"Going to happen": Doncaster Sheffield Airport reopening promise by council boss as £160m lease deal looms

The project has already been subject to a series of timeline delays while attempts to renegotiate a controversial 125-year lease agreement between the council and landowner Peel are ongoing and a decision on whether airspace can be reinstated is not due to be made until May 2027.

Mayor of Doncaster Ros Jones had repeatedly pledged her ambitions to reopen the airport by spring 2026 in the lead-up to mayoral elections last May.

But in September, after South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard and local council leaders had agreed in principle to release £160m of funding for the scheme to the council, the timeline was amended by Mayor Jones to aim for freight flights by this summer and passenger flights in winter 2027/28. Mr Coppard separately suggested passenger flights would be unlikely until 2028.

Mr Allen said this week: “We are optimistic in terms of our timeframes for cargo in 2026/27 and for the opening for passengers in the winter of 2027/28.”

The release of the £160m funding is dependent on renegotiating several aspects of the lease the council signed with Peel in March 2024 - with that process still to be concluded.

Concerns about break clauses “in favour of the landowner” on achieving passenger number targets above the most optimistic forecasts and “clarifying points in relation to turnover rent” are among the key areas being discussed.

When asked if he could guarantee the airport will reopen given the previous spring 2026 timeline slipping and the processes which still need to be gone through, Mr Allen said dozens of people are already working on the site to prepare it and several phases of a detailed programme plan have already been completed.

He said: “It is happening now, it has been happening for two years. Things don’t happen overnight, they happen because you have a plan.

“No plan goes all the way, you have to be mindful of challenges - things you can control and things you can’t control.

"Politicians state intents, we have to deal with the realities of making it happen. The circumstances around certain things being said at certain times were done with the best available information at the time.

“I can’t predict the future wholly but what we can do is put in place appropriate measures, processes and plans that give us as much assurance as possible.

“[Petitions of] 130,000 people wanted the airport to open - ask the people what they want. They want an airport open and they want to get on with it. We’re getting on with it.”

Mr Allen added: "I've not opened an airport [before] but I've put in place significantly more expensive capital programmes with far more complexity.

“So I know that there is a process that will get us there. So when I said it is going to happen, it is going to happen."

Mr Allen said negotiations around changing the lease are “in their final stages”.

He added: “It is going very positively and we have progressed. In the near future, we’re confident that we’ll have a positive outcome.”

A spokesperson for Mr Coppard’s South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, said the release of funding depends on a number of conditions being met.

They said: “This includes changes to the DSA lease agreement in areas identified as risks within in our public reports.

“As set out in public reports, resolution of the lease conditions is a key issue as it relies on third party agreement. There are also conditions associated with the management of the programme and the final signing of the funding agreement is also required. Work to meet these conditions has continued and positive progress has been made.

“Once all of the conditions are met, SYMCA will be able to release the funding.”

A spokesperson for Peel said: “We do not comment on the detail of commercial discussions.”

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