A man who bought his home next to an airport came onto today's This Morning to complain about the planes.

Alex Carr, who has lived in his Southend home for 27 years, was unhappy that airplanes were coming within 150 feet of his beautiful garden.

A newly reopened runway strip at Southend airport means up to 50 aircraft a day pass the garden fence from 6am until 11pm.

Alex claimed only "plane spotters, the deaf or people with no sense of smell" would want to buy his house.

Presenter Holly Willoughby asked why he was so shocked by this, while Phillip Schofield admitted it was inevitable there would be more air traffic.

Holly and Phil had a few questions

Alex said: "Because the airport we moved next to in 1992 had cargo, light aircraft and maintenance. It wasn’t the airport which has now been redeveloped and has ambitious plans to have 5 million passengers by 2022.

"It wasn’t that inevitable in our view. When we bought here it was a has-been. The heyday of Southend airport was back in the 60s and early 70s.

"The air traffic that took care of the passengers in those days had left and really been taken over by the likes of Stansted and Luton. It was a quiet municipal airport that never had the space to expand to what it’s become now."

He can see the runway from his garden

Alex, who lives with wife June, opened up on the impact that the new runway was having on his life.

He said: "It is the health issues we’re very worried about. Instead of taxiing up the runway, the use of the taxi way means the aircraft are increasing in numbers and are just yards away from our back fence rather than going up and down the runaway as they had been up until November 2017."

It seems the problem may only get worse with Ryanair flying from Southen airport from this month.

Alex explained there were health issues

Alex claims he has to close the windows because of the fuel smell, but Southend airport say they continue to monitor air quality which remains considerably below government limits.

Alex said: "And sometimes you can taste it. It’s making it horrendous now. What once was a municipal airport with planes taking off and landing on the runway which I have no problem with is now causing us a problem because of the stacking literally yards from the back of the fence.

"Our objective really is to ask and plead with the airport to move the taxiway to the north side of the runway where there are no residential houses which will lessen the effect and in fact probably remove it."

There was not a lot of sympathy for Alex

However, This Morning viewers didn't really have any sympathy for Alex.

One viewer asked: "Did he move next to an airport, and now complaining about the noise from planes?"

"Man who bought a house next door to an airport is shocked to see a plane near to his back garden," added another.

A third said: "The answer to the problem is don’t go & live near an airport"

*This Morning airs weekdays on ITV at 10.30am
