Airport noise reduction plans 'nothing more than a tactic' - residents

In what has been described as a UK first, Leeds Bradford Airport has offered to contribute towards fitting air conditioning units in homes nearby in a bid to help reduce noise from night-time flights. But what do those living nearby make of the offer?

"Without detail, it's nothing more than a tactic to get planning permission," claims Ian Ditchfield.

Sitting beside his wife, Susan, in their home in Horsforth, Ian says while the plans may sound good in principle he is not getting his hopes up yet.

Susan is equally unconvinced, branding the offer as "just a headline" before going on to outline the impact on her sleep from night flights.

"I tend to have bad dreams, to be perfectly honest, which can be quite disturbing, and you just feel that you are not rested of a morning when you finally do have to get out of bed," Susan says

"It is debilitating really after a while, just this idea of not feeling as if you had a good night's sleep."

She says the issue has become a problem in recent years, saying there was "a big difference" in noise since they moved to the area 40 years ago.

Airport bosses put forward their offer as part of plans to alter the way night flights are classified last month, saying grants would be offered towards insulation measures, including glazing, ventilation improvements and funding for bedroom air conditioning.

It comes after Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) was accused of breaching a night flight limits during the summer season, though Leeds City Council ruled it had not breached the cap.

Three miles down the road from Ian and Susan's house, Jodi Crome, who has lived in Kirkstall for 23 years, shares their concerns.

Explaining how late night flights affect her, she says: "I have anxiety about going to bed ... and that fear of having another awful night and then having to work the next day."

She says she likes where she lives, her children are at school nearby and she does not want to leave.

"I should be able to expect to have a night's sleep," she says.

"I have to admit that on those bad nights I am on Rightmove looking. I know we cannot move, but it feels like you do not want to be here."

LBA is currently limited to 2,920 aircraft movements between 23:00 and 07:00 BST annually.

But, it now wants to condense night-time hours to between 23:30 and 05:59, a move it says will bring it in line with other UK airports.

It also wants to move from its current air traffic movement restrictions to a quota count system, which measures noise levels rather than aircraft numbers.

Vincent Hodder, LBA chief executive officer, said the changes would "enable us to encourage quieter, cleaner aircraft" and was "not the 'thousands more night flights' some would claim".

Martin Groom, who has also lived in Kirkstall for more than 20 years, says he too has late night thoughts of moving out of the area.

"I would not want to move, but in my darkest hours, that certainly crosses my mind," he says.

His wife, Gail, says community engagement meetings about the LBA plans, which took place last year, did nothing to ease their anxieties.

"The kind of blurb was that it was there to engage and listen, but it was not at all," she believes.

"It was a PR exercise where we were bombarded with lots of graphs about how wonderful it would be for Leeds to have this airport and the expansion and the focus on the terminal.

"We were left feeling that this was going to be bulldozed through without care."

A spokesperson for LBA said Community sessions which took place last year allowed them to "update our local communities on the latest news from the airport and listen to the issues that really matter to our neighbours".

They added: "It was via these meetings that the impact of noise became so pertinent and why we have made managing noise the focus of our planning application."

Back in Horsforth, Ian says he is not opposed to development but not at the expense of the wellbeing of himself and his family.

"I am not against that [airport expansion], but there has got to be mitigation measures for the people who are bearing the brunt of this need for expansion in the economy."

Full details of Leeds Bradford Airport's proposed Night Noise Insulation Scheme are publicly available via the Leeds City Council Planning Portal.

A LBA spokesperson said: "We'll be releasing more information on all our proposals soon."

Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.