Plans to restrict night flights at Southend Airport will be considered by Southend’s full council.

Southend Council’s Lib Dem group proposed to change the lease of the airport so there would be no flights for a specific period each night. An all-party council committee has now agreed all members should consider banning flying for a specific period each night.

Lib Dem leader Graham Longley said possible closures could be between 1am and 4am or from 2am to 5am.

He said: “We made the point the airport decision is made, and we now have to mitigate the effects where they will be unfriendly to residents. Night closure for a period of time would give the residents an assurance that they would get at least a period of undisturbed sleep.”

The extension of the airprot runway has been agreed, but details of the lease, including the runway extension and arrangements for night flights, also have to be agreed by Southend Council.

Tory leader Nigel Holdcroft said he wanted the whole council to decide on the lease arrangements to reassure the public. He said: “Assuming I’m still leader, the cabinet would make a decision on the airport lease and then refer it to full council, to participate in the debate and then vote.

“Hopefully it will reassure members of the public who’ve been concerned about the planning process. It will be a choice of do we allow the runway extension and the environmental controls, or not allow the extension and continue without controls?

“Without wishing to pre-empt any decision, from my discussions with the airport it says if we try to impose a night-time ban, the airport will become inoperable because of business plans and their arrangements with the contractors.”

AN anti-airport expansion group is digging in its heels after a Southend Council election candidate called for it to disband.

David Garston, Tory candidate for St Laurence ward, accused the Stop Airport Extension Now group of trying to “terrify” residents about the effects of the extending Southend airport’s runway.

However, the group insists it has no intention of disbanding. It is now raising funds for a legal challenge to the airport expansion, after a Government inspector backed the plan.

George Harvey, chairman of the group, said: “We are campaigning at the moment to swell the funds and are in the midst of doing a leaflet drop in the area around and under the flight path.

“We are just heightening awareness of what this could mean to people. If they are prepared to say they don’t mind it, that is fine, but we are not terrifying people. People make their own decisions.”

Mr Garston claims the development of the airport is a done deal and will bring great benefits to the town.

He suggested Stop Airport Expansion [Extension] Now should disband, so everyone could focus on the future.

He added: “This unelected minority group’s inability to accept the issue is over defies all logic. The fact it is continuing to try to terrify Southend residents by spreading fabrication and exaggeration about this development, and attempting to make the airport development a political issue, is both reprehensible and unhelpful.”

In defence of the group’s stance, Mr Harvey said the group had not sought to make its continuing campaign political in any way.

He said: “The fact is David Garston has made it a political item. We didn’t ask him to do that. I don’t want to get into a political round of fisticuffs, because that is not our aim.

“We believe the expansion will cause more harm than good. That’s our view, and the view of many, many people.”

PLANES branded with the Stobart logo could soon be flying from Southend into Europe, bosses have said.

Airline operators are queuing up to fly out of the airport, Eddie Stobart chief executive Andrew Tinkler says.

Stobart, which owns the airport, is already a famous brand with fans all over the country looking out for the green lorries. To raise the marketing stakes even higher, its name could be emblazoned on planes.

Mr Tinkler said since the approval of the runway extension, scores of airlines were interested in flying from Southend to southern Europe. There was also interest in running a shuttle service to Stobart’s other airport in Carlisle to serve the North.

He said: “With the railway station coming along, we will soon have a train link into London. Once we have that things will really begin to happen. We have the new control tower being built and with all this we could have an operator in place soon.

“We don’t need the extension for that to happen, the operator can plan for when the extension is built and exactly where to fly. We want to be able to deliver everything before the Olympics in 2012.”

He admitted the airport could easily take more than one airline operator, and speculation has been that a popular budget company like easyJet or Ryanair could be among them.

Mr Tinkler said: “We’re in talks with operators about it and have a lot of interest from all areas and a number of cheaper operators, too, including European operators.

“Ideally somewhere along the line there will be cheap flights out of there. It’s too early to say who, there are too many interested.”

The approval of the runway extension last month has pushed forward the long-held ambition to expand the airport and provide flights for up to two million passengers a year by 2020.

A 300-metre extension of the runway is one of the key parts of the £35million development of the airport, which Stobart bought in December 2008.

Mr Tinkler added: “Eighty-five per cent of freight is usually carried on a passener plane. By putting freight under the seats we can offer that service and help operators fill freight space. It’s better coming under seats than separate planes.”

Stobart, which transports road, rail, sea and air freight, aims to open the runway and terminal in 2011 and the £12million station, on the London Liverpool Street line, this summer.