The planning decision which killed off any chance of Bentwaters returning to limited civil use was a classic example of how the UK is really governed.
The decision was forced by relatively few wealthy and well-connected incomers, either second-homers or commuting to London, exploiting their influence over politicians.
They presented arguments to support the case for permanent closure that were absurd, eg "there is no unemployment in the area" when at the time it ran at 15%, and "Music will die at Snape" when it had lived successfully for 50 years with Bentwaters operating as a 24/7 USAF base.
The case for re-opening on a very reduced scale was good, well presented and popular, except among the rich incomers who wanted the area preserved as a twee rural retreat of the 19th Century, where local yokels - "my little man who does the plumbing, darling, " - would work for cash at half the minimum wage while drawing benefits.
But the case was lost, and so was another tiny piece of democracy. John Prescott was the responsible politician, and he couldn't get his nose far enough up his wealthy friends' bottoms, sniffing out money for the Party.
But the runway is still there, as far as I know. And the local farmer who acquired the site is a very shrewd businessman indeed, who created a nationwide storage and haulage business based on another airfield in Suffolk, long before he got Bentwaters.
Watch this space, is my view. The great London Airports capacity increase plan is coming apart at the seams, has done so in fact, as it was bound to do. A 3Km runway could be very useful.