Doncaster Sheffield Airport: Richard Tice rejects Ros Jones's offer to accelerate search for private investors
An offer by Mayor of Doncaster Ros Jones to speed up the search for private investors in Doncaster Sheffield Airport in an attempt to head off a £57m loan for the project being cancelled has been rejected by Reform.
Mayor Jones published an open letter making the offer on Thursday afternoon following a series of dramatic developments in recent days surrounding the airport, which have included interventions from Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage.
An emergency council meeting has been called on May 11 where Reform and Conservative councillors are seeking to revoke a £57m loan for the project which was agreed in November. They argue they did not have the full information required to make a decision after a subsequent leak of the airport lease in January to The Yorkshire Post revealed a series of controversial previously-secret clauses.
City of Doncaster Council is seeking to reopen the airport, which closed in 2022, via a council-owned company called FlyDoncaster after being unable to secure a private operator. The overall cost of the project is expected to be £193m.
Under the November funding agreement for the loan, the council intends to start a soft market test for private sector investment within six months of gaining relevant certifications for reopening the airport – which are expected to be received next year.
But Mayor Jones said she was now willing to “revisit this” and change the timetable.
She said: “We can go out to soft market test for private sector investment this year, commencing as soon as possible.
"However, this must be done in parallel with the existing programme and decisions.
"To remove the borrowing certainty over the medium-term now not only causes delays but impacts immediately on the programme viability and continuation, not to mention council finances if the borrowing decision is rescinded.”
But the offer has already been rejected by Reform, who argue there is “no prospect” of securing a private investor under the current arrangements. Earlier this week, it put forward a proposal to buy the DSA site as an alternative to the current plan.
Responding to Mayor Jones’s offer, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice told The Yorkshire Post: “There is no prospect of securing a private investor under a lease arrangement.
"I have already had this confirmed to me by investors who previously looked at DSA. They need a freehold.”
Mayor Jones said she did not accept Reform’s argument they lacked information on the borrowing, given they agreed a council budget which included the £57m funding plan in late February weeks after the lease had been leaked.
She said Reform had put forward a motion stipulating a series of governance conditions they wanted in place before money was drawn from the loan.
She said: “The Reform UK motion accepted the borrowing for a second time within the budget framework.
"To argue now that they did not have sufficient information, when they had the same information then and chose to write transparency conditions on drawdown, is illogical. It is also opportunistic.”