It is to be wondered what would have happen if plans to start Heathrow Airport in 1944 had failed, and it had to start after the war and to wallow through years of planning applications, and public enquiry, and difficulty getting hold of the land needed, and demands to preserve listed buildings (9 of them in Heathrow village, and likely some on the old complete Hatton Road) (see
Heathrow (hamlet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ), and pressure from the farming and market gardening lobby not to build on Grade A farmland, and suchlike.
A diffculty with having an airport too handily close to the city is the airport being reached and hemmed in by suburbs so it can't enlarge. This happened to Croydon Airport
Croydon Airport - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(which started as two adjacent airfields, which joined into one).
I read that near London before WWII, before the airline compaines had thought of Heathrow, there were plans to enlarge RAF Heston into London's main new airport, and a newspaper published this and said that the airport builders should "hurry up and get on with the job, or the land that you need will be built over by suburb first".
Heston Aerodrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia