A campaign against plans to build a second runway at Birmingham International Airport will continue, according to its backers.

The pledge came as it emerged campaigners will have to wait until at least next autumn before a decision is made about the airport's future.

The process which allows communities to raise their objections had been due to end on Saturday.

But the government has extended it, because the consultation process did not include a new runway at Gatwick in its original plans.

Ministers had originally decided not to consider re-developing the Sussex airport because of a legal agreement made in 1979 barring expansion there.

However, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has accepted a recent High Court ruling that it was "irrational and unfair" to exclude Gatwick airport from government blueprints to build bigger airports.

James Botham, secretary of Birmingham's anti-noise group, BANG, said it is hard to predict how the extension of the consultation process will affect their campaign.

He said: "We don't know whether the new consultation document, which is due to be published in the New Year, will be a completely new appraisal of the situation or whether it'll be the same old document just with Gatwick added.

"It really is touch and go as to how it will turn out."