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.
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....
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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.
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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).