£11m is being spent on improvements at the wrong airport

From: Stuart Beresford, Carr Road, Gringley on the Hill, Doncaster.

Leeds Bradford International Airport has just announced an £11m expansion programme (Yorkshire Post, December 7).

This last year has seen an airport that, at times, has not been fit for purpose. Through security and straight into a duty free shop, full of shoppers browsing the shelves.

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Out of the shop and into another three queues, one for a newspaper, one for Palma and another for Dublin. This is one of the most overcrowded airports in the UK.

Using Leeds Airport can be a nightmare. No departure gate is the same, they are all different, and if you happen to be departing when one is arriving, then you can be held up in midstream.

If you are lucky, you may board via one of the covered gates, but most likely you end up walking in the rain across the apron.

Operationally, it is the highest airport in UK and can suffer some appalling weather. The runway is orientated NW/SE and can get some really strong cross winds from the south west. Getting there is also a nightmare. The airport has been there since the Second World War and the access from major trunk routes has never been addressed.

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By comparison, Doncaster Robin Hood Airport is losing more and more business. It has an airport building built for purpose and a runway that is some 2,000ft longer than Leeds and at just 55ft above sea level not 655ft, as at Leeds.

The infrastructure is already better than Leeds, but given a couple of years, should see a link with the M18. It is only one mile from the main line between Edinburgh and Kings Cross.

If an interchange station was to be built at Rossington, then passengers could be in London in one hour 40 minutess.

For some reason, Doncaster is not getting the business it deserves.

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Yet, at peak times, even the people of south Leeds and Wakefield could be in Robin Hood faster than Leeds. The captive area south of Leeds all the way down through Sheffield to Chesterfield could be in Robin Hood within an hour. There is plenty of car parking and the area is not surrounded by dense areas of population.

Common sense prevents me believing that there is any future in any further development at Leeds, except to address present deficiencies.

The present Government should make Doncaster Robin Hood part of their transport policy and force the various agencies to put more business into Robin Hood.

It could solve the unemployment problems in Doncaster and put essential hi-tech industry into the region.