If true then this is good news indeed. Firstly it gives us flyers a choice in this area, if they open up to flying clubs of course!! Secondly most of the premiership footballers are already interested in GA flying, mostly rotary though as really is a rich mans sport!!!! Although granted there are those in that line of work for whom the ground exams might be a trifle challenging shall we say!!!
As for the local residents, it is not a case of middle England prejudice, for those that have never been around that area, it is full of some very nice, very large, very very expensive houses of the hald a mil for a garden shed style!!! If you had bought a house in the most elegant neighbourhood the area has to offer and then saw the value of your investment destroyed overnight by social housing (as already mentioned, occupied by the anti social) I think you would resist such a move as well. This is not a snobby attitude, but it is law if a company builds a new housing development, a certain percentage of the build has to be social housing. Given that for the last 40 years councils all over the country have tried to mix the classes moving the anti social in with the nice people in the hopes that the scum would pull thier socks up. In reality the opposite occurs, the value of a pile in Woodford would drop through the floor overnight. In addition when runway 2 was being built at MAN, there were restrictions on the tipper wagons that they couldnt go through Woodford, can you imagine the outcry from the locals if they had all the ghastly lorries going past the door every day??
If offered the choice of the two, I imagine the locals will tolerate the airfield all day long, and if that is the case then good look to Woodford, and I look forward to seeing your runway soon