An independent adviser has criticised the Department for Transport (DfT) over leaflets sent out during the consultation phase on the Heathrow third runway.

Sir Jeremy Sullivan said the DfT had fallen "short of best practice" in relation to leaflets distributed to more than a million households about building a new runway at Heathrow.

While rejecting complaints of "one-sided propaganda" and "unbalanced and misleading" information provided at the events, Sir Jeremy did criticise the fact that full addresses for consultation venues were left off the literature, as well as opening times.

The former High Court judge was appointed to oversee the consultation process for the draft Airports National Policy Statement (NPS) and published his findings earlier this month.

Around 4,340 people attended the consultations which were held at 20 locations known to be blighted by noise from Heathrow.

The DfT will be holding another consultation on the government's new Air Quality Plan, after the current plan was ruled to be inadequate by the High Court in 2016.

Brentford & Isleworth MP Ruth Cadbury , co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Heathrow Expansion, said: "Yet again, [this was] another so-called consultation from the government on Heathrow that amounts to nothing more than a cynical PR exercise.

"Those who did manage to find when and where the consultation events were did not get answers they needed to give an informed response and whether their lives would be subject to endless noise from Heathrow.”

A DfT spokesman said: “The government has clearly stated that it prefers the northwest runway scheme at Heathrow, and the information included in the leaflet is consistent with material produced since this was announced in October 2016.

“However, we have also been clear that we want to hear everyone’s views and Sir Jeremy Sullivan found the consultation was generally fair, open and transparent.

“We are analysing more than 70,000 responses and these will be fully considered before the NPS is presented to Parliament for a vote next year.”

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