PREMIER League champions Manchester United have been given the green light to host concerts for seven days each year - despite protests from residents.

Planning chiefs have approved an application that could result in a string of gigs taking place during a one-month time frame.

The concerts will start outside the football season - between the end of May and end of June, when the club’s groundsmen begin repairing the pitch in time for friendly matches and the start of the new season.

Last Thursday, at a town hall planning committee meeting, Old Trafford resident Roger McKinley, of Railway Road, spoke against the plans for the stadium, He said: “We recognise the value of the club but its neighbours must not be forgotten. We need assurance on how the scheme will benefit us in a real and sustained way.”

No more than four concerts would be held on consecutive days at the venue, which can hold up to 76,000 people on match days and has up to 5,200 car parking spaces. Concert attendance would be roughly 50,000.

Just under 500 neighbours were told of the proposal and nine objection letters were returned, which Cllr Ken Weston pointed out was a two per cent return.

People expressed concerns about congestion, noise pollution, littering, parking problems, anti-social behaviour and a lack of respite outside of the football season.

Gorse Hill ward councillor, Dave Acton, said: “The residents are generally supportive of the club and accept, maybe reluctantly, the inconvenience of match days. However, an extension of seven concerts would have a detrimental effect on their quality of life.

"They put up with enough during the football season. Even if the events finished at 10.30pm it would take a couple of hours for the crowds to disperse. It’s a step too far.”

But the committee concluded the seven concerts would not be detrimental to highway safety and residential amenity.

Chairman, Cllr Viv Ward, said: “People know what they are moving to in Old Trafford. Just show me someone who lived here before the club came to the area nearly 100 years ago."

A Manchester United spokesman said: “We haven’t got a series of concerts up our sleeve. This application is an administrative tidying up exercise so that we have formal, written consent to stage concerts."

The last act to perform to a crowd of more than 58,000 at the Theatre of Dreams was rock legend Bruce Springsteen in 2008. And in 2007 Genesis played to more than 54,000 fans. These were granted permission on an ad hoc basis by the council's licensing committee.