A widow who won a 14-year fight against Leeds-Bradford Airport has not received a penny in compensation - more than a year after her victory.

Marie Whitehead successfully claimed that the value of her bungalow had slumped after a runway extension was built at the airport.

At a hearing in August 1998 in London, the Lands Tribunal ordered the airport to pay her £2,800 plus compensation, more than £6,000 in all, as well as the legal fees of both sides, which are thought to have run into six figures. But Mrs Whitehead, 85, of Scotland Way, Horsforth, is still waiting for her money.

"I haven't had a penny so far. We won fair and square at the court but I'm still waiting," she said.

Rob Lund, the airport's director of operations, said today that it had paid up in January and any delay since then was down to Mrs Whitehead's own legal team.

Mrs Whitehead's solicitor, Birmingham-based Mark Abrol, said today that he hoped she would receive her money within three or four weeks.

He said his firm had been given the money but, because Mrs Whitehead had been granted legal aid, it was not allowed to release it to her until the matters of costs had been sorted out. He claimed the delay had been worsened by the airport dragging its feet over paying the costs. "We sent them our bill months ago but it is one of those things that has taken them a long time to resolve," he said.

Brian Whitehead, chairman of the campaigning residents' group LACAN, the Leeds-Bradford Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise, said he planned to raise the issue at today's meeting of the airport's consultative committee.

"This was an important case and it is not right that this lady has not yet received the money she is entitled to after such a long time," he said.

Mrs Whitehead first started her legal battle in 1984, before the death of her husband John.

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