18 December 2018
One of the two historic airship hangars at Cardington Airfield and surrounding land has been sold to a property developer for £10.5m.
BBC News is reporting that Hangar 1, a Grade II-listed building and the former home of the recent Airlander 10 airship, has been bought by Gallagher Developments.
The purchase is revealed on Land Registry documents, but the buyer has given no indication of what the future could hold for the building, says the BBC. Plans to build up to 600 houses on the airfield were submitted to Bedford Council in 2014.
Heritage is more than steel sheets. It’s the setting where amazing and sometimes tragic things occurred. The Airfield at Cardington is as important as the Sheds themselves. The development that has been approved should be a line in the sand on this. No more…. pic.twitter.com/gLHm9umll4
— Trevor Monk (@CardingtonSheds) December 15, 2018
Hangar 1 dates back to 1916 when building started. It used to house the R101 aircraft which crashed on its first long-distance flight in 1930 after taking off from Cardington.
The second hangar at Cardington (also known as The Sheds) is a film and TV production studio.
