'Aircraft noise never stops'

Airport neighbour's concern over night flights - but not all nearby residents agree

- DAMON WILKINSON

COLIN Bessell pauses midsentence while the roar of a plane flying just a few hundred feet overhead passes. The 83-year-old has lived on Ringway Road in Wythenshawe, just yards from the end of Runway One at Manchester Airport (originally Ringway), since the 1960s.

But he says he still hasn't got used to the noise. "It's just incessant," he said. "In the summer you have the windows open so there's no point in noise insulation. If you're sat in the garden it just never stops. You can't talk to each other."

And there's no respite, because the noise doesn't even stop at night. Manchester is the third busiest airport in the country, behind Gatwick and Heathrow.

But whereas Heathrow has strict limits on the number of overnight flights, in Manchester things are a bit different. On Saturday, for example, 45 flights were due to land between midnight and 5am. That's an average of one every seven minutes.

By contrast the first flight at Heathrow was scheduled to land at 5am. Manchester Airport has operated on a 24-hour basis for more than 60 years, the airport's website explains.