A bid to work towards a 'better not bigger' Heathrow Airport was defeated at last night's meeting of the full Hillingdon Council, as a Labour group motion aimed at safeguarding jobs was headed off by unanimous Conservative opposition.

Labour leader Peter Curling's motion was intended to commit the council to a policy of opposing the third runway while recognising the need to protect the thousands of borough peoples' jobs which Heathrow provides, directly or indirectly.

But Tories lined up behind their leader Ray Puddifoot's vision of a future where Heathrow does not exist - or operates in a vastly scaled back form - instead replaced by housing, and by industry which more than compensates for the decline of the airport.

Earlier, Mr Puddifoot had reitereated council opposition to a third runway, in a question tabled by Councillor Beulah East (Lab, Charville), the Labour lead on corporate services and partnerships.

She had asked him to write to Prime Minister David Cameron to seek assurances that his promise of 'no ifs, no buts, no third runway' still held good.

Mr Puddifoot read a succession of press cuttings illustrating the Prime Minister's stated position on the runway, and said: "Councillor East can have my absolute assurance that David Cameron knows my views on the third runway."

Between Labour and the Tories on Hillingdon Counci there is no division on the runway issue: the disagreement comes over the airport's future.

With the GMB trade union having recently come out publicly for airport expansion, Labour might be feeling under pressure, something Mr Curling was at pains to deny.

He said job preservation was a long-standing policy of the Hillingdon Labour group, and he chided the Conservatives for repeating the mantra of 'putting residents first' when it came to protecting the Heathrow villages from a third runway, but not when it came to protecting employment in the face of an under-threat Heathrow.

In a statement released last night, the Labour group said: "We are totally against expansion at Heathrow but we could not vote for the loss of 70,000 local jobs that closing Heathrow would result in."

It added that the provision of 'a new London borough' was 'blue skies thinking', and would not provide the jobs lost at the airport.

The Conservatives say far from a new borough, Heathrow in whatever form would always be a part of Hillingdon, with the tax revenues coming here. Mr Puddifoot in turn noted the fine line the council had to tread.

"We will not be pressurised by the national Conservative Party and its interests, nor the Labour Party and its union interests," he declared, saying leaving things as they are would be 'sleepwalking into disaster', with air quality levels close to the airport some of the worst in the country.

The Conservatives' amended motion, to continue opposing expansion and to let the Davies Commission which is reporting into airport capacity in the south-east on England of the opportunities of a redeveloped Heathrow, was passed.