A HEATHROW boss admitted the airport had made promises it did not keep, at a Q&A session with residents.

During the meeting, held on Tuesday evening in St Andrews’s Church in Vicarage Way, the Colnbrook with Poyle Parish Council, and residents, grilled the representatives on their plans for expansion.

The chairman of the parish council, Cllr Scott Bryant, told the representatives: “You are lying to us. When you built Terminal 5, you said there would be no more expansion, but my dad worked at Heathrow, and he knew the third runway was coming while terminal 5 was still being built. What’s next – Terminal 6?”

Robet Grey, community and stakeholder director for Heathrow, admitted that “there have been promises that never should have been made”.

He said: “We have taken a long look at the best place to put a new runway, there was a three year study of this. It was concluded that this was the best option – although not necessarily the best option for this village.”

Mr Grey told the council audience: “About 70 per cent of MPs support expansion, so its likely that the vote in Parliament will pass when it happens. If it is successful, we would start the consultation on the preferred scheme around 2019, with the first plane taking off in 2025 or 2026.”

However, many councillors disagreed. Cllr Anup Babuta said: “This thing has already been decided on, so what is the point in giving residents hope that they still have a voice? If this thing is going through, what is the point in the consultation?”

Mr Grey replied: “In terms of what has been decided, there still has to be a vote – we are taking the vote for granted. We still have to extend a consultation on the options to get a fixed scheme.”

Speaking to the Observer, Mr Grey said: “We are currently running our non-statutory consultation – we don’t have to do one, but we want to do it because we are keen to work with the community.

“We are holding a number of official consultations. This is not the first or the last time we will be coming to Colnbrook.”