Victory for local campaigners as Leeds Bradford Airport’s attempt to expand night flights by stealth is defeated
27th October, 2025
The community campaign group GALBA, an AEF member, celebrates a planning win that upholds protections against disruptive night flying.
At the end of this summer, campaigners won a victory in the fight to limit night-time flights at Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA), following a public inquiry that upheld strict planning conditions designed to protect local residents from excessive aircraft noise.The decision marks a major success for the Group for Action on Leeds Bradford Airport (GALBA), which has long opposed LBA’s attempts to reinterpret planning rules that cap night flights.
Background: Protecting the Night from Noise
Noise pollution has health impacts and these issues are compounded when the noise events occur at night.
Local planning conditions define “night time” at LBA as 11pm to 7am, with strict caps in place on the number of flights during these hours – 2,800 in the Summer Season and 1,200 in the Winter. These limits were introduced to mitigate the harmful effects of night-time aircraft noise on public health and wellbeing, and are enforced by Leeds City Council (LCC).
However, GALBA’s monitoring revealed that LBA exceeded the permitted number of night flights during three consecutive summer seasons in 2022, 2023 and 2024. After the group formally complained to LCC, the council issued a Breach of Condition Notice against the airport in 2023.
In response, LBA submitted three applications for Certificates of Lawful Existing Use or Development (CLEUD), which sought to reinterpret the planning conditions in a way that would allow a greater number of night time flights. LCC rejected all three applications, prompting LBA to appeal the decision to the Planning Inspectorate, which led to the inquiry held last March.
The inquiry result: a clear message
The outcome of the inquiry is a firm reaffirmation of the existing rules. Two of LBA’s appeal grounds were completely rejected, while the third was only partially accepted. Importantly, the Planning Inspector’s decision reinforces the original interpretation of the night-time flight cap and makes clear that LBA cannot sidestep these protections.
Furthermore, the 2023 Breach of Condition Notice remains in force – underscoring that the airport has already been found in violation of its night flight limits.
What’s next?
While the ruling does not end all night flying at LBA, it ensures that the current limits should be respected moving forward.
This is a real win for local communities and the climate. We’ve shown that the airport cannot rewrite the rules to suit its commercial ambitions at the expense of people’s health, quality of life and environment. The decision protects the night-time peace that residents rightly deserve.”
GALBA spokesperson, Nick Hodgkinson
GALBA will continue to monitor LBA’s operations closely and expects to present further evidence of breaches from 2024. GALBA will be pressing Leeds Bradford Council to take action as soon as possible and enforce fines and penalties if noise restrictions are breached. GALBA is certain that the airport will exceed the cap again in 2025 and the airport has already put in another application to change the night flight rules, as of mid-October 2025.
Further reading and resources:
- You can find out more about GALBA’s long running campaign to stop unlawful night time flying on their website.
- AEF made our members’ thoughts on night flights loud and clear when responding to the UK Government’s night flight restrictions consultation last year. You can read a summary and access our consultation submission here.
- Stay Grounded, an international campaign group, has been running a campaign on banning night flights for several months, check out their work here.
- Night flight noise nuisance is an international issue. Check out this write-up of the campaigner’s success at Lisbon Airport in Portugal. They successfully campaigned for a hard-curfew period between 1 am and 5 am.
- Starting in 2018 and continuing for two years, AEF started gathering stories from all over the UK from those harmed by airport noise. A visualisation of this national issue is available to view here.
If you have a story to tell about aircraft noise pollution, contact AEF at info@aef.org.uk.