It's great to have a working public transport system to and from an airport, but it needs to be used.
The graph above shows results for the airports that participated in the 2012 UK CAA Passenger Survey and there is a very clear correlation between the UK residens share and private transport use. With such a high private transport share among local residents at MAN, I suspect it must be an attitude problem. The share number of cars may hinder any further development of the airport (no more free space for parking). Or is it an attitude problem? Why does all airports outside the South East region in this survey have a private transport share of 80% or more? Could it be that the public transport system at MAN (and the five other airports) is that bad and isn't an option to the car?