Doncaster Sheffield Airport: Consortium complains about council's handling of rejected investment proposal
A PRIVATE consortium seeking to take over Doncaster Sheffield Airport from the public sector has made a complaint about how its interest in the matter has been handled by Doncaster Council.
An international consortium said late last year it was offering a £100m deal to council bosses to take over Doncaster Sheffield Airport and 126 acres of surrounding development land with a pledge to invest further “vast sums” into developing the site.
But City of Doncaster Council said it was not the time to consider private sector offers as it believed the project requires the public sector to be the “investor of first resort” to offer the greatest chance of success. It is currently progressing £193m plans to reopen the airport itself via a council-owned company called FlyDoncaster after an initial procurement exercise failed to secure a private investor.
It has now emerged that a complaint has been lodged with the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman by the consortium. The council has said it is yet to be contacted by the Ombudsman but will defend its position if contact is made.
A letter sent to the council’s monitoring officer which has been leaked on social media said the complaint concerns “the conduct and decision-making of the council’s chief executive” Damian Allen, with the matter now awaiting a case handler. It claimed there had been a refusal to “engage meaningfully” with its proposals.
The letter added that the consortium “is increasingly frustrated by the delays inherent in the Ombudsman process” and asks whether the authority will participate in mediation.
A spokesperson for the consortium, which is led by Marbella-based Labyrinth International Investments, confirmed to The Yorkshire Post the letter had come from them.
The spokesperson said: “Whilst it is unfortunate the details of our formal Ombudsman complaint have been released in the public domain, we can confirm the case is live, ongoing and we are committed to a fair independent review and resolution.”
They added that its scheme would be able to deliver infrastructure “much sooner” than under the council’s plans and its proposal “deserves to be fully scrutinised by councillors and the public as there is an alternative choice to the current ‘drip feed’ of already-stretched public funds”.
The statement added: "We remain highly committed and focused on acquiring DSA and delivering a world-class vision and real world aviation eco-system for Doncaster with the best chance to succeed, with the least risk to already-scarce public funds”.
A City of Doncaster Council spokesman said: “The council’s preferred approach is always to seek productive dialogue and engagement to discuss and remedy any matters that arise as part of our governance and decision-making processes internally in the first instance.
“The council has not received any correspondence from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman that it has received a complaint or that it is investigating one. Also, the Ombudsman, if it decides to proceed, would investigate the decision-making of the council and not the conduct of an individual officer. If the council is contacted by the Ombudsman, we will consider the complaint and defend our position accordingly.”
The Ombudsman does not comment on ongoing complaints.
The situation has come to light ahead of an extraordinary council meeting on Friday which includes a resolution seeking to establish a formal protocol for handling “future speculative and unsolicited private sector bids and proposals” for the airport.
In regard to the consortium’s interest in DSA, the council said it had “received and assessed approaches from this group through its standard due diligence process for speculative investment enquiries”, with a formal briefing of councillors taking place in November 2025.
A spokesperson added: “The council and its funding partners remain committed to securing private financial investment in the airport as soon as conditions allow.
"The procurement exercise demonstrated that the public sector must often act as investor of first resort in order to unlock private sector confidence — a well-established principle in major infrastructure projects. We will return to the market at the appropriate time to hold an open and competitive process to identify an investment partner with the necessary funding and experience to provide the best return for the council and the wider public sector.
“All members will receive a comprehensive officer briefing ahead of this Friday’s Extraordinary Council Meeting, setting out the complete and accurate record of the timeline, the procurement process, and the council’s progress toward the full reopening of the airport.”
It is currently planned that ‘soft market’ testing for private sector investment would begin within six months of gaining Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) certification for the airspace. A CAA decision on getting airspace reinstated for DSA is currently not expected until late May 2027.
It has previously been revealed that up to £210m in further infrastructure spending may be required to deliver the full benefits of the project to reopen Doncaster Sheffield Airport and develop land around it on top of what is already proposed.
Around £50m of work may be needed to redesign Junction 3 of the M18, along with between £90m to £160m of infrastructure work, largely relating to power, on the neighbouring logistics park Gateway East.
Public sector bosses hope Gateway East can become a 'world-leading' home to sustainable aviation and advanced manufacturing businesses.
Financing for the M18 work has been provisionally identified from South Yorkshire’s share of Government's Transport for City Regions funding, which is available to be spent from April 2027.
Speaking to The Yorkshire Post last week, Mr Allen said an advantage to securing private investment at the right moment is that it would potentially free up currently-committed devolution funding towards infrastructure work. Most of the council’s spending on the project is due to come from its share of South Yorkshire devolution funding to 2050.
“Everyone will be interested when we are running at a profit or even before. We would obviously want to derisk the public investment as soon as possible - of course we would,” he said.
"There are two reasons for that; one, we should shift the burden of risk to the market and two it displaces subsequent income from the Gainshare so we can invest it in other economic development and growth – which incidentally may involve putting it into some of that infrastructure we’ve just talked about.”
He said private sector investment in infrastructure would also be expected.