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It may have been described as a “living breathing advertisement for Britain’s ambition” by BAA chairman Sir Nigel Rudd, but most of the UK remember Terminal 5’s opening for the chaos that ensued, with flights being cancelled and delayed, and baggage disappearing into a black hole on a scale never seen before.

Things did improve but, just as passengers were beginning to forgive and forget Heathrow’s Terminal 5 teething troubles, it seems that the terminal is back in the news again for all the wrong reasons.

As anyone who lives in the area will tell you, the local London clay is notorious for causing problems with subsidence, and an airport is no different in that respect from your average house extension, even though it cost £4.3 billion.

News emerged last week that a form of subsidence called heave is causing the terminal building to be pushed upwards because the clay has swelled. Tiles have had to be replaced in the terminal building and engineers have been called in to give their verdict.

So is it anything to worry about? Opinions differ, with BAA calling the level of movement ”perfectly normal” and the Institute of Structural Engineers agreeing, saying that the movement is merely part of the “bedding-in process”. Greenpeace, however, have called for further information before work starts on the sixth terminal. Meanwhile BAA has been blamed for choosing a cheaper foundation design which will have exacerbated the problem.

With the peak summer holiday period just around the corner, the travelling public will be hoping that the effects of the heave are restricted to replacing a few tiles and that the shambolic scenes of March 2008, described by many as a “national embarrassment”, are not going to be repeated.