That's what I don't get, yes we need a big new hub airport ideally just west of London in the long term, with room for further expansion but that won't be built until well into the next decades, or if they use the same workers as they do on the roads then the 2050's!!! To stay competitive until then Heathrow needs Runway 3, then it can be closed when a new hub is opened.
An article in today's Sunday Times showed the public preferring Boris Island and the usual Bowis rants etc, including a quote from an MP saying Heathrow will have 2 1/2 (really 3) runways, Amsterdam has 7 (Really 6 or 5 1/2 with MP logic) and Frankfurt has 3 (really 4)!! The Half a Runway argument is beyond pathetic, I would have thought the principals of moving the smaller aircraft to the short runway to allow more larger aircraft on the other 2 was simple enough for even an MP to understand but clearly not!! By that logic a significant proportion of airports in the UK don't have 'a whole runway'.