'They need to build a new bl00dy airport!'
Phileas, you've got it in one but it should have been done 50 years ago.
Many moons ago now, I wrote a dissertation about Plymouth's (Roborough's) aiport and its viablity. Research revealed a never ending deluge of consultants' reports that all came to the same conclusion (surprise, surprise) viz Roborough was not viable in the long term and the only option was a new, greenfield airport.
The result was a never ending deluge of council prevarication and buck passing; if someone had grasped the nettle in the 60s I don't think we would be having this discusson now.
At that time (the 60s) Newquay wasn't in the equation and Exeter was a small, struggling airport. With a catchment area of Cornwall and the City itself, there were over 800,000 potential passengers. The new Plymouth Airport would probably have seen Exeter decline and extend its catchment (given new services) to Exter and beyond. It had the potential to be the dominant air facility west of Bristol.
That's what 'could have been' and unless the council can come up with some sort of PFI (or even, dare I say it, EU money - one only has to look at some of the magnificent runways constructed in the backwaters of the Irish Republic) Plymouth's long association with aviation appears to be at an end.
