Skippy, an increasing number of airports charge for the privilege of dropping your passengers off...Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle, Bournemouth, East Midlands, to name a few. Also, DFT regulations following the Glasgow Airport attack mean most airports have had to move their drop off zones further away from the terminal.
From some of the comments here you would think Liverpool Airport had moved the drop off zone to the old airport site! It's about 45 metres from the front door.