Oliver Coppard reveals 'virtuous circle' hope for Doncaster Sheffield Airport investment
Money generated from the reopening of Doncaster Sheffield Airport and the creation of an associated sustainable aviation and advanced manufacturing hub next to it can be part of a “virtuous circle” helping to fund further public investment in the site, Oliver Coppard has suggested.
The wider ‘South Yorkshire Airport City’ development plan includes an ambition for a neighbouring logistics park called Gateway East to be developed into a world-leading home for companies specialising in aviation-related industries and technologies.
It has been mooted that business rates from Gateway East will be retained to pay towards investment requirements and mitigate against adverse financial performance.
The South Yorkshire mayor pointed to the plan when asked about Doncaster Council’s auditors recently suggesting the local authority needs to set an upper limit on how much it is ultimately willing to spend on the project.
The council is currently forecasting a £193m cost, with much of the money coming from its share of devolution funding controlled by Mr Coppard’s office.
When asked about his view on the auditor’s suggestion an upper limit on spending is needed, Mr Coppard said: “Spending has to be relative to income. We’ve committed a certain amount of money to the airport and that is our commitment to the project.
“But there are also other ways of funding this project as we move forward, not least through things like business rate retention that we now have access to as part of the investment zone we designated around Gateway East.
“Frankly, if there is a huge amount of income coming from Gateway East and the opportunities that we’re hoping to unlock there then I think it would make sense to invest that money into making the airport thrive and even more successful because that then becomes the virtuous circle that we all want to see.
“I don’t want to sit here and rule out further investment because actually further investment might be exactly what the airport demands because it is proving itself a successful driver of income in its own right.
“It is not as straightforward as saying, ‘Will you put more money in or not?’ Because quite honestly, it might demand it on the basis that it gives you more income back and that’s got to be a good thing. We’re open to that possibility.”
Between £90m to £160m of infrastructure spending will be required to fully develop the Gateway East site, with no current agreement on how that will be funded, while a further £50m of spending is due to be needed to remodel a nearby junction of the M18.
Mr Coppard said the M18 changes would have wider benefits for Doncaster.
“There’s all sorts of opportunities like that; I think it can become a bit binary sometimes when you have these conversations because the benefit to the wider area of investing might be significant.
“Whether you designate that as airport investment or not is sometimes unclear. It is fair to say the investment might be beneficial to the wider area.”
The council’s current funding plan, which involves £57m of borrowing so it can frontload spending on the project in advance of devolution, was recently passed by Doncaster councillors by 42 votes to nine.
Mr Coppard said he was disappointed some Conservative and Reform councillors had voted against the plan after months of due diligence work by his office on the project earlier this year.
“We need every councillor, the whole of the council, the whole of the system, to show private investors, to show airlines that we are full square behind this and they have now undermined that to a certain extent.
“We voted for it as a set of leaders across South Yorkshire unanimously and we took our time getting to that decision because I thought it was incredibly important that we were able to give every leader in South Yorkshire, people responsible for that public money, the evidence and information the required and had a right to expect.
“We took the time to do that work. Nobody from the Tory group or Reform has reached out to me to have a conversation to understand that. I don’t think it is fair or reasonable for them to say they’ve done that on the basis of their objections to the finances or the lack of private investment.
“I’m a major stakeholder in this - to not reach out to me feels like a failure on their part and therefore a disingenuous argument they are trying to make.”