Being a bit rubbish at social media, I've only just stumbled across this thread/conversation - probably a good thing really. For anyone who has or had any interest in the unfortunate events, I have some clarifications and corrections which may be useful -
1. CAHC was forbidden from setting up as a charity by the landlord (Newquay Airport/Cornwall Council). I will happily provide a copy of the original Lease Heads of Terms expressly excluding this in clause 17, as provided by the then Airport MD, Al Titterington. So it was set up as an LLC but always run expressly along non-profit principles, with the officers either taking no financial benefit at all or, in my case as I gave up my job to run the business on a daily basis, taking a minimal salary, £12k to 16k pa, much less than any other paid member of staff.
2. CAHC's lease was always renewable and from January 2019 we were in negotiations with the landlord over terms for a new 10 year lease to commence in July 2020. Negotiations lasted beyond the renewal date, leading to CAHC occupying its premises under a Tenancy at Will until terms were finally agreed in December 2020 and a deal for a further 10 years was struck. I am happy to provide a copy of the letter from the then CAL estates manager confirming agreement on the new lease and advising that the lease documents were being prepared for signature. AFTER we agreed the deal CAL then reneged on the most important part of the agreement, so we had to pull out.
3. We then asked, begged, pleaded for a meeting to find a solution and, after many months of simply ignoring our requests, the Council finally agreed to a meeting in October 2021 for the express purpose of reaching agreement on the new lease. In order that meaningful discussions could take place, the meeting was attended by Cllr David Harris (Dep. Ledr), Cllr. Anne Double, Cllr. John Fitter, the Trustees of the Cornwall Aerospace education Trust (yes, we had set up our own charity to run our education operation and take over the whole shebang in due course, once we got a new lease in place).
4. In the October '21 meeting the Council's representative without any warning at all dropped the bombshell that our lease would NOT be renewed, that it would be terminated as of the end of March 2021, but that we would have an additional 12 months to relocate. This was the first time we had any implication that our lease was not going to be renewed and was devastating news. Critically, Cllr. Harris, the deputy leader of Cornwall Council claimed to be completely surprised at this announcement and personally committed CC to assisting CAHC to find a suitable new site (having discussed at length the unique and challenging requirements) AND to assisting CAHC to meet the costs of relocation. Proposals for relocation sites were requested from us.
5. Within 4 weeks we had prepared preliminary proposals for relocation to between 6 and 9 alternative sights (some overlapped), together with conservative cost estimates. Please bare in mind that disassembly/transport/reassembly of a VC10 was costed at £400-500,000 by industry specialists, unless we could tow it directly to the new site, so we focused on sites within the scope of towing.
6. From November 2021 to September 2022 we distributed these proposals and costings to Council officers, Councillors and MPs and pleaded with Cornwall Council for an opportunity to discuss the proposals, so that we could learn which, if any they preferred, understand the shortcomings and concerns and discuss find a solution. All of our requests for a meeting were ignored. Eventually we were granted a meeting with the CAL MD and Glenn Caplin-Grey of the Council who used the meeting to blackmail us into signing an agreement to vacate by 31/3/23 (or they would lock the gates) and who then stated that they had not seen any of the relocation proposals from CAHC. So we provided hard copies of the proposals for their consideration, which they took away. We were then literally dismissed and 3 days later were told that none of our proposals were acceptable - no opportunity to discuss them was given. Laterly we received draft falsified minutes of the meeting which gave no true illustration of what we discussed - I am happy to provide a copy of those incorrect minutes, together with the accurate minutes prepared by ourselves and the full audio recording of the meeting which we prepared at the meeting, in full knowledge of all attendees.
7. In November 2022 Cllr. Louis Gardner meeting of the full Council stated that a) CAHC had never been led to believe that we could renew our lease and that b) he and his advisers had not seen any evidence that CAHC had been prevented from opening as a charity. This was significant because council representatives had stated several times that they could not support or assist CAHC because it was not a charity. However, some weeks before the Council meeting I had by email provided Cllr. Gardner with a copy of the Heads of Terms referenced in point 1. (above) and a copy of the letter from the Estates Manager referenced in point 2. (above), so these statements by him were clearly inaccurate and misleading. When I raised a formal conduct complaint regarding this misinformation by Cllr. Gardner, my complaints were rejected (by the Council's own regulator) due to grammatical/structural errors.
8. A solution at last! - In late November CAHC was offered the opportunity by Rundle Whelden to rent/buy land for a new site opposite the Cornwall air Ambulance Trust which was a great solution. We made a pre-application submission to the planning department which was successful (Cornwall Council waived the fee for this, £1,200 - this was the only financial assistance that CAHC received during this entire situation).
9. In January 2023 the SDL Foundation approached CAHC and, once we had made our plans fully available to them, met with their principles, visited the current operation and the new site and been through their due diligence procedures, offered CAHC £1m to assist with the relocation and development of the new site. These funds were to be introduced without any strings attached, which shows the faith that SDL had in the project and the management of our organisation.
10. The SDL Foundation then approached Glenn Caplin-Grey of Cornwall Council directly to prove the credibility of the structure and project and to help negotiate permission for CAHC to remain at the existing location and pay the full commercial rent until October 2023, by which time planning should have been completed and sufficient hard standing created at the new site to accept the VC10 and BAC1-11, so that the relocation project could be undertaken from November.
11. However, at the beginning of March '23 Cornwall Council summarily rejected any option for CAHC to remain on the original site beyond the end of March and gave CAHC just 11 days to vacate.
12. As of mid-april 2024 the original CAHC museum site remains completely empty, unoccupied and unused. Cornwall Council refuse to confirm whether they have received any rent from the site since CAHC left, even under a Freedom of Information request by the Cornish press.
It is hurtful to read that it is all my fault, that my head was in the sand and that I only had my own interests in mind. Foolish people who have no true knowledge or understanding of the events often make sweeping, damning statements on social media, careless of the damage that they do. From my perspective I was lucky enough to have the chance to be involved in creating a great and unique museum, one which had a tremendous future potential and one that I spent the 4 years fighting in every way I, and my colleagues, could think of to save and develop into the aviation heritage/education centre that this part of the UK so desperately needs. We put everything we could into this cause, worked tirelessly and continuously 24/7 under considerable stress, abandoning any normal form of home life, holidays, financial security and public reputation to fight a Council that seemed inexplicably determined not just to remove the museum from its current site, but to obstruct any realistic attempt to find a solution by which it could continue. Obviously, we failed, but at least we tried.
I will grant that we may have been naive, but only in that we dared to think we might succeed because what we were doing was right. To Martin, Pobjoy and anyone else who feels that I or we brought this upon ourselves, I am happy to answer any questions, provide supporting copies of correspondence and documentation or engage in dialogue to promote a better understanding of events - on one proviso. If I can prove that the points I have made are true and factual, that you will state, in all of the locations you have previously commented on this matter, that your previous comments were in error and that you now retract them. Given the comments you have made about me, I think that that is the least you could do.
Richard Spencer-Breeze
Last edited by Ric Breeze; 26th Apr 2024 at 07:10.