Worcester's not out of the woods yet...

Unknown to the people of the areas affected, Government planners drew up a secret list of 32 sites across the West Midlands in a painstaking search to identify enough land for a new airport the size of Heathrow.

Every patch of available countryside was scoured in an investigation that took nearly two years to complete.

The scale of the operation, which has recommended a new Midlands airport on Green Belt at Church Lawford, near Rugby is breathtaking. Not only would it mean the complete obliteration of that village, but also a nearby hamlet.

Obliteration? Yes. Both settlements would be destroyed by the Blair Government to make way for an ocean of tarmac, concrete and glass. The countryside would be lost forever, Coventry and Rugby effectively merged, and the lives of thousands who lived in the vicinity blighted by noise and fumes.

However, what many of you didn't know was this. Your city of Worcester has escaped by the skin of its teeth. For the time being.

But hang on a minute, though - you didn't know anything of this, did you? I think we'd better to a bit of recapping.

Potential sites were considered close to many of the region's best-known beauty spots, including Lichfield, Warwick, Leamington Spa, Hampton-in-Arden, Kenilworth... and Worcester.

Experts at the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions handed the list of 32 sites to consultants Scott Wilson for further work. The names were whittled down to 14 possibles and, finally, a shortlist of eight.

Among them were sites adjacent to or near The Faithful City. Environmental war had been declared against the West Midlands. Just think about it. The plan was - and still is - to actually destroy whole villages. Not build next to them. Wipe them off the face of the earth.

And here's me thinking that all that sort of stuff had ended in 1945 - or at the very least when Attila the Hun hung up his scimitar.

For the moment, Worcestershire is safe. Civil servants believe the M5 corridor south-west of Birmingham is handicapped because of its distance from the main passenger catchment areas and an absence of high-quality rail links.

Land between Worcester and Droitwich was initially favoured because of proximity to the M5. However, a number of sites - including one east of Worcester, bordered by the A44 and the A422 - were deemed as being too small. The Malvern Hills to the south and the Birmingham conurbation to the north-east were also drawbacks.

It would appear that to build an airport, acres of flat, virgin green fields are needed. And this is why our near-neighbours in Warwickshire have copped for it. The flat lands of Shakespeare's county are perfect.

What is utterly astounding about this whole affair is the complete secrecy surrounding it. How has it been possible to conceal it from the populace? Amazingly, there have been no leaks from bureaucrats with canary consciences.

You have to hand it to New Labour. They're not only masters of spin but also of subterfuge, too. Old Uncle Joe Stalin would have been proud of them.

But let us for one moment try to imagine the implications of an airport the size of Heathrow one mile from the M5 roughly in the area of Broughton Hackett and Littleworth. Then, once that nightmare has been contemplated, address your thoughts to such an installation between Droitwich and Worcester.

This is not fantasy. Plans such as these were until recently pinned to the drawing board. They have not yet hit the spike. The Worcester area's not out of the wood yet, by any means.

The consequences of an airport being built in the Worcester area are horrendous to contemplate. Not a single home, place of work within a radius of 10 miles would be free from noise and pollution.

The Birmingham sprawl would end up being a continuous built-up area from the Black Country to Malvern, as the inevitable infill of industrial estates and housing plugged what gaps remained.

You know what happens when a motorway is built. Developers regard any new road as just another boundary mark. Bear in mind that Heathrow is not just an airport - it is a small town covering what was, until the 1940s, open heathland near London.

So, if an airport of this magnitude was constructed in Worcestershire, the countryside in this part of the Midlands would be lost forever. Nowhere would be free from industrialisation, traffic hum, over-population. Infrastructures would be strained to the point of collapse and the quality of life evaporate.

We are safe for the moment. But just think of the poor people of Warwickshire who will lose their homes if this lunacy goes ahead. In Rugby - my hometown - property values are already plummeting. Remember, too, the same would happen here if the market smelled a whiff of aviation fuel in the air.

With ever-increasing confidence and arrogance, New Labour is demonstrating that it has no regard whatsoever for whole sections of British people. The new downtrodden are those who have gone to live in the nation's villages, people who have probably worked their fingers to the bone in order to own their small piece of the Bard's "blessed plot".

It is the ultimate, ironic wickedness that New Labour's campaign of destruction is targeting Warwickshire, that most English of counties. I could weep when I see what Blair and his friends in global business have in store for the land of my birth.

However, intelligently-led dissent can hinder or even thwart Establishment plans. As the resistance movement in Throckmorton is proving to the world, the guerrilla action of constant harassment is an irksome thorn in the side of politicians.

But carefully-organised protest must also logically lead to the ballot box. If the Warwickshire plan goes ahead, New Labour will, hopefully, be wiped out in the Rugby and Coventry area.

And in the event of Worcestershire coming back into the frame for any reason, then the same must apply. After all, Wyre Forest quite rightly dismissed their New Labour MP over a single issue - a similar fate could befall any party hack who might blindly follow orders.

But the most cogent argument for not building another airport - anywhere - is this. In order to cope with traffic growth, this country probably needs umpteen more motorways, bypasses and link roads.

But it's not going to happen. For it is now recognised that development has to be sustainable. Britain is finite, we do not have a limitless supply of land. This means we must accept our roads are likely to be congested from now on.

By the same logic, we cannot sacrifice thousands of acres of good agricultural land so that rich Britons can commute by air to their second homes in Europe. Which, is of course, what this is all about. In the age of the internet air travel should stabilise, rather than grow.

The Prime Minister recently returned from the Earth Summit in Johannesburg. Before he was silenced by the racist Mugabe, he had waxed lyrically about the plight of Africa.

Here's a suggestion, Mr Blair. Instead of worrying about that cesspit of a continent, you should be showing some compassion for the environmental disaster about to be imposed by your Government in the English Midlands.

Maybe you haven't heard. Charity begins at home.