Leeds City Council had a very strange debate on this in the earlier part of the year. A motion was proposed by the leader of the (then) opposition to commission a report to investigate the pros and cons of selling some/all of the Council's stake in the airport. Note, it wasn't a yes/no vote on whether to sell the airport, it was just a vote on whether to prepare a feasibility study to then allow a more meaningful debate on the matter. The (then) ruling Labour group used their majority to defeat the proposal. I found it strange for 2 main reasons:
- the airport is jointly owned by the 5 local authorities in the area. Any debate such as this must surely be done at a regional level, not just from within Leeds.
- Why did the ruling Labour Group vote against a feasibility study? Voting against privatisation is fine if that vote has been taken with all of the facts in front of you, but effectively voting against something to give you those facts just seems a dereliction of duty. It's the local council equivalent of putting your hands over your ears and shouting 'la la la la' in order to try and avoid listening to something!
I don't know whether privatisation, either full or part, would be beneficial or not. It has certainly benefited a number of regional airports that are of a similar size to LBA and there remain very few UK airports under complete local authority control. The transfer of equity from public to private has also been done for considerable sums of money. Those two facts alone and the prospect of a 'win win' for the area would have me chomping at the bit to find out more. Clearly more than half of the city councillors back in March decided they didn't. As I say, strange.
As PTH says, the council changes in June means the balance of power has changed. Cllr. Carter who proposed the motion back in March is now leader of the council and barring any nonsense which means a motion cannot be re-proposed, I hope he'll try again.
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