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Martin-Baker and London Chalgrove Airport ?
Blackfriar -
Waiting to see if a gong or seat in the House of Lords is announced.
In 2016 (as Chugalug kindly observes above) ownership of Chalgrove transferred from MoD to the Homes & Communities Agency who seemed set to evict Martin-Baker in favour of 3500 homes. On 1st Jan 2018, right in the middle of the trial, the HCA was re-titled Homes England, with the same address, Chairman and CEO etc.
By March 2018 after M-B unexpectedly reversed their plea and were fined £1.1m, Homes England were publicly consulting on their new (ie modified) plan. This included Chalgrove New Market Town, reduced to only 3000 homes and three schools on part of the airfield.
More relevant to this thread, Martin-Baker would be allowed to keep part of the airfield, and someone would build an entirely new runway (26 – approx 5400 ft) on the north side of the field.
So there might be no gongs or peerages for a year or so, but Martin-Baker would get the benefit of security of tenure for their long-established factory
and a brand new runway. Perhaps spitting up £1.1 mil and keeping schtumm was a small price to pay.
https://www.chalgroveairfield.com/en/homepage.php
For more detail -
https://estatecreate-storage.s3.amaz...vD2h384xFrE%3D
Caveats - As far as I can see, all this ‘development’ is still only at proposal and consultation stage. No actual planning application has yet been submitted and it’s currently stalled while the ‘emerging’ South Oxon DC Local Plan is with the Housing Minister for approval - Its ‘progress’ is shown here -
Local Plan 2034 - South Oxfordshire District Council
Would a brand new runway get past the public (who don’t seem to have noticed it yet) or past the South Oxfordshire Planning Committee or even a public inquiry ? Would the Minister dare to call it in and give it forced approval ?
If there were to be no new runway, Martin-Baker would presumably want to retain use of the current runway 31, not just for their two Meteors, but for their corporate operations and for customers.
What leverage then ?
LFH
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