Hardly a rent-a-mob...................Cornwall Council's head of finance has said that Cornwall Airport Newquay is not currently viable as it looks at how to address its current financial crisis. The airport has seen a dramatic drop in income this year due to the double hit of the collapse of regional airline FlyBe and the coronavirus pandemic. And on Tuesday (October 20) Cornwall councillors heard from the authority's top finance officer, who said that it was "not a viable company".
The admission came at a meeting of the council's customer and support services overview and scrutiny committee today. It follows councillor Stephen Rushworth asking what the situation was with the airport and whether the council would have to provide financial support to keep it open. He said that the airport was important for Cornwall and that there was concern about its future.
Tracie Langley, the council's chief operating officer, said that the council was asking the Government to provide financial support to help the airport but said that, to date, the Government had only offered to provide a loan. Ms Langley said: "Cornwall Airport Limited is not a viable company at the moment." She said that while the Government offered a loan that was not what was wanted by the council and said that the council had its own ability to secure a loan if necessary. However she said that as the airport itself was not currently viable it would not be able to secure a loan itself.
Last month the council's Cabinet agreed that it would use £5.6million of £10.2m of funding which has been earmarked for Spaceport Cornwall to bail out the airport if it was unable to secure funding from the Government.
Ms Langley told the committee: "If our Cabinet believe that they want to make cash available to the airport because the Government has not been able to help they have already made it known that they will utilise the money we have for the spaceport."