Booker Stadium Anyone?
I've been flying, mostly gliders and motor gliders at Booker since 1982. During that time I've seen the airfield becoming more and more commercialised, to the detriment of the gliding Club. There can be no doubt in Captain Awkward's and his team's motives towards the gliding Club at Booker. It was one of the major factors that made me reluctantly decide to move elsewhere.
The airfield had been leased to and managed by AAA, a subsidiary of British Airways. They paid Wycombe District Council a modest rent for the 'head lease' which is reviewable every seven years, and expires in 2014. A couple of years ago, BA sold this lease off to Arora, a hotel company who has built hotels on many of the airports where BA operates. This was presented to the airfield tenants as a 'fait accompli'. I would question whether BA acted in their shareholders best interests in selling this asset off without a public tender process which would have enabled other potentially interested parties to bid. Anyway, what's done is done and we can be sure that Arora will not have taken an interest in Booker for altruistic motives.
The whole debate about the stadium is a smokescreen in my opinion. The real reason that they want to grab Booker is so they can put a load of houses on it as well as possibly some industrial units. That is where the profit is and the stadium is only a pretext to build on the airfield in my view.
They have teamed up with a property developer who is supposedly bearing half the cost of the 'feasibility studies'. The council also say that no decision has yet been made and that no site is being favoured. This is at odds with the developer's (who are the council's partner in this enterprise) publicly stated position that Booker is their preferred site. How can the council now claim to be impartial?
The 'feasibility study' was published on line and made no mention of the gliding club, who account for a larger part of the airfield's activity. It did not take into account all the present activity at Booker so how can this be a valid and objective measure of what happens there? The local press, incidentally ran a straw poll and found opposition to the scheme of around 92%.
Rant over. I would dearly love to see heads roll in high places. The whole thing stinks to the core.