Dairyground: If you look at Woolsington on Google Earth, you see that Prestwick is actually only a mile or so north of Newcastle airport, a little closer to the terminal than Woolsington itself.
But the old terminal (where I spent a large proportion of my formative years) was in, or at least much closer to, Woolsington.
Isn't Black Callerton closer still?
Re. remote airports. It used to be the case, don't know if it still is, that in order for a remote airport to be officially assigned to a major city, the process was subject to a poll of the incumbent airlines in that city's 'real' airport, in a process administered by IATA.