The Prime Minister’s backing for Doncaster Sheffield Airport is significant

While Labour has in the past called for DSA to be reopened and the Chancellor’s speech earlier this year backed the airport, the Prime Minister’s support is the strongest indication yet that it is a question of when rather than if.

The Prime Minister is right to call the closure a “huge missed opportunity”. That is something that campaigners have been keen to emphasise in their fight to reopen the airport.

There has always been a sense that DSA never really realised its potential. However, the question still remains as to whether the local authorities will be able to run it in a financially viable way in the long run, given the inability of the previous operator to make it work.

Sir Keir visited Doncaster yesterday as part of an announcement that an additional £30m of funding from South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard would go towards creating a sustainable aviation hub next to the airport.

This support for DSA is to be welcomed but given the taxpayer money that is at stake, caution needs to be exercised. And this caution needs to be coupled with transparency.

The £30m will come from Mr Coppard’s 2026/27 funding settlement and a mayoral investment fund. City of Doncaster Council has already allocated £105m to the scheme, from its share of devolved funding given to the region.

While there is an opportunity to be realised, there is an obvious risk. Taxpayers will not accept millions of pounds being poured into an airport that they feel will have little direct impact on them, if services and infrastructure in their neighbourhoods continue to deteriorate.