3 December 2024
Local councils and property developers are in a race to build as many houses, new towns, garden villages as possible – some on airfields – and one of the few lines of defence for General Aviation is the Strategic Airfield Network (SAN), which has just released its latest newsletter.
Among the stories in the newsletter is the inspiring story of Derby Airfield, as told by Martin Jones of Airspeed Aviation which started, owns and runs Derby Airfield. Martin is also restoring a 1934 de Havilland Comet Racer in his spare time.
“The land that is now Derby Airfield was purchased in 1990 as low grade agricultural land from more than one vendor,” he said. “The main challenge was the acquisition of the necessary planning permission for this green field site.
“The local authority was minded to approve the application but felt that it was a matter of ‘national importance’ and consequently passed it upward to Government for determination.
“This led to a four-week public inquiry. As applicant we had to employ arboriculture, air traffic, road traffic, noise, pilotage, drainage, architectural, heritage and planning professionals.
“A site visit was necessary including a demonstration of aircraft flying around our ‘good neighbour’ pattern (low approaches and go-arounds: no landings allowed).
“Protestors with placards had a field day. Total fees were in excess of £100,000.”
However, Derby Airfield won its application!
“Since this planning approval had come from the relevant government department we regard this decision as a strategic recognition of our place in the nation’s airfield network,” said Martin. “Green field to airport! We think that this is a very rare achievement because most airports have either military or municipal origins.”
Martin Jones is restoring ‘Black Magic’, the 1934 de Havilland Comet Racer seen here in its glory days. Photo: BAE Heritage
Derby Airfield is now a small, grass, licensed aerodrome 5 miles southwest of Derby City and 3 miles northwest of Burton upon Trent. It has three runways in classic triangular configuration. It sits under the East Midlands Airport CTA and its ATZ is capped accordingly at 1500ft.
Airspeed Aviation, trading for 42 years, offers a complete range of GA services: flying training, aircraft maintenance, fuel, hangarage and parking.
Flying training service caters for LAPL, NPPL, PPL, tailwheel difference, IRR, night and aerobatic certificates. Aircraft maintenance covers scheduled and unscheduled service, repair, engine overhaul to zero time, avionics inspection and installation including autopilots. Airspeed are Garmin, Trig and Powerflow dealers and also a CAE diesel service centre.
132 airfields have responded to SAN’s survey so far. Image: SAN
The Strategic Airfield Network has conducted a comprehensive survey of UK airfields. The results of the survey were reported to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Aviation in December and have been passed to the aviation team at the Department for Transport.
“We will be following this up with all relevant bodies to seek to improve policy protection for GA airfields,” said the two organisers of SAM Ann Bartaby and Louise Southern.
“You may wish to get in touch with your MP to draw attention to the SAN results and highlight your involvement with this.
“You may also use this opportunity to alert your Local Planning Authority. Sleap has recently prepared a ‘Membership Report’ to assist its local Planning authority understand what happens at the Airfield. If you have not seen this, let us know and we can forward this to you as an example of an excellent means of communication.”
Read SAN’s latest news and Derby’s full story in the SAN newsletter which can be downloaded here.
