A purely personal view is that this whole process has bought about a lot of anguish, not only for the population at large, but airport operator's too.
This country is not exactly renowned for looking after its infrastructure - look at the railways - and whilst centrally there has to be a policy to ensure that the U.K. does not lose out to the likes of AMS, CDG and FRA, where's the funding coming from.
A new airport on a green field site is going to cost and then a lot of people living in the once rural areas are going to have a justified beef.
Increasing capacity at current airports may not be appropriate subject the availability of space and most busy ones are not only getting congested on their aprons but access for the travelling public is becoming a nightmare. Try timing a journey into LHR from the west for an 09:00 check-in.
In the meantime most airports need to grow, but if you have no clear guidance on what is 15 years hence, how do you get from what you have today to where it needs to be tomorrow
