It’s time to raise a racket about over-the-top airport security

I WAS saddened on several fronts – but managed to refrain from a John McEnroe-style outburst – when a couple of children’s tennis rackets were confiscated from my family’s hand luggage going through passport control at Leeds Bradford Airport.

Not just because gleeful officials deemed them to be “lethal weapons” if taken on board the flight, robbing my young family of having some fun in the sun.

But more so because I learned that everything that is confiscated by the security team there just ends up being trashed.

I write in what is probably the busiest week of the year for the airport and your readers can probably all guess the size of the mountain of goods that are taken in good faith by passengers in their hand baggage, only to find them being seized because of the travel restrictions in place.

One of the team members confessed to me that, just minutes before, she had to take from one holidaymaker a brand new bottle of perfume which had cost £99 – and was simply chucked away.

My rackets did not carry such a price tag, but they would have been welcomed I am sure by some of the more disadvantaged members of our Yorkshire community rather than being sent with the bottle of Gucci and skiploads of other possessions to the scrapheap and landfill.

What a waste – environmentally and financially.

We all recognise that aircraft safety is paramount. But surely some common sense and community spirit could be shown by Leeds Bradford Airport – either by selling off some of these seized goods for charity (one of the Yorkshire Air Ambulances, which would be a worthy recipient, is based on-site) or distributed to members of our community where they can be put to good use? The sky’s the limit!