A last ditch attempt to arrest the Wellesbourne house building steamroller is being held in the form of a public meeting this Wednesday 23rd October 2019. Details below:
Very sadly it seems that while there are hopes that the airfield will remain open, at least some of the tenants are to be evicted. See Save wellesbourne Airfield.
It’s hard to see how this great airfield can continue with it’s heart torn out.
Here’s the Council’s statement:
https://www.stratford.gov.uk/news/press.cfm/current/1/item/136611
White Knights? Fairies? don’t know what to believe in now!
Amazing developments. A few days ago the court case (to stop the owner closing the airfield) was lost, and just now the council has started a compulsory purchase order! It is a very rare case of a council (local govt) having a pair of balls.
alioth true am lucky the people I visit live nearby and give me a lift
RobertL18C wrote:
The number of convenient grass airfields/farm strips in the UK is in the hundreds – the difference in utility between an aircraft that can land in both types, tarmac and air strip, and one that can’t, must be relevant. Many of the people I visit the most convenient airfield is a farm strip.
You may be in the minority, though, if you’re going places and visiting people who can give you a lift.
There’s already huge holes in the UK where there is no useful airfield with services, and the farm strips don’t make up for it. For instance, I have friends in Weston-super-Mare. But with both WSM and Filton gone, and the cost of Bristol airport for a weekend exceeding my fuel costs of getting there, the only useful airfield is actually Gloucestershire which is miles away but is replete with useful ground transportation (nearby train station within easy distance on a Brompton, car hire at the airport, taxis available). None of the farm strip options have any useful ground transportation and are at least an hours driving each way from WSM due to all being in the middle of nowhere down narrow country lanes, and asking my friends to drive 2 hours down narrow lanes to pick me up seems like imposing on them. There’s also the problem of getting PPR in many cases (no one answers the phone).
There’s also people who go flying to visit new places where they don’t necessarily know anyone who can give them a lift. For instance, if I wanted to visit Bristol for a weekend out, then Gloucestershire would still end up beating all the farm strips by a country mile (pun intended) simply because it has ground transportation, and none of the farm strips are at all practical due to the absence of ground transportation, and it’s miles away from Bristol.
There’s also the issue of the decline of other things in the UK which makes going somewhere rural less attractive unless you’re going to visit someone who lives there and can ferry you around. For instance, when I stayed at Spanhoe to do the stuff for the permit renewal down there, while it was nice to have the Spanhoe lodge right next door (and it’s a really nice little hotel, and during the day we had fun tinkering with the plane) – due to the rural pub crisis in England, none of the villages within walking distance still had a pub or a restaurant, just closed buildings where the pub used to be with a forlorn “For sale” sign. You end up having to spend £70 on taxis just to visit somewhere with a reasonable restaurant.
If it were my land?
If it were my land I would sell a little bit for housing and use the millions to improve the airfield for everyone.
Capitaine wrote:
Unfortunately once it becomes ‘property development’ people with potentially very deep pockets will pay to make the problem go away.
It degrades into a war of attrition. Tenants have no security to develop their business. Why put money into a facility upgrade when the landlord wants you out asap. The landlord then makes life difficult. Strange local bye laws appear which inhibit your business and customers. Soon as the tenant argues, landlord strikes him as an unruly tenant and can ’irritate’’ the lease. It is all that the locals talk about, and that in turn plays on your stress levels. Running your business is tough enough, without the stress of aggressive landlords ruining your day.
I get both sides. At Wellsbourne you have a very large area of land, a gizzillion houses can be built, as opposed to an airfield on said land, paying a pittance in annual rent. If it were my land? My understanding is that the land owners are not aviation people.
I do have some experience of this under the Landlord and Tenants Act 1954. Essentially as long as the tenant keeps paying the rent and doesn’t break the terms of the original contract it becomes a holdover lease and it’s near impossible to evict (unless there’s some kind of break clause). Unfortunately once it becomes ‘property development’ people with potentially very deep pockets will pay to make the problem go away.
