PEOPLE in Gwent have a year in which to decide whether an international airport in their area will be an economic saviour or an environmental nightmare.

On Tuesday, the government included plans by a private consortium to build the £2 billion, 30,000-job airport on land and water near Newport as one of its possible options for dealing with increased air traffic.

The Severnside International Airport Company said that its planning application was almost ready to be made in advance of the 12-month consultation period.

The company's managing director, Michael Stephen, said the opportunity for an airport would not come again.

"People will need to make up their minds whether they want this airport or whether they don't and whether they are going to have regard to the jobs issue and the environmental issues," he said.

"And if they decide they want the airport, councillors, MPs and other representatives are going to have to send a message to government that this airport is going to be built." But Friends of the Earth Cymru transport spokesman Neil Cru-mpton said a major airport in the heart of an environmentally sensitive area of European significance was a non-starter.

"Wales and the UK government should protect the birds not the business interests, especially in such highly protected areas," he said. Indeed, it is high time that the growth in air travel was regulated. The world-wide economic and environmental damage caused by the global warming emissions from aircraft should be the central issue of the consultation".

Newport city council managing director Chris Freegard said the airport plan was interesting but had huge implications.

"I hope that the government consultation paper will, at long last, give us a clearer view as to whether or not this is a real project," he said.

Cardiff International Airport managing director Jon Horne said: "I cannot find any detail in the plan that describes the proposal and one of the first things that strikes me is the determination of whether or not an airport is needed.

"This would be the first step and I cannot find that need." But Mr Stephen claimed that even if Cardiff and Bristol airports were expanded to capacity there would still be unmet need.