Agenda item

Former Sheffield City Airport

It was moved by Councillor John Booker, seconded by Councillor Jack Clarkson, that this Council:-

(a)       believes that a commercially viable, fully operational airport in Sheffield would be an enormous asset for the city;

(b)       notes that Sheffield City Airport was built as a CAP168 code 2C airport as per the agreement between The Sheffield Development Corporation (SDC), Glenlivet Ltd and Tinsley Park Ltd, dated 27th October 1995 and subsequent lease of August 1997; and that the definition of "Airport" for the purposes of the agreement is laid out in Article 106 of the Air Navigation Order of 1989 and is consistent with the definition as originally laid out in clause 1.17 of the agreement between SDC and British Steel Corporation;

(c)        further notes that in 1997, Sheffield City Airport opened as a CAT 5, code 2C airport, which means it should have had, and maintained, all the facilities needed to cope with an aircraft capable of carrying up to 115 passengers;

(d)       also notes that the Airport started commercial services some three years earlier than originally planned, with the successful introduction on 16th February 1998, of KLM's three times daily Amsterdam service, which was an instant success, with KLM saying it was their best start-up service ever, and that services followed to Jersey, London, Dublin, Belfast and Brussels and in 1998, 75,157 passengers passed through its terminal;

(e)       recognises that Sheffield Development Corporation estimated it would take at least seven years after opening before the airport would make any return on capital, and that this fact was well known and, indeed, as early as 1990, had been referred to by the SDC;

(f)        is interested to know how Peel Holdings and the airport operator, just eight weeks after them acquiring one half share of the Airport, were allowed to start downgrading it; for example (i) at the end of September 2001 they reduced airport Rescue and Fire Fighting Services cover from a CAT 5 to a CAT 3, (ii) by the end of September 2002 they reduced cover from CAT 3 to a CAT 1 and also turned off the Instrument Landing System (ILS) and (iii) at the end of August 2002 they started turning the terminal building into a business centre (offices);

(g)       strongly asserts that rules and regulations should be abided by, and the closure of Sheffield City Airport was done in a most unsatisfactory manner, causing Sheffield one of its worst civic lost opportunities; and

(h)       further notes that Sheffield City Airport closed to all traffic in 2008, and that an area of eighty acres of prime development land, described as the best site on the M1 corridor between Leeds and Leicester, was transferred to Sheffield Business Parks Ltd, for a notional £1.00, which has never been collected.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Jack Clarkson, seconded by Councillor John Booker, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by:-

1.         the addition of the words “without planning permission” at the end of paragraph (f);

2.         the addition of new paragraphs (g) and (h) as follows, and the relettering of original paragraphs (g) and (h) as new paragraphs (i) and (j):-

(g)       regrets that all of these actions were quite clearly contrary to the intention of the lease, as well as Civil Aviation Authority legislation for a code 2C airport;

(h)       places on record that it is abundantly clear that the intention of the lease/agreement was for an operational airport to be in existence for at least "the reverter period", a minimum of ten years from the date of opening;

3.         the addition of a new paragraph (k) as follows:-

(k)        further regrets that the City has lost an airport and has allowed Peel Holdings to profit from the land developments.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was negatived.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Leigh Bramall, seconded by Councillor Chris Rosling-Josephs, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the addition of the following words:-

(a)       notes that the site of the former Sheffield City Airport (SCA) has now been redeveloped as part of the enterprise zone, and recalls that the site was in private ownership before redevelopment and the Council was not in a position to determine the future of the site and had no enforceable powers to prevent redevelopment of the site;

(b)       notes that to purchase the site to stop redevelopment would have cost tens of millions of pounds, plus facilities would then have to be constructed or re-opened, costing millions more;

(c)        recalls that SCA wouldn't make money at first and so the Council would have to be part of the consortium and underwrite operational losses for many years (15 years in the case of London City Airport);

(d)       believes that the Council was in no position to underwrite losses for a project that failed once already, and which its own supporters say would lose money, and that this would be the case at any time, but particularly now with government cuts hitting the Council hard;

(e)       therefore concludes that a private sector backer was needed to underwrite the risk, if they believed the airport was viable and this was not forthcoming;

(f)        believes that the key issue for Doncaster Sheffield Airport is the access to the airport from the M18, noting that the current road network effectively doubles the time it should take to get there from Sheffield; however, a new link road to the Airport from the M18 will be shortly in operation, and whilst the road will not take traffic directly to the Airport at present, it will reduce typical journey times to around 30 minutes from the centre of Sheffield;

(g)       notes that with Manchester, a significant international hub and easily accessible by train, and several other airports within an hour's drive, a 30 minute journey time from the centre of Sheffield to Doncaster Sheffield Airport will give businesses in the city easy access to an airport with a runway length that allows all aircraft to operate from it, and that such a journey time is comparable to that offered by many other major cities to their nearest airport; and

(h)       notes that the mover of the motion makes no constructive suggestion, the motion simply comments on previous events well before the present Administration, which have been debated on numerous occasions.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried.

The original Motion, as amended, was put as a Substantive Motion in the following forma and carried:-