Campaigners have reacted furiously to Gatwick's inclusion in a master plan to boost air travel in the South-East.

Despite months of hard campaigning in a bid to divert new runways to other parts of the UK, Gatwick still features prominently in the plans.

The British Airport Authority (BAA), the country's largest airport operator, has presented the Government with four options for new runways. Three of these could be taken up.

Among them BAA is pushing for a close-parallel runway or a wide-spaced parallel runway to the south of the existing strip at Gatwick.

This would remove many fears for the historic village of Charlwood to the north but take the new runway 600 metres closer to homes in Crawley's Langley Green area.

BAA is sticking to a legal agreement with West Sussex County Council which prevents development before 2019 Airport managing director Roger Cato said: "We recognise that communities and their political representatives place great importance on the legal agreement and we have been asked whether we stand by it.

"We have always said that we do and in our response to the Government we are not asking them to overturn it."

But a spokesman for the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign urged them to think again.

"This is a con job. They want to cover the whole South-East of England in runways and they are hoping to divert attention away from he fact that if you get one new runway at Gatwick you will, under the hub principle, get a second soon after.

"It's 'buy one, get one free' and we are not buying."

Gary Whitworth, who runs the Horley Anti-Runway Campaign, said: "They have left Charlwood alone and now the misery will focus on Horley and Crawley.

"If this is the best they can come up with I suggest they think again. Do they pay no attention to what the majority of the public think and feel?"

In a seven-page document called 'Responsible Growth' BAA sketched its plans for new runways.

It has four options and officials want the Government to choose their three finalists from this shortlist. The options are:

A short new runway at Heathrow
Up to two new runways at Stansted airport in Essex
Either a close-parallel or a wide-spaced parallel runway to the south at Gatwick.

Mr Cato said: "It is a choice for the Government to make. We have no preference which way they may fall."

BAA dismissed a northern runway as unviable due to the lack of road and rail infrastructure.

Mr Cato outlined fears that if a new runway was decided on for Heathrow, some of the major carriers would desert the airport.

He said: "This is an undeniable fact and it would affect us for four or five years to the tune of seven to ten million passengers a year, but they would come back eventually."

BAA is calling on the Government to announce which runway options they will not take up to remove the threat from people's homes in those areas.

The company also wants to Government to state clearly in the White Paper due in the autumn which option they want to go ahead first and to safeguard land set aside for future projects.