At a risk of thread drift, almost every town of any size in Germany has an airfield be it powered or a glider field. Thus aviation is a major part of german culture. Why mention this? ...because the UK is not overwhelmed with airfield assets and even if limited to weekends, this airfield could have served the recreation flying community.
Especially as rural airfields do not suffer with noise complaints in the way urban ones do. The more flying clubs there are, the less of a monopoly for the clubs, the cheaper it is the learn to fly, especially if the overheads are low.