'It never stops': Why do planes land at Manchester Airport through the night but not at Heathrow?

Colin Bessell pauses mid-sentence 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, 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."

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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.

Only Runway One is used overnight and a 'night noise' policy is in place to restrict the number of flights and ensure the 'noise climate is much reduced from daytime levels', the airport says. Airlines that breach those restrictions can be fined.

"The policy strikes a careful balance between the interests of our local community and the demand from our passengers to fly," the airport says.

But what does that mean in practice? Back on Ringway Road, Mr Bessell says the measures do little to reduce the inconvenience for those living close to the airport.

He suggests one solution would