This part of the town of Longford is made up almost entirely of Heathrow International Airport. While few actually live in this area, it’s hard to find a Londoner who doesn’t visit. Aside from the multiple well serviced tube stations, including those that have been upgraded and extended for the Elizabeth Line, the area’s located along the scenic Longford River. For anyone needing to stay in the neighbourhood before or after a flight, the area is home to pretty much any major hotel chain that one could think of. As for the handful of residents in the area, there are also some post-war brick homes that sit not far from the hotels and eateries lining the airport. With the area’s inherent transience and loud aircraft noises, any residence in the area will surely be an affordable one.

Longford was originally a small village of 30 some homes back in 1337. Its growth was limited due to the area’s susceptibility to flooding. Still, it was this same waterside location that made it a productive area. Medieval farmers harvested corn, barley and wheat in the neighbourhood. Later on, paper mills and printing works set up shop in the area, and the small farming settlement grew into a quaint village, but its rural feel shifted quite a bit once Heathrow Airport opened in 1946. Now the area caters to the airport, and the remaining parts of Longford are in danger of being replaced with a new runway.

The tube stations at Heathrow Terminals 1,2 and 3 opened back in 1977. At this time, Heathrow was the only airport in the world that was directly served by an underground railway system.

As this area is nearly entirely made up of Heathrow Airport, it really does not feel like a neighbourhood. Furthermore, any bordering residential pockets will struggle with extreme noise pollution from the flight paths and congestion from the traffic travelling towards the airport.

While it hasn’t been finalised yet, there has been discussion of adding a third runway to Heathrow airport. This would alleviate the stress on the ever-growing airport. Unfortunately though, if this goes through, it will likely wipe out the Longford Village that sits on the airport’s border. That said, the Heathrow expansion initiative has been a controversial and unpredictably changing project: new emissions targets make the expansion difficult to achieve, the 2020-2021 pandemic has led to new projections that push the need for expansion 5 years to the future, and the government’s recent revolving door of Prime Ministers and ministerial heads has create a political rollercoaster with regard to whether the expansion has political support or not.