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City's airport dream crashes to the ground
THE dream of an airport for the city of Sheffield has finally crashed to the ground after councillors approved a plan to turn much of Sheffield City Airport in Tinsley into a business park instead.
Sheffield Council's City Centre, South and East Planning and Highways Area Board banged the final nail into the ill-fated airport's coffin when it approved a plan for offices and light industry to be built on the site.
Sheffield is now the biggest major city in Europe without its own airport.
The redevelopment plan effectively brings to an end any lingering chance that the facility could be revived. Under the plan most of the runway will be dug up and the airport's hangars will have to be taken down in the next few months.
The airport, which opened in 1997, ran its last scheduled flight five years ago, and since then has only operated private charter planes and helicopters.
A recent report commissioned by the council revealed it was losing 400,000 a year and its future was probably unviable following the opening and success of the nearby Robin Hood Airport. Both are owned by Manchester-based Peel Holdings.
But the decision was condemned by Lib Dems as "the death of air transport in England's fourth largest city", and one the city could live to regret.
Coun John Hesketh said: "This decision to end the life of the airport means there will be no chance in the future for an airport. The decision is short-sighted and narrow-minded.
"I am saddened. It is strategic madness to make this decision."
He added that because of Sheffield's hilly landscape the site of the present airport was the only viable location in the city. Losing it would mean the city would lose the chance of its own airport forever.
But Coun Ian Saunders said Peel Holdings were not obliged under the terms of the original sale to maintain the site as an airport beyond July this year - meaning that refusing the business park wouldn't necessarily "save" the airport.
He added that decisions had already been taken in other places, notably at Peel Holdings, which had already impacted on the city airport.
"Peel decided to go to Doncaster," he said. "It has a long runway that can take the new Airbus, which even Heathrow and Gatwick can't.
"This is probably the only site we have got and we are effectively killing it. But we have to separate making decisions of the heart and making decisions in the head."
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Weather for Sheffield
Saturday 26 May 2012
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