Heathrow has delivered to Government a £49 billion plan for expansion of the airport that will see it build a third runway and create a new tunnel for the M25.The formal submission follows decades of delay and is certain to trigger a huge legal and planning battle with environmental campaigners concerned about emissions and residents worried their lives will be blighted by noise and years of construction disruption.

The new 3.2km runway would require a diverting the M25, building a new road tunnel under the airport and widening the motorway between junctions 14-15. Thomas Woldbye, the CEO at Heathrow said that the new M25, 100m west of the current one, would be ‘wider and it will be safer and it will have more capacity’.

London-Heathrow Airport has unveiled its own plans for a third runway following a rival submission from billionaire Surinder Arora