‘Give us the third runway and we will give you the jobs.’

That is the line from Heathrow Airport today (Wednesday) in a statement preparing the way for a new strategy, The Promise Of Heathrow.

The airport operator says if it were granted permission to expand, an estimated 50,000 jobs would be created in the five boroughs that surround the airport in the short term - Hillingdon, Hounslow, Ealing, Slough and Spelthorne.

On top of that, 3,000 apprenticeships would be set up in the run up to construction. “Youth unemployment in surrounding boroughs could end if expansion goes ahead,” says the statement.

Local unemployment would be cut by 50 per cent, as more than 120,000 jobs could be eventually created, with £100billion in economic benefits by ‘connecting the UK to global growth’.

A further 3,000 apprenticeships would be created during construction, and then another 4,000 during operation, until 2030, the report says.

Designed to put maximum pressure on the decision-makers who will seal Heathrow’s fate after the general election next year, the report pulls no punches on the importance of the airport as a three-runway hub, and the alternatives.

“Youth unemployment currently accounts for a third of total unemployment in the five local boroughs,” it says.

“More than 76,000 people are already directly employed on site in Heathrow. In the surrounding area, Heathrow supports a total of 114,000 jobs and accounts for one in five (22 per cent) of local jobs.”

The report also claims:

Heathrow expansion will help the balance the UK economy by connecting all of the UK’s regions and nations to growth markets.

Expansion will enable a significant increase in UK exports to close the gap between the UK and European competitors.

And that expansion would keep CO2 emissions within UK climate change targets, meet local air quality limits and cut the number of people affected by noise by at least 200,000, says the report.

“An additional runway at Heathrow will mean more than an increased flight capacity; it will lead to more jobs, more opportunities for youth and a reinvigorated local economy.

“The promise of Heathrow, the prize we can secure should our expansion proceed, is British prosperity we can all benefit from,” said Heathrow chief executive, John Holland-Kaye.

Heathrow says it will release the full report tomorrow (Thursday, September 18.)

John Stewart, of aircraft noise group HACAN, said: “It is commonsense that the expansion of Heathrow would create jobs but there is no basis for the airport to claim that it has the potential to end youth unemployment in the area. 

“The simple fact is the prosperity of West London does not depend on a third runway.”

And people living around the airport in the villages of Harmondsworth, Longford and Sipson say lives there would be devastated if expansion were to go ahead.

It will result in the loss of around 750 homes, practically cutting Harmondsworth in half.

People in the villages say this will have a knock-on effect in Harlington and parts of West Drayton, with concerns there focused on traffic, noise and air pollution.

Staunch anti-third runway campaigner Neil Keveren, who has lived most of his life in Harmondsworth and Sipson, said: “There are people in their 80s who have lived in the village all their lives. Most of the people who live here have family ties stretching back many, many years.

“Heathrow are telling them their houses will be needed and they will be uprooted.

“And for the people that are left here, life will become unbearable,” he said.

He said people living in Harmondsworth are clear they want a better, not bigger, Heathrow Airport.