At the end of May, it was announced that 71 per cent of the residents of Hillingdon and Richmond had responded ‘no’ to the question of whether they wished to see a third runway built at Heathrow. The question is, of course, three years out of date.

The government’s indecision over aviation policy has kicked airport capacity questions into the long grass, with the Davies Commission not due to determine whether we need a hub airport for the south east until the start of next year. In the vacuum left by Cameron, his chief foes like the mayor of London, are happy to proffer up hare-brained plans like ‘Boris Island’, offering a utopian vision for the future of air travel. A London in which the primary users of the nation’s hub airport have sold-up and relocated to the East, as have the considerable number of multinational companies based along the M4 corridor.

These plans on closer inspection highlight the fact that the debate over airport capacity has fundamentally changed from arguments over a two- or three-runway Heathrow, to one in which we have a four-runway airport at Heathrow, or no airport in west London at all.

If you split the results of the two boroughs, only 66 per cent of Hillingdon said ‘no’ to the outdated referendum question, whilst Richmond was higher at 80 per cent. These are still high numbers, but even on the wrong question, they highlight the understandable fact that the more a part of London bears the burden of hosting Heathrow, without enjoying the benefits the airport brings, the more likely its residents are to oppose extension.

Whether Heathrow stays or goes, there can be no argument against radical and fundamental changes needed to alleviate the pollution, noise and stress the airport generates now. From Putney to Windsor, two million people are affected by Heathrow. Better insulation, steeper approaches for landing aircraft, better public transport to tackle surface pollution, continued moratorium on night flights and absolutely no mixed mode operation are among a range of solutions possible. With these measures, we can begin to alleviate the adverse impact of the airport and at the same time aircrafts themselves are becoming more fuel efficient and quieter.

If you look a little deeper below the surface, the mood in west London is changing. On the same day as Richmond and Hillingdon announced their referendum results, Hounslow council also announced 72 per cent of residents understandably opposed expansion. Despite being that part of London most directly under the flight path, where planes fly so low over houses you feel as if you could reach out and touch them, 64 per cent of Hounslow residents also confirmed that they would oppose any plan that sought to close or downgrade Heathrow.

The study commissioned by the airport’s operator study suggests Heathrow at present supports just over 200,000 jobs in the UK, either through direct employment at the Heathrow site or elsewhere within the supply and service chain, delivering £9.6bn of gross value added into the nation’s economy. These figures are of course hotly contested, with no one in the debate considered impartial or objective enough to offer a believable picture of the economic impact of closure.

The Conservative leader of Hillingdon council thinks that over time, west London’s economy will adapt to the loss of Heathrow. Without any sort of vision or plan for the future economy, you will be forgiven for agreeing with John Dickie of London First that closing down Heathrow would make ‘closing down the pits look easy’ by comparison.

Whilst we at the London assembly do not believe that the case has yet been made for a single international hub, after the new year the Davies Commission will announce whether or not the UK does indeed need a large hub airport. At that point, if the decision is that we do, he will unleash ferocious local campaigns for and mostly against the tens of site-specific proposals that will undoubtedly be put forward.

A decision over the future of air travel may have been put off until after the next election  but Heathrow’s future will play as important a role in the elections in west London and beyond as the coalition’s destruction of the NHS. In addition to balancing our climate change objectives alongside the future demand for air travel, we must remember the future for jobs and economic stability in west London.

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Onkar Sahota is the Labour assembly member for Ealing and Hillingdon. A practising GP, he represents the constituency covering Heathrow airport. He tweets @DrOnkarSahota

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Photo: Christian Bickel