At a guess, the location of the approach radar radar unit doesn't really play a part.
At Manchester, approach is carried out from the base of the tower, but outbounds are still transferred straight to Scottish Control. When they were in the old tower block, approach was on the 4th floor, in the same room as the area control function, (a great system), and again a/c went straight from tower to area control. When Manchester Centre moved to Scottish, Manchester Approach continued to be carried out from the same suite until the new tower went operational, again not working the EGCC outbounds.
When Heathrow and Gatwick approach were co-located with the towers at those airfields, (prior to their move to LATCC and later, Swanwick), the majority of outbounds went from tower to London area control.
Although I have never worked at EGBB, (or seen their MATS Pt.2 for many years), I believe the reason approach work their outbounds is due to geography. The runway orientation and the geometry of the Birmingham CTR/CTA make it quite a 'tight' bit of airspace. Even with the extensions out to the west, the traffic flows and traffic mix at EGBB make it a challenging unit to work at. Historically EGBB was one of the first to trial the 'hub system', with many aircraft arriving over a short period of time. Also bear in mind that EGBB sits on the dividing line between London and Scottish areas of responsibility. This is further complicated by the airspace geometry, which has many of the SID's turning back into the areas where approach are vectoring their inbounds. When 15 is in use, the northbound SIDs are in conflict, and on 33, the south bounds are. The proximity of EGNX and M605, (Amber One), doesn't help.
Please accept that this is just my own theory, based on years of observation. hopefully someone from Elmdon will give us the full picture later. They earn their money there.
Last edited by ZOOKER; 25th Feb 2014 at 17:42.
Reason: Poor proof-reading.