New UK airfield... first in 30 years... just for GA

There is no guarantee but the UK process is designed to p1ss off the applicant at an early stage. You get a planning committee consisting of 11 councillors, most having the IQ of an orangutan, and voting together in groups. They chuck out applications mercilessly and the intention is that the applicant is so totally sick that he goes away and is never seen again. As a cangaroo court it is is even worse than a magistrates’ court. So anybody “professional” prepares an appeal, always.

Having just lost my third appeal against refusal for change of use of a redundant sui generis building to industrial I can tell you with certainty that spending money with planning consultants still doesn’t guarentee you the result you want.
You’ve got to have very deep pockets and be willing to go to court if you are really determined.

@Flyboy25 @onfinal

Go to appeal.

One has to do that for any serious project.

Find a good planning consultant. You may have to get one from outside the area, so he doesn’t play golf with the planning committee.

unfortunately the local authority did not give its consent for the airfield at the planning committee

IOW, nobody wants to stick their hands in their pocket (the usual GA problem) to engage a competent planning consultant.

This is usually the difference between getting what you want and getting a load of hassle and giving up. The system is set up that way deliberately (to p1ss off anybody less than determined) because the underlying law starts with a presumption of Permitted.

onfinal wrote:

They are planning to be fully operational in spring 2022.
Of course this depends on how the Planning Application proceeds. Also there is half a season required to establish the grass runway.

@onfinal: where are we at this point?

I’ve just put in my support: increase in biodiversity and animal species listed in the Village Design Statement

Owning a listed property I never thought I would say this, but I genuinely pity the planners who have to read all the comments.

The Light Aircraft Association have said this:

I’ve done my entry, supporting it, and everybody else should too. Currently the objections are running around 5x to 10x the number of supports, although that is fairly normal.

Would hope that AOPA (uk) would be battling hard on this for the sake of aviation in the South-East.