Heathrow runway 'white elephant'

"The Sunday Times says a report prepared for the Conservative mayor has concluded the proposed runway at the west London airport would put the health of Londoners at risk and blight communities under the flight path."

I find this to be an interesting quote considering that the third runway would be parallel to the first two.  This means that almost all of the current arrival and departure flight paths would still be used, even for the new runway.  There would be minimal new impact on the surrounding communities due to this expansion.

I live next to Washington Dulles International Airport (KIAD) in the US and I can tell you that the opening of the third parallel runway has had minimal impact on the surrounding area.  The biggest reason is it's distance from the main terminals.  No one wants to land that far away from the main terminals unless they have to.  Because that new runway at Heathrow is shorter than the original two, you can also expect smaller aircraft to use that runway.

I'm not saying its a perfect world, but telling people that they are going to be at risk and that this new runway would blight their communities is a gross misstatement.  This is probably the same person who complains about lack of low cost fares but isn't willing to increase the capacity and therefore the competitiveness of the airport.

I'd be interested to hear what any locals have to say.