Stakes are raised in Terminal 5 row

Heathrow's Terminal 5 is surreal, not to say farcical. It was the subject of the longest and most expensive planning inquiry in history, at four years and £80 million.

Since December 2000 the inspector's report has been sitting on the desk of the Environment Secretary, who makes the final decision on whether it should go ahead. Even if it gets the go-ahead, it will take another five or six years to build. Yet it is only the start of the real battle about air traffic in London.

It was assumed that a result would be announced immediately after the general election, when it would cause least political damage, and business leaders have been pleading for a result. "We certainly cannot afford to wait until the next general election," said Sir Christopher Benson of the London Chamber of Commerce, in vain, 18 months ago.

Yet the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is unable to say when the smoke will go up. The fact that the department was rearranged after the election, and that the Secretary of State changed from John Prescott to Margaret Beckett, will not have helped.

The Government, what's more, is at liberty to ignore the report's expensive, hard-won findings and decide what it likes, and from the very start of the saga, both supporters and opponents have had little doubt the terminal would eventually be approved.

Whatever the verdict on the terminal, it will not solve the fundamental problem of air travel around London. People want to go on holiday by air, and fly for business, in ever increasing numbers - to the extent that flights in the South-East are expected to triple in the next 30 years. Which can only mean more noise and possibly danger to the hundreds of thousands of Londoners who live under the approaches to Heathrow.

Terminal 5 is only the start of a mighty conflict. "What happens after Terminal 5? That is the hard one," said Irving Yass, London First's director of transport policy.

It is the classic conflict of economics versus the environment, and the biggest in Britain. According to the London Chamber of Commerce, four-fifths of London businesses want not only Terminal 5, but also a third runway.

This is even more than the British Airports Authority, which owns Heathrow, will admit to wanting. BAA's argument is that Terminal 5 can increase air traffic without raising noise levels, thanks to new, quieter, and more capacious planes, but an extra runway would make these arguments harder to sustain. BAA swears it has no plans for further runways: any changes to these plans are, they say "a matter for gover nment". Because of the indecision about expanding Heathrow, "it may already be too late to avoid significant short-term capacity crises", which "would seriously undermine London's position as the premier global business centre".

Irving Yass says that Heathrow, now the world's largest international airport and London's largest single source of employment, could go the way of London's docks: "The Port of London was the greatest in the world, and we lost it in 20 years. We can't assume we can stand still."

BAA said: "We are responding to demand. People want to fly. People who read your paper think nothing of taking two, three or more foreign holidays a year."

Business likes big airports as they bring a choice of numerous flights to major destinations. It means, said Mr Yass, "a visiting Japanese client doesn't have to worry how long a meeting is going on, as if he misses his flight he knows there will be another one soon". To which Hacan, the main campaign group opposing Terminal 5, cites a KPMG report saying that businesses care more about their employees' quality of life.

Quality of life is what Heathrow's expansion clearly threatens. As far east as Greenwich and Mile End people are already woken by Heathrow flights at 6am when the night, during which flights are limited, officially ends. Nearer to the airport, residents of areas like Kew and Richmond have to endure the roar of planes every 90 seconds during the day. The only relief is that planes switch between Heathrow's two runways, which changes the direction of their approach, and sometimes - depending on wind direction - approach the airport from the east.

According to a University of London study, high levels of noise affect children's education to the extent that the reading ability of 12 to 14-year-olds can be 23 per cent impaired. Schools in Hounslow cost 15 per cent more to build than elsewhere because of the expense of sound-proofing.

Hacan says incidences of cardiovascular problems, asthma and cancer rise near airports.

In other words, solving London's brewing airport crisis is the sort of problem governments hate most. Whatever they decide will be hugely unpopular with large sections of the population. Which, to the cynical mind, would explain why successive governments have failed to give a clear lead on airport construction,though it has been known for 30 years and more that hard choices would have to be made. It would also explain why they like protracted inquiries to make decisions for them, and let reports sit so long on ministerial desks.

One of the factors that made the T5 inquiry so lengthy, according to Mr Yass, was the then government's failure to state whether the terminal would be in the national interest. The present government, at least, says it will address the matter with a White Paper on Britain's air traffic due out next year.

Ministers promise it will be wide-ranging and look at radical and dramatic solutions which could mean completely new, and expensive, airports on new sites. They may also look an argument raised by objectors which is that, as aviation fuel is untaxed, air travel is effectively incentivised by government. If it were taxed like other forms of transport, it is argued, it may not be so popular.

The intentions are there. It remains to be seen whether this government is capable of doing better than its predecessors and making whatever tough decisions are needed.