What aspect of the High Court judgement are you referring to James?
To continue to use of the runway or parts thereof. I am a leaseholder of residential property in the UK. If the freeholder of the land and building goes bust I don’t expect to be kicked out or lose access to the roads and footpaths getting me into and out of it, or worst a factory built on that road.
I think that, Manston apart, the most common scenario in the UK is that of an airfield on privately owned land.
I’m of the opinion that the following are key in affecting GA’s ability to thrive in the UK:
1. The sale of public land ownership of aerodromes into private land ownership. Most of this has happened before the turn of the century.
2. The re-zoning of land designated for aviation into other uses with relative ease and speed.
3. Planning resistance and high expenses for any aerodrome expansion – even if there is no expansion or increase in noise but one wants to ensure aerodrome continuity during wet weather, such as getting runways paved.
4. Mandatory handling at busier aerodromes where there is commercial air transport.
To continue to use of the runway or parts thereof. I am a leaseholder of residential property in the UK. If the freeholder of the land and building goes bust I don’t expect to be kicked out or lose access to the roads and footpaths getting me into and out of it, or worst a factory built on that road.
Yes but that is not practical with a runway is it? The roads and footpaths are maintained by local government. It is very sad for their business but I can’t see how a runway could be kept in this sort of way unless the site was being used as a proper airport. Where would the money come from to do it?
Yes but that is not practical with a runway is it? The roads and footpaths are maintained by local government. It is very sad for their business but I can’t see how a runway could be kept in this sort of way unless the site was being used as a proper airport. Where would the money come from to do it?
Not quite true. The roads and footpaths in many newer developments including mine are privately owned and maintained by the freehold or RTM company.
You can shorten the runway thus reducing its operating costs and what’s left is maintained by the group of businesses still there. Light aircraft does little wear and tear anyway.
There are still operations there – notamed and actual. These pics were taken this week – from 5000ft with my Nokia 808 so not great quality.
Hmm, kind of hard to see, but looks like the TG Aviation clubhouse has been demolished. Sad. Here’s a couple of photos of better times (2013).
So even if something is operating there on exceptional basis, doesn’t look like GA will come back.
Which was probably why it was knocked down.
BTW I am still convinced that it is possible to set up a full GA airfield from nothing, with a full planning permission
It would take a community (to start with) which reckognizes the value of a GA airport preferrably of mixed use and a clear business case to set up a situation, whereby the airfield/airport operator would have to be landowner at the same time. This is exceedingly difficult today in an environment where the majority of politics are based on envy and wealth re-distribution. And, to top that, you would probably end up with a situation where even if you got some really well off people ready to invest a lot of money in exchange for having a say in how the final product would look like that some of the club and local folks would wrinkle their noses and prefer not to deal with people like that. Add to that that preferrably you would have to build something like this either in an area of scarce population to avoid the usual anti noise league to pop up the day the plans are announced, which in turn will almost certainly mean that some nature society will figure that your land of fancy is the home of the nearly extinct Usulum Bird or some other animal or plant form of life which needs protecting, even if it means that some wasteland just remains wasteland.
In order to make sense as a GA field which can create enough revenue to support itself, it would have to be of a decent size, 1500m runway to say the least, concrete, hangarage, FBO, maintenance facilities, tarmac parking, IFR and VFR. This means a lot of infrastructure and cost. To build something like this from scratch is difficult, if not impossible in todays political climate.
What I have been thinking of is about the many military bases which have become obsolete. Most of them feature concrete runways, most of them have the infrastructure necessary for civil use and could (and have been in quite some cases) quite successfully be run as airports for small GA up to medium sized biz jets. Most of them also had their airspace structure and IFR approaches. As we know, quite a lot of former airbases have indeed been converted to civil airports these days, but there are a lot more which could be, not only in the UK but also in e.g. Germany. Thankfully, in Switzerland most defunct airforce bases have indeed passed into civil use these days, with one major airport pending to relieve Zürich’s endagered GA, which is hopefull to move to Dübendorf AFB within the next few years.
The advantage of using existing infrastructure is obvious, however, as in the case of some of the airports mentioned here, in most cases communities and local residents will fiercely oppose such a use. Many have been exposed to military style noise levels for decades and wish for such bases simply to go away, particularly as the military mostly used “office hours” to fly, whereas a GA field would want to operate weekends and evenings too. Add to that property sharks who see airfiels primarily as land reserves for yet another housing estate.
And even if some of these fields are opened for civil traffic, it often happens that courtesy of the place is given to flying clubs who will waste no time to declare it theirs and ban non based airplanes or either restrict or fleece them because the limited amount of movements they are granted (and bothered to aim for) just about covers their own needs but nobody elses. I’ve seen such stuff happening here as well as in Germany, where perfectly good airports with lots of infrastructure and in GA starved areas are in the sole possession of either glider clubs or small motorflying clubs which deny access to outsiders. Gross examples are places like Oberschleissheim in Munich, which has a superb infrastructure and potential but is limited to 500 movements per YEAR for visiting airplanes! Or Kaufbeuern, a place with a 5000 ft concrete runway which is used as a glider club. These are just two I remember by memory, but there are countless examples like that.
In the end, it all comes up to one thing. As long as government and communities see GA airfields as playground for the Rich and Filthy as opposed to traffic infrastructure generating work places, tax return and employment opportunities as well as secondary earnings by attracting companies who see an advantage in having a GA structure nearby, chances of really creating any sort of useful and durable solutions for GA in Europe are minimal and we will see more and more airports disappear under yet more housing estates and industrial land.
Equally, as long as GA declines as it does, there are less and less people who will be in the position to use an airfield like that at all. So the EASA developments discussed in another thread here will be very important for the future development of such airport infrastructure.
In order to make sense as a GA field which can create enough revenue to support itself, it would have to be of a decent size, 1500m runway to say the least, concrete, hangarage, FBO, maintenance facilities, tarmac parking, IFR and VFR. This means a lot of infrastructure and cost. To build something like this from scratch is difficult, if not impossible in todays political climate.
For the UK, I would not agree with the scale. A proper GA facility, hard runway, etc, can never support itself via aviation (landing fees and chocolate cake sales etc) only. It needs some commercial property and right away that makes it really hard to set up from nothing. Virtually impossible otherwise every property development shark would be doing it.
An example is Shoreham EGKA which despite charging best part of 30 quid for a landing is only just managing – because a bunch of shysters who once owned it sold off most of the commercial property income to some “bank”.
What would work is a high quality grass (reinforced) runway and a “club” around it, of people who have a decent income. Obviously such a suggestion leaves you open to getting flamed for being elitist (and you would get that within a millisecond on some other forums) but that’s just life…. you can’t have something for nothing. In life, you either work and then pay for the stuff you want to use, or you sponge off somebody else… Most GA wants to sponge off somebody else which is why we have what we have.
Peter,
yes, of course, the airport needs to be landlord to the commercial properties such as hangars, workshops e.t.c. otherwise that can never work. Or it needs to be set up as an airpark where you build houses with airplane parking around the runway and get the owners to pay for the facility cost, possibly augmented by visiting airplane fees.
Grass, never mind what quality, has the disadvantage of being unusable in snow, heavy rain and other conditions. Therefore, concrete is much better for year round operation.
I am wary of “clubs” as they most of the time will try to keep the airport to themselves and won’t even let visiting airplanes in or charge outrageous fees to join up and keep membership, virtually excluding a lot of people who in sum could be clients and help pay for the facilities.
That is why I am thinking of existing airports such as former mil airbases. They are perfect for this as the runway, taxiways, aprons, hangars e.t.c. are all there.
That just leads us to asking why a GA group (avoiding the work “club” for now) cannot take over Manston. The facilities will be good for decades before major money needs to be spent.
The answer is probably in the value of the site for building houses on it, but you would have to build a complete little town with all the facilities, because Manston is almost as bad as Lydd in that it’s in the middle of nowhere and with poor connections to anywhere half desirable.
