I've remarked on this before,but living near Rochdale and Oldham, the Manchester-side of the M62, we are in the Manchester Control zone.
Anyone wanting to fly,other than from their own field, is faced with a 45-minute trek Westwards to Barton. It's probably easier to get to Crosland Moor, which i'm led to believe has it's own challenges. there are 2 rotary fliers i know of, locally and Ihave seen a Flexwing about....but otherwise, nowt between here and Blackpool. GA is being slowly throttled to death.