CLIFFE Marshes, near Strood, is the only new airport location for London under plans to be unveiled by the Government in May.

Government officials - who were playing down the story last weekend - have now confirmed that Cliffe is one of their four options to meet the massive growth in air passengers expected in the next 30 years.

The other options are to expand the existing airports of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, leader of Kent County Council, says he hopes to convince Ministers on Wednesday to drop the whole plan. "I spoke to the DTLR. They are very apologetic and said they were going to brief me, but did not intend there would be any kind of announcement until May," he said.

Chris Pond, MP for Gravesham, said: "Ministers will have to put the plans through a very serious process of public consultation." Howard Stoate, the Dartford MP, said: "It is certainly being considered as an option. I am not at all in favour of an aiprort in north Kent. The Essex solution is far more sensible."

There are two bids for airports in Essex - the development of Southend and the resurrection of the Maplin Sands scheme which would involve building an island airport in the Thames Estuary.

Cllr Bruce-Lockhart, one of the most influential Conservatives outside Parliament, is due to meet the four DTLR ministers at a meeting of the Strategic Partnership for the Thames Gateway. "We place the highest priority on the regeneration of East Kent for which the development of London Manston airport is key," he said. "All it needs is a rail spur from the Channel Tunnel Rail Link at Ashford.

"Manston will be stopped dead in its tracks because of this, the implications for north Kent are absolutely massive, and it has completely blown out of the water our first structural plan in five years."

He added: "It is the worst possible site in environmental terms. The marshes are unique. Once they are gone, they are gone for ever."