I haven't said anything about a preference. LLAL will go through the motions of holding a public consultation but with the DART track nicely lined up with land to the north of the runway and a dual carriageway planning application already submitted it doesn't take much effort to see the favourite location. The fly in the ointment is the council tip that while buildings can be built using pilings aprons would be more of a challenge as the council have already claimed the land would be too unstable. Usable land within the existing boundary to the north of the runway is being increased by the day with soil dumping building up low level land.
If the airport did pick a location south of the runway the application would go to the government anyway just like an application to the north so Herts would have their nose pushed out either way.