Momentary Lapse
Our common ground expands all the time.
DSA development had THY commitment to base aircraft before any work on the terminal and infrastructure started; also believe that FR had committed (albeit they probably don't actually pay!) prior to development.
Thinking back - Sheffield (ah, remember that white elephant) was probably purely speculative as it took a lot of persuasion (£££) to get KLMuk to start. At what cost was that little exercise to the local rate payers?
I do agree that in the early days it was all speculative.
Good to have a debat though - have spent more of my life on the M1/M6/M56/M62 corridors than I'd like to calculate.