6 October 2022
One of the UK’s best airfield restaurants, The Pilots Hub at Redhill, will be closing soon. Aerospace Resources opened the facility back in 2014 and was recently given notice by the management at Redhill Aerodrome.
Richard Blain, Aerospace Resource’s CEO told FLYER, ‘With great regret we are forced to announce the imminent closure of The Pilot’s Hub. Redhill Aerodrome has given us notice to leave the entire hangar and close the Hub.
“We consider this will be a great loss to the local community and are disappointed by the airfield’s decision. This would seem to undo all the effort we’ve put into building positive community relations for the airfield over the past eight and a half years.
“We are overwhelmed by the scale of the public outcry and messages of support we are receiving. I have been a steadfast supporter of Redhill Aerodrome for more than two decades, so being forced to close the Hub and vacate the hangar is an especially painful blow.”
The Pilot’s Hub, popular with visiting pilots and locals
Blain’s Aerospace resources also leased Hangar 9 (which once housed the Farnborough Aircraft/Kestrel prototype before it went to the USA). It is currently unknown what will happen to the resident aircraft.
Today, October 7, FLYER received the following statement from Redhill Aerodrome
The current lease on Hangar 9, which includes The Pilot’s Hub, will not be renewed when it reaches its termination date on 31 March 2023. Redhill Aerodrome – the landlord – has acted
in accordance with the terms of the lease which were agreed in 2019. This is a commercial decision taken several months ago and communicated to the leaseholder to give him
adequate time to make new plans elsewhere.
Redhill Aerodrome will take back Hangar 9 and operate that space itself. Aircraft owners using Hangar 9 are being informed of the changes and are invited to apply to Redhill Aerodrome
after 1 November 2022 if they wish to store their aircraft in the hangar after 31 March 2023.
The premises occupied by The Pilot’s Hub will be subject to a new lease, separate from Hangar 9, and the aerodrome intends to open a new food and drink facility later next year that will provide better and more appropriate services to the growing number of tenants, their guests and pilots. Hence it is being refocused to be inward facing to serve the commercial users of
the aerodrome which has always been its intended purpose. The new facility will continue to provide local employment.
Redhill Aerodrome is privately owned. Although it is primarily an airfield, it is also a business park occupied by many commercial tenants who are entitled to a safe and protected
environment with reasonable security measures in place to restrict and monitor access by visitors. The site is not equipped or managed as a recreation space for the general public and
has a limited number of parking spaces which are allocated to tenants.
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See our previous Redhill news stories here
See our previous Kestrel news stories here
