'Not going to happen': Council boss plays down concerns over Doncaster Sheffield Airport turnover clause

The base rent will be £3.3m a year until 2029, before rising to £5m a year and becoming subject to inflation calculations.

In September 2025, when Oliver Coppard’s South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority gave the green light to release £160m funding, it did so on the condition that money would only be released after the lease was renegotiated.

Council reports have already said that intended changes to the lease will include “clarifying points in relation to turnover rent”.

The current agreement also prevents the council having any shareholding in the airport operator. At the moment, it has sole ownership of FlyDoncaster, the company which will operate the airport.

The council has previously said other intended lease changes include allowing CDC to provide a sublease to FlyDoncaster. It is expected it would be in control of base rent payments charged to FlyDoncaster.

Under the current terms of the lease, the turnover rent clause only applies to sums received by the council and not any third-party operator.

CDC chief executive Damian Allen said of the turnover rent issue: “Obviously what we want to do is avoid any potential consequences of that in terms of any subsidy that comes in.

“If you are SYMCA, you are going to be very concerned about that because any grants that come through, you don’t want them being subject to turnover.

“The reality is the practicalities of that turnover rent clause aren’t going to happen.

“Because we’ve got to be in a position where we could be earning money off it first to get the uplift. Also if you are an operator, which is why we’ve gone down the wholly-owned commercial company route, you insulate yourself from the direct cost because it is a third party incurring those costs, not the council.”

The turnover rent clause also applies to areas like income from airport operators, landing fees and parking fees.

A project spokesperson said the general clause represents “a fair and equitable way of sharing profit going forward”.

They said: “We are working positively with Peel on amendments to our lease agreement, work which should be concluded in the near future, subject to the right procedure and due diligence.

“A turnover rent provision is contained within the superior & sublease but as drafted this will not kick in until the base rent value is exceeded. Should the base rent increase then the turnover rent calculation will kick in. This is understood by all parties and is a fair and equitable way of sharing profit going forward given this is a long-term arrangement.”

The central area of focus for renegotiations is the ‘break points’ in the lease which could allow Peel to terminate the deal should minimum passenger and freight volumes not be met by key dates.

A September report to Mr Coppard and South Yorkshire council leaders warned that “breaks in the favour of the landowner presents the risk that failure to meet the thresholds could render the MCA’s investment abortive”.

It said it believed there would be an “inability to meet the 2036 passenger traffic thresholds”.

At that stage, the thresholds were not public knowledge but the lease was leaked to The Yorkshire Post in January this year and revealed that one million passengers and 13,000 tonnes of freight are required by March 2031, with 2.3 million passengers and 25,000 tonnes of freight by March 2036.

This 2036 passenger figure was 400,000 higher than the most optimistic ‘high case’ estimate which suggested there could be 1.9 million passengers by that point, with a ‘base case’ estimate of 1.4 million.

SYMCA has said the business case for the project is only affordable if ‘high case’ estimates are met.