The construction of Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport has at last been approved, but with an appalling omission.

Though included in the plans, the rail links to Waterloo and the south west and those to the west via Slough have not been approved nor been made a mandatory part of the approval.

Only the extensions to Terminal 5 of:

(A) the premium high speed rail link to Paddington with its extortionate fares (single fare more than three times the cost of an all-day Travelcard) serving a very limited market;

(B) the cramped, cold-in-winter, oven-in-summer Piccadilly Tube trains have been insisted on as part of the permission to build. This is madness!

The result? Gridlock, due to a vast increase in road traffic as air passengers shun these obstacle courses and use their cars as they do currently. Already the motorways around the Heathrow area slow to a crawl or worse daily.

We suffer increased traffic congestion locally as traffic attempts to find alternative routes to avoid the motorway delays and jams. How much worse will it be with 50 per cent more air passengers?

Every local MP should be shaking Mr Byers by the throat until these essential rail links are mandatory.

MPs from every constituency in the South and West of England and Wales should be banging on his door to demand direct rail links to Heathrow the busiest international airport in the world.

I do not oppose expansion of Heathrow and feel those who continually gripe about it's existence should move away Heathrow will certainly not.

What I do oppose is the insanity of not providing the essential new rail links that similar and smaller European airports have possessed for years, unhampered by road-blinkered governments and ministers.

Mike Sheppey

Francis Avenue

Feltham