21 August 2024
UPDATED Gloucestershire Airport is proposing to remove its grass runway because of “lack of use and potential for future developments”.
The proposal came to light in an Airspace Change Proposal submitted by the airport, though it’s not clear that’s actually required.
One commentator on the FLYER forum, where there’s an active thread about recent goings-on at the airport, said, “The grass runway is short, bumpy and rarely used, apart from by 4 or 5 residents, myself included.
“It was unavailable for a couple of months last year when it had an impromptu water feature and similarly during preceding summers when the main runway resurfacing and associated lighting works were taking place.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why the utilisation is down since the demise of Tiger Airways, for whom it was installed.”
FLYER has asked the airport for a response to the above comments, and this article may be updated.
AIP chart for Gloucestershire Airport showing the grass runway inside Taxiway A
Chris Brian, Manager Air Traffic Services (MATS) at Gloucestershire Airport issued the following ATC update on Friday, 23 August:
“It has been a challenging year in ATC at Gloucestershire but it’s a challenge the team is rising to. Whilst staffing levels have led to closures it is hoped that our planning and hard work will soon mean the end of any re-occurrences.
“We have recruited several new ATCOs but that does not mean they have all started already. It is a very competitive market in ATC at the moment and we can only train a finite number of controllers at once due to a number of reasons including the number of trainers available, numbers of hours that we can legally train etc.
“That being said, the good news is that our two Trainee ATCOs currently training in Aerodrome (Tower) Control have made great starts and have provisional unit endorsements (sometimes called validation boards) booked for 23 October. They may have been ready a little before that but the CAA Inspectors have to attend and they are maxed out too and we have to accept dates that are offered to us.
“We also have two more Trainees due to join us on 2 December. They are both currently on their Basic ATC Course at Global ATS and once they finish that they will move on to their ADI (Tower) Course. We wish them all the best with their studies and look forward to them joining the team soon.”
Gloucestershire Airport is jointly owned by Cheltenham Borough Council and Gloucester City Council. They announced in December 2023 they were seeking a buyer for the airport. A sales prospectus is expected soon.
