Heathrow expansion: Third runway lobbying gets serious

The old placards came out and the dusty banners were unfurled again.

If Sir Howard Davies was in any doubt about the strength of feeling against a third runway at Heathrow, he will have seen it yesterday.

Just an hour or so after the recommendations and MPs were on College Green condemning the environmental impact. The well orchestrated anti-campaign Stop Heathrow Expansion descended on Harmondsworth village to talk to the media.

While those issues are just as pertinent today as they were in 2009, the debate has changed slightly.

This is a new runway. It has shifted a few hundred metres to the west. There is talk of legal limits on noise and on pollution (similar proposals were in Labour's 2009 runway) and there is a proposal to ban night flights.

Some commentators think a night flight ban is the game changer.

Not everyone thinks it could happen operationally, but could that shift opinion? Could the airport expand within its existing environmental footprint?

And you may have got the impression from the media circus in Harmondsworth that the whole of the area surrounding Heathrow is against expansion - but that is not the case.

Some have been worn down and want to take the compensation money and move on. Others want expansion and think it will bring jobs.

In the villages where many work at the airport, the subject splits opinion and families. And another thing has changed; the business pro-lobby have got more organised.

In 2009 you could struggle some days to find anyone to talk on camera about the economic benefits of a Heathrow third runway. Not yesterday, as business groups also orchestrated their pro campaign.

And locally now there is Back Heathrow - condemned as "astroturfers" (fake grass roots) and part-funded by the airport - but a group that has nonetheless organised a local pro-business voice.

Of course, this is a political decision and one that politicians have wrestled with since 1968. And there is an argument that the political structures of a devolved mayor of London means you are always going to get a strong anti-lobby. Would a pro-expansion mayor of London ever be elected?

History says not - but yesterday David Lammy, one of Labour's mayoral candidates, welcomed expansion at Heathrow.

These are all small changes. Yes it was a bit like Groundhog Day yesterday but there have been subtle shifts since 2009.