Residents have reacted with fury to reports that BAA Ferrovial is to fast track a 3rd runway at Heathrow.

The reports suggest there will be public consultation on plans for a third runway, probably in the autumn.

It had originally been thought that this consultation would largely focus on proposals to end runway alternation, the practice where planes landing over West London switch runways at 3pm to give residents a half day's relief from the noise.

A third runway at Heathrow was put on the back burner following the publication of the Aviation White Paper in 2003 because of fears that, if it was built, pollution levels in the Heathrow areas would exceed the EU legal limits. BAA Ferrovial decided, instead, to proceed with a second runway at Stansted.

But Stephen Nelson, chief executive of BAA Ferrovial, has now indicated that the company is looking to "twin-track" plans for runways at Heathrow and Stansted.

In the next few months the Department for Transport is expected to publish its Project Heathrow Report, a study which reassesses future airport pollution levels around the airport if a third runway were to be built.

Consultation would follow publication of that study.

A third runway would increase flight numbers at Heathrow to 720,000 a year from last year's 473,000.

It would require at least 700 homes to be demolished and would result in more than 150,000 people in London and the Home Counties experiencing disturbing levels of aircraft noise for the first time.

If BAA decides to proceed with its proposals to built a third runway, there will be the mother of all environmental battles.

I have no doubt residents will take to the streets.

Last month residents disrupted a speech to an international aviation conference by Transport Minister Douglas Alexander.

Unless BAA drops its plans to built a third runway and get rid of runway alternation, many more residents will take direct action.

Opposition to further expansion at Heathrow is wide-ranging.

It includes 2M, the local authority group representing two million people under the flight path, the Mayor of London, nearly all MPs in the area as well as direct action organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

John Stewart Chairman HACAN ClearSkies