent an intolerable and unacceptable burden on any area where such a vast and open-ended project was proposed."

Uttlesford council is opposed. Deputy chief executive Brian Perkins said: "This is an area that could be blighted by noise and pollution. It would have a major impact on traffic, housing and development, and impair the amenity and attraction of what is still a very rural part of the country."

A government consultation document on future airport development is expected in coming weeks. Transport Secretary Alistair Darling will come under strong pressure from the flight industry, which warns Britain's status as an international hub could be jeopardised if extra capacity is not found.