I think the BRS planning application is sensible.
What happens these days is you apply to the local planning authority, there is a quick and dirty local protest and permission is denied. You then take your regionally important application to Prescott and his office grants it and the local authority have to sit and whistle.
This system operates on the implict understanding that you only ask for what you actually need and don't take the p155.
Hence BRS applying for a moderate and phased extension. It doesn't want to be the next Manchester and is focussed on being a regional airport. Busy, profitable but a regional.
I think they are clever.
Cheers
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