A wide range of conflicting views has been expressed from all sides during the day. Indeed, they might be thought to cancel each other out. Altogether, it has been a most stimulating and successful occasion, even if, at times, it has seemed that some of those who have spoken have overlooked the fact that there must be airports— that they are now essential requirements for the development of our national trade, travel and economic future and that, somehow, they must meet the operational and economic needs of national and international air transport; or, as the American CAB would say, ‘public convenience and necessity’—though, sometimes, those words suggested different things on this side of the water.

Taken as a whole, the meeting seems to agree that the White Paper, the kernel of the debate, is a workmanlike, a valuable and a sensible document, which—with one or two notable exceptions—‘got it about right’. Different people have different reservations—and, all have some.