Heathrow looms large over west London at election time, not least because we are under the flight path. The endless debate over the future of airport capacity is a debate well-rehearsed up and down the M4 and A40 and within every borough, constituency, ward and street.

With the local elections now only a month away, once more talk of Heathrow has entered the skies of Hillingdon.

Precisely a year ago, Hillingdon council ran a referendum asking voters whether they supported a third runway or not. The binary question resulted in a clear choice. 66 per cent of residents were against expansion.

This week however, a new opinion poll tells a very different story. 51 per cent of Hillingdon residents backed expansion at Heathrow while only 32 per cent opposed. While detractors will debate the methodology until we are asphyxiated, the demonstrable shift in opinion will be unnerving many a political strategist out west.

For the Tories in Hillingdon, it could be dire news indeed. While other councils in west London are both mindful of the benefits Heathrow brings, as well as attempting to broker a better deal for their residents over noise and air pollution in addition to compensation, Puddifoot’s Tories, ably backed up by the Mayor, are intent on shutting the airport down.

In December, Ealing, Hounslow and Slough councils together warned that the closure of Heathrow could cost as many as 250,000 jobs either generated directly by Heathrow, or because of its place in the west London economy. Despite this, and without any coherent plan for the future of west London beyond Heathrow, the Mayor has continued to waste over £3m of taxpayers money advocating for a new estuary airport. The Davies Commission says his plan would necessitate the closure of Heathrow. No ifs, no buts. Closure, pure and simple.

Back then I warned in Progress that the looming threat of Heathrow’s closure was a new and untested influence. Increasingly it now looks like backing closure of Heathrow is not only is it a kamikaze position for the future of the economy in west London, but it could in electoral terms become an increasingly kamikaze position to take too.

With voters increasingly understanding that the debate over Heathrow is not as simple as a binary choice between a two or a three runway airport, the poll shows many are coming to the conclusion that a better Heathrow is one that survives well into the 21^st century.

The same poll found that in Hillingdon alone, 25 per cent of voters were more likely to vote for candidates who supported expansion at Heathrow, while 20 per cent of voters were less likely to vote for candidates who advocated its closure.

In the cut and thrust of local elections, it is perhaps understandable that Hillingdon’s ruling Tories have made the calculation that they can get away with governing without any support from below the A40, the neighbourhoods that largely rely on Heathrow for employment. But voters will not understand nor forgive are political parties that gamble with their livelihoods and use all the resources of City Hall and Hillingdon Civic Centre to do so.

Back Heathrow, a campaign established to push forward the case for expansion at Heathrow recently produced a heat map of the airport and its neighbours, showing where its supporters had signed up from. From Colnbrook to Harlington, Harmondsworth to West Drayton, Yiewsley to Hayes, you can find more support for a bigger Heathrow than you might think from some unexpected places.

The real challenge that councils in west London will face beyond May 22^nd is how they can leverage for a Heathrow airport that pollutes less, is quieter, and is willing to be generous in the compensation it offers residents. Many of those challenges need regional and central government to step in. Kicking the can down the road on the HS2 spur or the Piccadilly line upgrade until Davies reports does nothing but elongate residents’ exposure to the emissions generated by the many thousands of unnecessary journeys taken to the airport by road, the single biggest source of air pollution.

Labour councils in west London are ready to deliver on that challenge, while the Mayor and Tory boroughs are playing with the long-term future of west London’s economic survival.

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Photo: Wendell