A PROTEST group aiming to end commercial flights at RAF Northolt is furious with Hillingdon Council for what it considers one-sided coverage of the issue.

Stop Northolt’s anger is directed at the council’s own magazine, Hillingdon People, which is delivered six times a year to every home in the borough.

The latest edition features coverage of a Parliamentary debate on the Government's plans to spend £45m renovating RAF Northolt.

In the debate, Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood said the Government had considered increasing commercial flights and indicated that expansion would benefit taxpayers.

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The article, say protesters, fails to include the minister’s concession that RAF Northolt would remain under-used by the military.

It’s a comment which has raised suspicion about why the Government is spending £45m on renovating the airfield.

Anna Williams, of Stop Northolt, said: “The article selectively quotes from a speech in Parliament, hoping that nobody would check and call them out on it.

“Three thousand people across West London are rightly concerned that the 10,000 commercial flights a year at Northolt are about to increase.

“They've admitted there's no military demand, so this can only be to improve facilities for commercial flights, and they wouldn't spend that much money without wanting to get it back.”

She said the magazine had failed to remain objective and even-handed in its reporting on the RAF Northolt debate.

Whitehall has been waging war on council publications, nicknamed the Pravda Press, for several years. Its code of practice says they should not be issued more than quarterly.

Cllr Ray Puddifoot, leader of Hillingdon Borough Council, has insisted the borough’s magazine will continue to be published six times a year ‘to keep residents informed’.

Stop Northolt was established following an announcement in April that the MoD plans to close the airport for eight months in 2018 and spend £45m on upgrading and strengthening the runway.

It claims to be a cross-party alliance of politicians and other groups who want proper scrutiny of the airport and a proper say for people on the airport’s future.