Is there any catering at Biggin now? Last time I went there was a few years ago, and while I don’t begrudge the landing fee, there was no catering. I assumed you would need to arrive in a bizjet to be afforded access to a presumably private lounge where food might be on offer. Otherwise a great airport, though I wish they would allow practise ILS approaches to non-residents.
I fly to Biggin relatively regularly nowadays (there is a hangar there, available for servicing and diversions) and there is some training activity going on, but a lot less than the (reportedly) hugely busy scene back in the 1970s and 1980s. I don’t know the reason why it died, but it won’t be the very recent security issues (the chief one which is all over the UK aviation chat sites is that the new management is asking for the CRB check (normally used for jobs with children etc to try to weed out perverts) before issuing the code to the gates to get airside). It may be the landing fee (20 quid – I can’t remember?) which, multiplied by the number of landings during a PPL, makes a PPL cost quite a bit more than at some other places like Redhill.
I don’t think there is any publicly open catering at Biggin, or at least we have never found any. Years ago there used to be quite a big cafe but it is long gone. The best option is Tesco in the village 
Biggin is perhaps the best diversion for Shoreham because you can get a taxi back for £70, which is far less than Lydd (£150 last time anybody I know did it) or Bournemouth (2 trains and loads of messing about).
I have always found Biggin to be very heplful, it has been my preferred option for some time, with helpful staff, a very nice passenger lounge with refreshments avalable and free car park with 24 hour security it is a much better option than Shoreham for picking up a passenger who lives in the Gatwick area.
The price differential between Shoreham and Biggin is soon negated by the charge at Shoreham for what is effectively on street car parking in an unattended field. Add to that the superb service at Biggin ( I walk in to pay for the landing and get a weather and notam information pack of the same quality that I get when flying an airliner ) and the availability of a precision approach should I need it. All in all for me Biggin ticks all the boxes if you are using the aircraft for serious travel, Shoreham is OK if you are just visiting the area but it is just not in the same class as Biggin.
