I won't be going to Lydd again in a hurry. On the way to Spain VFR last September, we hit unforecast bad weather, such that we needed to divert. Our ETA Lydd was 10 mins before their published opening time. Radio calls to Lydd were fruitless, apart from an assistant who answered but was unable to clear us to do anything. When the controller finally came on the radio about 2 mins before we were due to touch down, he refused a clearance until precisely opening time. In the 10 to 15 mins before our arrival, we'd been scratching around in foul weather with nowhere else to go and subsequently had to stay there waiting for a weather clearance for 3 hours.
We were extremely pleased to be on the ground. But to cap it all, Lydd aren't members of the Strasser scheme so they charged us a (we thought v hefty) landing fee. That's a real disincentive to go there in emergency. If I'd known, we'd have squeezed into Headcorn instead. The controller on duty that day deserved a kick up the *rse for refusing clearance until precisely opening time. We thought a Pan call was not necessary to force the issue and hey - opening a few minutes early if you're there surely isn't a big deal when you know that the inbound is on a weather diversion and is not good looking out of the window. Don't give me 'insurance' as a reason.
How refreshingly nice the refuelling staff were. Shame on that ATC bloke.
Rant over. This is Pprune, so I'm expecting lots of flak, but I tell it how we both felt in the cockpit (and we are both calm and unflappable blokes with plenty of experience).