Heathow - Justine Greening defends Putney.

Ms Greening, once Britain's Transport Secretary and now dispenser of foreign aid funds as International Development Secretary has been at it again.

The lady, whose West London Putney constituency lies under one of  Heathrow's flight paths, has been sounding off  about Heathrow. According to the Times she says it is "in the wrong place for our infrastructure, air pollution and noise borne by local communities" (most of whose inhabitants have moved in long after the arrival of the noisiest ever 707s, DC8s and VC10s of the 1970s.).

These sorts of loose statements about Heathrow being in the wrong place easily take root and become accepted as fact.

The reality is the opposite. It is in precisely the right place for Britain's national infrastructure and for the economy of much of London and the swathe of towns as far west as Swindon and even Bristol. Many of them have grown or are where they are because of it .They benefit enormously from it being where it is and would suffer immensely if it were to be strangled.  Sadly Ms Greening's vision extends only as far as Putney and avoiding a P45 (termination form) after May's General Election. The airport sits right by the intersection of the M4 which leads to all points west and the M25 London orbital motorway which connects with all the other motorways out of London. Ironically the majority of the pollution comes from the two motorways rather than air traffic. Also close at hand is the soon to be electrified Great Western main railway line which offers direct services to points west and ,via connections at Reading, to most of the country. From 2021 the line will at last have a direct loop running through the airport terminals. Nowhere will be better served. Contrast that to Gatwick's location (too far south) and worse still that of the proposed island site in the Thames estuary. Ms Greening's infrastructure and location argument could not be more wrong. It is time she lifted her eyes beyond Putney.

Unfortunately Britain's General Election is going to see more politicisation of the issue. With that comes the possibility of politicians making rash statements from which they can not easily subsequently escape. That's what David Cameron needlessly did in the run up to the 2010 election . It has resulted in a 5 year delay under the cover of the Davies Commission which was told not to report before the 2015 election. What will happen next is anybody's guess. The arguments for Heathrow are obvious and compelling but the eventual decision could depend on who allies with whom after the election. The tradeoffs made by the leading parties with the minnows could see the undemocratic tail wagging the winning major dog. What's best for UK Plc could be a very distant consideration. The best decision of all would be to let both Heathrow and Gatwick expand and fight it out between them to the benefit of all users and the national economy. Will that be Sir Howard Davies verdict backed by whoever is the government of the day?  Don't bet on it.