Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By James Chan
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1869416
if we want to save airfields "we" need to spot and buy them before anyone else takes an interest.


I’m not sure this is the wisest move.

Even if some enthusiastic GA person or group had the money to buy it, while it may solve something in the short term, they could pass away or get bored of it all and run it down without any obligation to remaining open.

And the problem repeats itself.

One day it would eventually be sold and someone else would have to buy it. In that whole process there maybe no working aerodrome.

Also buying infrastructure would be some single to double digit millions per aerodrome. And you need several tens of them to work as a functioning network in strategic locations aross the country.

Core infrastructure needs better regulation and legislation for its protection - otherwise a simple transfer of ownership won’t necessarily stand the test of time.
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By Flyingfemme
#1869419
It’s too late to buy airfields now. Any sale automatically has the tag “development opportunity”. Only legislation can prevent that and it needs to be applied consistently; something lacking in the UK planning system.
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By CloudHound
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1869421
The answer is mixed use.

Property development on sterile areas of the ‘drome whilst retaining the runway and operational parts.

Funnily enough I flew passed Panshanger a couple of days ago which had a housing estate built next to it years ago.
User avatar
By kanga
#1869428
johnm wrote:Sorry @kanga for once we disagree AOPA needs to engage with the wider picture and not duplicate the work of the specialist outfits like LAA


my suggestion was merely that AOPA, which claims to its members and in its own publicity to represent all of GA, might usefully demonstrate in its lobbying (or its own reporting of its lobbying), or in its magazine, or its spokespeople's own pronouncements, that it is campaigning for that 'all'. This need not prevent the specialist groups doing their own thing, just as EAA exists alongside AOPA-US.

When the AOPA members' meetings started to 'take to the road' (good initiative :) ), there was one at Staverton (hosted by MP3 in the Terminal meeting room; nice biscuits :thumright: ), I went along. I was the only member present who was a mere 'Day/VFR bimbler'. Other were typically PPL/IR/ME or FI or CPL or .. I have no idea how untypical of the AOPA membership that showed me to be, but I suspect that I was fairly typical of the majority of the Staverton-based pilots, one of the busiest GA field in the UK. If so, should it not worry AOPA that so few sky-non-gods have chosen to join ?
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By kanga
#1869432
Peter Gristwood wrote:.. I've not found either AOPA nor the LAA represent my interests as I operate a low end,
Part 21 aircraft. I feel this group falls between any representative organisation - at least whenever I've asked them


I, too, have flown as P1 only in 'low end Part 21' [ie, in international terms, CofA] aircraft. So, I, too, may be untypical either of AOPA or of LAA membership. However, I support the aims of both, so despite no longer being an active pilot I still support both with my subs. I remain a supporter member of Skywatch for the same reason. I suppose it is analogous to JAM supporters paying their membership fees which gets them our news letter, even if they are now too busy, old or distant to come to help in person. I'm sure there are many Forumites with analogous membership support of organisations which do not directly benefit them; much of UK society depends on this sort of 'passive volunteering'.

But AOPA does claim to support my (our) 'end' of GA. My suggestion is that they traditionally have not made a very good job of showing how they do, whether through their magazine or other media. Recently, however, they have provided a useful regular (and increasingly frequent) e-mail gist of regulatory pronouncements from CAA (Skywise and other), EASA etc.

As for LAA: I enjoy the magazine, the Rally (when I was still flying) and have been happy to help with other activities (eg at Strut level, and with YES).
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By Sooty25
#1869544
Cessna571 wrote:I was told that the offer for Bourn was £80 million.

Where are “we” going to find £80 million.


Bourn actually puts our pastime/hobby into perspective. Somewhere, there was a suggestion that there are *20k pilots in the UK. Planning was granted for 3.5k homes on Bourn. There will probably end up with 10k people living on that one site.

We don't want a Bourn, but Langar at £3.25M, with an existing income of 3% from day one, would have made sense.
Perranporth at £1.5M? You only need 5% of pilots to invest £1500 each and you'd have bought it. It just needs someone smarter than me, to set it up as an "investment product" making it tax efficient.


* I have no idea where this number came from
By patowalker
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1869586
Sooty25 wrote:... , and one of the few with health and social care.


That is up there with the UK being the best place in the world for GA.
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By Bald Sparrow
#1869742
The council for the county where I live recently published housing plans for the next few years. All councils are being forced by central government to show how they can meet government figures for the provision of new homes.

Everything has been targeted, including greenbelt. The plans also designate golf clubs as sites for new housing. A golf club near to me is a private enterprise, open to anyone to use and not owned by the council yet the council have identified it as a site to build new houses.

So, I would suspect that buying an airfield to run it as an airfield would not stop the local council from identifying it as a potential site for housing development.

Airfields (and golf clubs) need to be protected from development.
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By Charliesixtysix
#1869745
More likely those were put forward by the owners in response to a call for sites by the local authority.

Having a site included on a local plan does not mean it will necessarily be developed to housing but, from the owners’ perspective, it is an option worth having in the bag.
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1870731
kanga wrote:
patowalker wrote:... Unlike Two Jags, who re-classified airfields as brownfield sites for planning purposes, which has no bearing at all on the present situation. :wink:


Not only having no bearing, but not even true, and long debunked on these Forums


Only not true in your posts Kanga. For everyone else, people think he royally shafted us. You may think his intentions were honourable, but it's caused the closure of a number of airfields with many more being in the developers' cross-hairs.

patowalker wrote:How can anyone deliver security for most GA airfields without rewriting the book on property rights?


By rewriting the book on property rights.

patowalker wrote:Are we saying we should have a right to fly from someone else's property, whether they like it or not?


Yes. But only if they own an airfield... ;-)

It depends on the airfield of course.

Uptimist wrote:Some kind of change to planning law is the only thing that would stop the rot, there’s just too much money involved in developing large sites.


Yes.

Uptimist wrote:Even the most committed aviation enthusiast is not going to turn down a fortune to give up their field.


I would turn down the fortune. I've said on here before that if I had said fortune, I'd buy up airfields to ensure they continue to be airfields. Or buy up disused and untouched ones and put them back into use.

Uptimist wrote:The change would have to make it difficult or impossible to get a change of use from airfield to developed land.


<Nods>

Peter Gristwood wrote:What the heck was that guff about the NAA - teaming up with Oz, Nz to create a new power block to bypass EASA? That's going to do a lot for UKGA. :roll:


It should do something. It should ensure that said pilots coming in don't have to complete the full PPL course again. It may, if joined up, be the start of some employment opportunities.
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By kanga
#1870795
Paul_Sengupta wrote:
kanga wrote:
patowalker wrote:... Unlike Two Jags, who re-classified airfields as brownfield sites for planning purposes, which has no bearing at all on the present situation. :wink:


Not only having no bearing, but not even true, and long debunked on these Forums


Only not true in your posts Kanga. For everyone else, people think he royally shafted us. You may think his intentions were honourable, but it's caused the closure of a number of airfields with many more being in the developers' cross-hairs....


<inevitably longish response :oops: >

hmm.. to rehearse the timeline:

a. While Prescott was SoS for "Environment, Transport and the Regions", a huge new Department encompassing the former Environment, Agriculture and Transport Departments, there was issued from the Local Government element of the former Environment Department a new comprehensive Planning Guidance document for England and Wales. Within this, there continued the distinction between 'formerly developed' and 'not formerly developed' land ('brownfield/greenfield'). Also within this, not clear whether by design or oversight but probably latter, the former explicit definition of 'former hospitals and airfields' as 'not formerly developed' by default had been omitted.

b. Quite quickly, General Aviation interests realised this might lead developers to argue to local Planning officers that airfields (and hospitals with large open grounds, often meaning former isolation or psychiatric ones) should now be considered as wholly 'formerly developed'. This might particularly be true if the Local Authority was, serendipitously, the freeholder of the former airfield (or hospital); it might be easier for a LA to turn an active airfield into a 'former' one within its own delegated powers, before issues of Planning and 'change of use' permission arose. GA Association members and interested others (eg through then nascent online forums, or GA magazines) were urged to write to MPs, Councillors, newspapers etc pointing out that this might lead to loss of active airfields. I was one who did.

c. My then MP swiftly passed on my letter to the Department. He received, also swiftly, as did many others, a letter from the Minister of State in the Department, a letter clarifying that this new Guidance absolutely did not mean that the entire curtilage of airfields (and hospitals) should now be considered as 'formerly developed'. However, local Planning Officers and Committees might now consider proposals that 'formerly developed parts' of those curtilages could be argued as 'formerly developed' for Planning purposes, and therefore those parts might be potentially considered for applications for 'change of use'. These decisions would remain local, and might be a matter for legal dispute.

I do not know whether any active whole airfields were lost as a result of this change of Guidance. However, I still reckon it is neither true to say (as at least one article in at least one GA magazine, IIRC claimed) that Prescott (personally, knowingly, intentionally) 'shafted' GA. Obviously, local Planning Officers, Committees, Councillors generally, and unscrupulous developers, may have had a lot more to do with it.

Obviously, other Forumites ('everyone else' ?) may disagree and reckon the 'shafted' and personalised characterisation fair, but AFAIK the timeline and facts are broadly correct.

</>

And, as I also recall, the GA community has to thank Prescott for (very much personally) ordering the Met Office (also part of the new Department) to make METARs and TAFs free online to registered non-Commercial users. Previously, as some may recall, the only way to get these direct if not near an AFTN TELEX terminal was by dialling in to a Premium rate, slow, Fax service. This was under Treasury policy of the former government (initiated by its first Chief Secretary, IIRC) that 'users of government services must pay, and be seen to pay, for services provided' (a policy which still bedevils GA, eg in CAA and OfCom fee policies). However, online technology already allowed users with online home computers with website access (then still newish technology in many homes) to receive Met Office texts and pages sent to overseas (notably US NOAA) Met agencies freely under IMO arrangements - but at some processing delay while they put this foreign-provided data up on their free websites. This meant that UK GA pilots (and, AIUI, private seafarers) were embarking on travel with (possibly dangerously) dated information. AS a former Merchant Seaman he instantly saw the absurdity and danger when it was pointed out to him (by a senior Civil Servant, I heard).
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By kanga
#1870798
Paul_Sengupta wrote:.. it's caused the closure of a number of airfields with many more being in the developers' cross-hairs....


as a different coda, I note that the SoS for Housing, Communities and Local Government (which incluesd Planning and Housing in England) has lost his job. He had been visibly (some argued improperly) informally close to developers, and had in at least one case made a decision which seemed potentially unfavourable to continuation of aviation activities at an active airfield. He had also been promoting a Planning Bill which (arguing simplistically) could be seen to reduce the powers of Local Authorities to examine, approve or disapprove the detail of specific proposed developments on land which had been earmarked (by the LA or by overriding decision of the SoS on Appeal against refusal) as available for development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jenrick

His appointed successor is, arguably, an even 'bigger gun' in the current Cabinet. I have no knowledge of his pertinent views or contacts, if any, which might be pertinent to future airfield Planning issues. I assume the Bill is still before Parliament, but the attitude of the incumbent SoS could considerably affect how it might be Amended in Committee, or on return from HoL with any Amendments added there

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gove
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