Last week, I had a private meeting with Sir Howard Davies, who is heading up the Aviation Commission to put the case to him against further expansion of Heathrow Airport.

Residents of South Fulham have suffered for many years now from aircraft noise and from night flights, and this Coalition Government took the welcome step to suspend construction of a third runway at Heathrow.

Sir Howard is now re-examining the case for new runways and new capacity at various London and South-east airports, and we await the results of his study later this year.

The construction of a third runway, which would have an approach path to the north of the current approaches would bring hundreds of thousands of new residents under the path of arriving aircraft, particularly over Sloane Square, Earl’s Court, Baron’s Court and central Hammersmith.

I put to Sir Howard a set of points, including whether a hub model was really the most appropriate set-up for London’s aviation needs, and tried to get across how unusual London is in having its major aircraft approach being over the centre of the city.

The Aviation Commission still has a lot of work to do over the summer, and we await their findings with great interest.