The council, which owns 55 per cent of Manchester Airport, said plans to give the 1,250 acre site special status wasn't a relaxation of planning rules.

"To suggest that the proposed changes are part of rolling back the green belt and facilitating major development at the airport is simply untrue," said a council spokesman yesterday (Tuesday).

If the changes are passed new buildings on the site, such as terminal facilities and hotels, would be acceptable in principle.

Certain green belt developments would also no longer need permission from the Government.

But their move has angered Macclesfield Borough and Cheshire County Council who have objected to the plan and want to negotiate changes.

They think the area of the site is too large and feel it weakens them in the face of airport expansion.

"This will relax the setting of planning at the airport," said Cheshire deputy leader Clr David Lloyd Griffiths.

"A blanket cover of planning would not be in the environmental interests since some of the areas are very open and are clearly green belt."

But city bosses said strict guidelines would protect the green belt.

"The procedure does not mean that planning consent will not be required," the spokesman said.

Borough Clr Tony Greaves said no changes should be made until the airport declared its future intentions to expand after 2005.

And anti-air travel campaigner Jeff Gazard agreed.

"It seems utterly daft to us to grant Manchester Airport greater planning freedom without being able to see and understand what they will be using these powers to build," he said.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.