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.

How much worse will it be with 50 per cent more air passengers? I do not oppose expansion of Heathrow and feel those who continually gripe about it's existence should move away. 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