22 March 2016
Wellesbourne Airfield will NOT close at the end of this year! That’s the fighting talk of the businesses based on the Warwickshire airfield who have the full support of the local council and have now defeated the property developers who want to build 1,500 houses on the site in the opening rounds.
“We decided we wouldn’t go quietly in the night,” said Duncan MacKillop, leader of the Wellesbourne Matters campaign group working with the airfield businesses. “We went head to head with Gladman [the property developers] at a planning inquiry, having secured the services of a leading QC specialising in planning matters, and successfully rebutted all their claims. We will be flying at Wellesbourne for the next 20 years at least.”
The Inquiry Inspector is expected to rule by the end of March that the Core Strategy document of Stratford District Council is “sound” and that Wellesbourne Airfield is not needed to meet local demand for housing. The council’s objectives include, “Retain and support the enhancement of the established flying functions and aviation related facilities at Wellesbourne Airfield”.
The owners of Wellesbourne Airfield, the local Littler family, have engaged Gladman Developments to obtain planning permission. In late 2015 they told airfield businesses that the lease of the airfield operating company, Radarmoor, would not be renewed at the end of 2016 when it expires. “As a consequence, use of the land as an airfield will end,” said a statement issued by the family.
However, that statement fails to take into account the legal rights of every business on the airfield, said Sean Brown, CEO of Heli Air, which employs 60 people on the airfield in its helicopter training and maintenance business. “We have the right to apply to a judge for the extension of all our leases,” said Mr Brown. “We will ask to extend for 15 years… and when that’s up, we’ll ask for another 15 years.”
“If Radarmoor ceases to exist on 24 December [when its lease expires] then we, as a group of businesses, will continue to operate the airfield.” Mr Brown said they had already acquired the necessary equipment, such as fire engines and the like, to do that. “So far as we’re concerned, there won’t be any closure.
“We have the support of all the local people and the businesses on the airfield, and the local council – and we have the right to use the runway,” he continued.
Wellesbourne Matters
Heli Air
Wellesbourne fights for survival (FLYER article January 2016)
22 comments
Well done to every one who voted to keep this airfield open.Keep up the good work
You aint won yet and your forgetting the airfield is on the Littlers land which they own. Get the bulldozers in and rid Welesborne of this dump.
We are an ill tempered man Roger aren’t we. Cannot even spell the name of the place you are protesting about. Learn to fly and release your frustrations….. You have a local Airfield!
Wow, what a gritty response to a terrible threat to livelihood and lifestyle! Great job
The only note of caution I would issue is that having researched Gladman for a development that they are trying near us. If they think they’ve got a chance, they will follow the appeal process all the way to the Secretary of State.
I am now definitey going to fly into this airfield to celebrate this great news and i would urge as many other pilots as possible to support them and do likewise.
please fly over Roger Pickles house he loves it
To John Clark
Trust this is good news John!
Gladman are a litigious lot so don’t count your chickens. But a major victory if it hasn’t ended the war
The more flights coming into the airfield the better,and this will show u mean business
The sooner this bloody noisy, disruptive airfield is closed, the better. I am sick of moronic pilots flying round and round and illegally low. They are not supposed to fly over the village but do so all the time. Also, it’s private land, so the owners can kick off the current renters if they want?
I wonder if Mr Pickles expects others to be as tolerant of his interests, passtimes and hobbies as he is intolerant of theirs. . . . .
Awwww…. Leave him alone. He was patently living in the village in 1939 before the airfield was built. I mean he obviously has more sense than to buy a house in a village next to an airfield with his dislike of aeroplanes.
so being the expert you know what height they are at do you – you have a mk-1 altimeter fitted do you
I also wonder if Mr Pickles would prefer 1500 homes, 3000 more cars and who knows how many more people disrupting his peaceful village.
Yes I would.
…and furthermore Mr Pickles, you’ll probably find that the flying over the village is the Dead side join, which is a perfectly legal manoeuvre.