Flanker thank you for your comments, I really do not want this to become a debate about how much fuel you need to take etc, BOAC has made a valid point about extended radar vectoring when it would be better certainly from my point of view to stay and decend in the hold then make an approach.
I used the example in my first post to try and help reinforce that point.I think that there is more than likley ,from an ATC point of view a reason why they do this, but at the moment I can,t see the bigger picture.