Doncaster Sheffield Airport - it is time to crack on with unlocking regional funding for generational project: Dan Fell

Both DSA and HAV align squarely with the government’s stated policy aims, including those of departments led by local MPs Ed Miliband (Energy Security and Net Zero) and John Healey (Defence).

DSA is a nationally significant asset with a 3,000m runway, excellent connectivity, and access to a catchment of 5.4 million people. Its reopening — alongside the Gateway East business park, now home to Holtec Britain — would trigger a wave of high-value activity, complementing regional assets like the Advanced Manufacturing Park at Waverley.

HAV’s business case is similarly robust. With credible investors, £1.4bn in reservations, and a wide range of applications — including in defence, logistics and tourism – its Airlander aircraft will reshape low-emissions air transport. From its new Doncaster base, HAV could catalyse a world-class green aerospace cluster. Yet progress is being needlessly held back.

Delays in accessing the National Wealth Fund (NWF) —designed explicitly for projects like this — could hinder HAV’s development in the UK and the creation of hundreds of advanced manufacturing jobs in a city that is crying out for them.

A modest, timely public contribution from the NWF would unlock planning, crowd-in private capital, and accelerate delivery of HAV’s UK operations. The Treasury-backed fund’s hesitancy is inexplicable and risks gifting this opportunity to international competitors. There is a moment here to be seized or lost.

These projects — DSA, HAV, Holtec — are more than the sum of their parts.

Together, they form a coherent, mutually reinforcing cluster that reduces risk and increases return. This kind of thinking — strategic, collaborative, place-based — is happening across South Yorkshire. Yet government mechanisms often force disjointed and tactical behaviour, with funds like the NWF somehow missing the big picture, however well we paint it.

Bluntly, it should not be this difficult for local business and local government to help deliver national objectives. Frustratingly, we have seen this before. Doncaster’s University Technical College — now one of the country’s best — took years to approve, despite obvious local support and perfect policy alignment. We cannot afford to repeat that mistake.

The call from employers at the Doncaster Business Conference was loud and clear: “crack on” and “red carpet, not red tape.” With business confidence finely balanced, now is the time for bold, joined-up action.

To its credit, government has committed £30m of infrastructure support to DSA. But that intent must now be matched, urgently, by others. Simply put, it’s time to unlock regional funding for DSA and for the NWF to do its job by contributing to businesses like HAV.

The cost of delay is rising but, with platforms like the AMP in place, the prize is nothing less than a globally competitive aviation sector that benefits the local, regional and national economy. It’s time to “crack on”.

Dan Fell is Chief Executive of Doncaster Chamber of Commerce