PROTESTERS who have set up camp near Heathrow Airport may be causing headaches for BAA and security bosses - but they are right to highlight a serious threat to the world's environment.

PROTESTERS who have set up camp near Heathrow Airport may be causing headaches for BAA and security bosses - but they are right to highlight a serious threat to the world's environment.

So long as their protest is peaceful and stays within the law, what they are doing will eventually be seen as good for the planet and good for everyone who lives around airports.

For most of these protesters, the argument is not that there should be no flying, it is that there should be no MORE flying.

In that, they are perfectly in tune with our campaign for No More Stansted - although the lunatic fringe which always attaches itself to such demonstrations needs to be held in check.

A modern economy needs efficient airports to handle flights to destinations around the world. It does not need extra runways at Heathrow, or expansion at Stansted to cope with the lust for more cheap flights to Prague and Bratislava.

In mounting a peaceful protest at Heathrow, campaigners are drawing attention to the dangers posed by unfettered flight expansion in much the same way that Swampy and his road protesters drew attention to the environmental caused by new motorways in the 1990s.

The boom in cheap flights cannot continue. It is already causing environmental damage and very soon airlines - and their passengers - will have to pay the cost of this damage through new environmental taxes on flights.

Is it really sensible to expand airports when it is clear that eventually prices will rise and demand for cheap flights will fall?

By drawing attention to the dangers, the protesters are doing the country a service - so long as the every day life of the airport is allowed to continue unimpeded.

TODAY the family and close friends of Dr Steve Lazar will be gathering to bid him a fond farewell after his sudden death last week.

Dr Lazar was loved and respected by all the patients he served at the Deben Road Surgery in Ipswich and his sudden death has robbed the town of a great servant.

He will be especially missed at Ipswich Town FC where he was a very popular club doctor.

It will be difficult to find words to truly comfort his family at the present time, but everyone will hope that they find some strength from the tributes that have come in to a fine man and a superb family doctor.

IPSWICH Town's unbeaten league season continued at the weekend with a hard-fought draw at the most distant outpost of the Championship.

The ten Town men held on for a draw against Plymouth despite losing Fabian Wilnis with a red card.

Wilnis needs to look carefully at his reckless tackle that resulted in a red card - and boss Jim Magilton will have also learned a lesson . . . don't pick Wilnis to play against Plymouth!

But Town fans will take heart from the fact that manager Magilton was not happy with a hard-fought draw away from home.

He wanted a win - and if he can inject that kind of desire into a team that is showing early season promise, then the good times could return to Portman Road.