Historically the CAA did not allow this so e.g. one could not fly the free ILS approaches at Calais. Only the “freelance IRI time” portion of the CB IR could contain overseas flights.
However I have seen someone doing it at Le Touquet and yesterday say this one at Cherbourg
with an instructor (or examiner) and a student. They had been flying the approach as I was landing.
It is great news if one can finally do it.
Well, even if there really was / has been some obscure rule forbidding it, do you really think everybody cares, or knows?
If such training was forbidden, when you send the paperwork off to the CAA to issue the IR, they simply won’t issue it. So that would be an extremely expensive mistake…
The rule most definitely existed. One well known guy who set up a training operation (he doesn’t post here nowadays AFAIK) spent a year trying to get the CAA to agree, and eventually gave up.
???…… Did my IR out of Lydd in 1990, almost all training routes were outside UK. Test was to Ostend.
Revalidated my IR last year in the Isle of Man, which is not UK….
AFAIK a revalidation (which is possible with a freelance CRE/IRR etc) has never had such a restriction. Only the standard FTO-based initial IR training was thus limited, because the FTO had to get its ops manual CAA approved.
G-training goes deep in F-land, I heard things on the RT as far as Beauvais 
Though who cares? at some point you will send to UK CAA a form with landings in France, if the specific licensing guy is OK you get the paper…
You may argue about “local schools business” but it does cost a lot to go to France just to do some training, so at the end only few business will go there no?
Is such a restriction even legally enforceable? Training for an EASA license should be possible in the entire EASA airspace, no?
Well, yes, no doubt you are right, and the CAA does do a lot of rules which are outside its authority, but the practical reality is that if you are a flying school then the CAA “owns you” in the same way as every gun shop is “owned” by the local police chief There are procedures to force such things through but you just p1ss off the CAA and they will make your life hard next time they inspect you.
Actually I don’t see why EASA license training could not be done anywhere in the world, provided the instructor is correctly qualified and it is done through a correctly qualified school. So an FTO in say Berlin should be able to do a training flight to Kathmandu and back. It would be expensive for the student but very enjoyable and a hugely useful piece of flight training Anyone trying to ban this is just being silly. Anyway, what “through a school” really means? It’s nonsense. It’s a purely restrictive practice (which we have to live with in Europe).
Anyway it sounds like this UK CAA restriction has been removed fairly recently.
it does cost a lot to go to France just to do some training, so at the end only few business will go there no?
Depends where you are based. Those in the south east often fly to Lydd but their ILS is often booked solid. I know because I often fly it myself for practice (£20 if you don’t land). And alternatives like Calais and Le Touquet are very close… You would not do this if you are in Birmingham
It has always been the case with IR training, or IR tests, that you would start the day (or more likely the day before) with phone calls to nearby airports with IAPs, to try to book slots… It can be a difficult run-around.
