CAN you imagine the conversation between an insurance agent and a prospective buyer of a new home approximately 200 metres from an airport runway?

One thousand per cent over normal premiums?

Airport owner Peel Holdings says to build 350 homes on the airport will bankroll the company for the next five to ten years.

Imagine running down a business from 960,000 passengers in 2006 to create a building site, on what is renowned to be the longest runway in the UK.

Eric Clarke, Darlington

WELL it’s goodnight for Durham Tees Valley Airport and it’s goodnight for anyone wanting to keep it open.

In the south, airports are increasing in size and investing heavily, and making homeowners’ lives hell by destroying their homes to do so.

But here in the depressed north, they are wanting to turn a valuable working asset into a homestead (Echo, June 15).

This is a short sighted ludicrous situation putting a stranglehold on Teesside’s growth.

This foolish view is a quick financial fix that can only have derogatory consequences for the whole of the North-East.

With the population increasing by the second, to destroy this valuable commodity is a foolhardy, selfish act that will leave a few happy and many very, very sad and disappointed, as yet another nail is hammered well and truly into our industrial coffin.

John Cumberland, Rushyford