Again I don't see any fault on the part of Kemble at all. Well publicised hours etc etc. Where do they draw the line? I wonder if the student would work for free in his/her profession for no reason other than the 'customers' ignorance? The instructor kicking up the stink needs to do a bit of self reflection before they start posting crap on pprune.
I have used Kemble a few times, always found them nothing other than friendly, welcoming and helpful. Last visit a few weeks ago I had to be there first thing on a Sunday morning to pick someone up. Spoke to them the night before and they couldn't have been nicer. Even offering to let me in if I arrived ten mins early.
I take a different view from Rod in that I think GA would suffer badly were it not for places like Kemble. It has other activities going on to make money, the F1 testing etc. Hopefully (though with a big H) this will keep costs to GA in check. Lovely cafe makes it a Sunday afternoon type of venue for interested parties which I hope keeps interest alive. Chuck in some interesting airplanes dotted about and I guess it just is a nice place for aviation people to go.
Private grass strips are wonderful and have their place, but some people need avgas, or indeed Jet A1, and have a preference for tarmac, be it for performance, or indeed structural reasons. The type of infrastructure, even in a small operation like kemble, doesn't come cheap. Had said student departed the runway and became trapped in some wreckage I'm sure he wouldn't have complained about the fire crew staying back.