TRANSPORT ministers are to be asked why Suffolk’s skies are being used for a plethora of flightpaths as concern continues to grow today over noise from jet planes.

Questions are also to be asked concerning the potential long-term health risks of breathing in exhaust particles emitted from the planes flying over our communities.

Central Suffolk and North Ipswich MP Dan Poulter, Ipswich MP Ben Gummer and Suffolk Coastal MP Dr Therese Coffey are backing The Evening Star’s Air Fair campaign – and calling on the government to explain why the area has to take so much of the country’s air traffic.

Observers say there are more than 600 flights over Felixstowe and Ipswich every day, with noise frustrating those who live beneath them.

Dr Poulter, lead MP of the group on air transport issues, is to submit a series of parliamentary questions to transport ministers on the concerns that the situation will get worse.

The Evening Star has put forward an idea to air bosses to curb the nuisance and provide those areas suffering from jet noise with quiet weekends, but officials have refused to even consider a trial.

“We launched our Air Fair campaign because we want to see fairness in the skies – which is what we don’t have at the moment,” said our Felixstowe editor Richard Cornwell.

“Flightpaths were moved over our county and its communities without consultation or warning and at times the noise from aircraft is intolerable.

“Although the recession has meant a drop in flight numbers, in the next three or four years as the economy improves we will be back to normal levels and nothing will have changed – we will still bear the brunt of the problems and it will get worse.”

Air traffic management company NATS has said airspace will be reviewed but at the moment the project is on hold.