Doubt over Doncaster Sheffield Airport will only increase after CAA report
Further doubt has been cast over the viability of the reopening of Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA). The overarching sentiment towards the project has been positive. Who wouldn’t want a fully functioning airport and aviation hub in South Yorkshire? A reopened DSA could transform the local economy.
But doubts continue to persist as to whether local leaders will be able to deliver the project. Earlier this year, there was the wrangling over the £57m loan. And the release of £160m of devolution funding from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) hinges on a successful renegotiation of the airport's lease with the landowner, the Peel Group. Renegotiations which remain clouded in mystery.
A report looking at plans to reinstate airspace at DSA by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has only poured fuel on the flames of uncertainty.
It said passenger and freight forecasts for the DSA project are "particularly speculative" with the wider airline industry currently facing "significant uncertainty and disruption".
That is particularly concerning when the disruption faced by the airline industry is even impacting Heathrow Airport, which earlier this week revealed that it saw passenger numbers fall by 1.8 per cent this June, with 7.2 million travellers using the airport compared with 7.4 million in the same month last year.
The document from the CAA was published on Tuesday afternoon but deleted from an online portal hours later. Only shrouding the reopening project in further uncertainty.
The reopening project is brimming with potential but local leaders need to temper the optimism with cold-blooded realism. Those behind the project also need to be transparent, given the amount of taxpayer money that is at stake. Otherwise public confidence in the project may rapidly ebb away.