Rate payers of Gloucestshire beware!
The sale of Staverton will produce F**kall for the ratepayers.
In it's current form, its a wonderful G/A facility and has a promising future in it's present form, however, to convert it to a facility capable of making a profit would entail an investment of many millions of £s to:
1 - extend the runway and strengthen the current taxiways, provide proper aprons for parking big jets.
2 - install new navaids.
3 - upgrade taxiways and other facilities (lighting, instrument approaches terminal etc, all of which are not capable of handling much above an ATR at the moment.)
4 - market the place to attract investment from new operators capable of sustaining the many years of growth it would need to provide a return on such an investment.
All of a sudden, the superb facility at Staverton, soesnt look such a fantastic investment, in fact some may think it's worth more as real estate than as an airport which doesn't make any worthwhile financial return to the ratepayers of the area.
A recent example of this is what happened at Norwich.
A thriving regional airport, jointly owened by city and county councils, requires investment of up to £30 million to improve facilities over the next 5 years.
Said councils panic, "let's sell it on as soon as we can", initial price £20 million. Along comes potential buyer, looks at books, offers £11 million, offer rejected. 12 months down the line, another buyer (venture capitalists) come along, offer £10 million, offer accepted.
Bearing in mind the annual budget of the County Council is over £1 billlion, the city and county council get about £3million each, another £2 million has to be put toward the pension fund to protect entitled workers, solicitors and accounatnts feesnearly £2 million!!!. .
Specualtion has that the venture capitlists are just in it for a quick buck, and that they will sell on in 3 - 5 years time.
The airport will always be there, and it probaly won't expend much more than it has done so to date, but it will always have it's own place in the commercial market.
My point is, that Staverton has very few prospects of being privately run without significant investment, and this is not going to materialise when Bristol is so close, and the land is worth more as a housing estate than it ever will be as an airport.