Done a little research on this. Departure fee of £21.50 incl VAT. No landing fee. Quite reasonable. I pay circa £15 at Barton.
The advantages of using a sim for IR are:
1) Not WX dependent (a large factor in Manchester)
2) You can analyse your performance more accurately afterwards, and even 'rewind' sections and do them again should you botch an approach or holding pattern.
However, I thought the main point of a sim was that it was cheaper than the actual flying. However, if you look at courses that include sim time (Multiflight, OAT, CABAIR etc), the prices are actually more expensive.
I suppose at the end of the day, the test is in the AC, so the more training in the air the better.
EK