VentureGo
There actually is the ultimate irony in your lasting posting, in your talking of an airport for the whole North East region. The seeds were sown many years ago insofar as to NCL's setup & development asfar back as 1935 but the reality is that it was nothing more than a field with a few wooden buildings & a 5,200 ft runway until as late as the mid 1960's, with it's only ground transport link being the meandering single carriageway A697.
At the same time there was Middleton St George some 40 miles down the road surrounded by a significant majority of the region's heavy industry, with an airfield that offered more potential for development i.e. better land lie, more space & better (at the time) oportunity to develop a significant runway suitable for then longhaul operations.
The rest as you say is history.... NCL won !!!.............
Why is what this thread has been pontificating around over the past few years, and alas I suspect, offers very little oportunity to discuss much other of relevance directed specifically at future development.
Post Script
On reflection then to add to the point I have made, back in the 60's as a child more fortunate than many, I was taken on foreign holidays by my parents who at the time lived in Newcastle. In 1964 we flew to Italy from NCL, a hut being the departure terminal & collected our luggage on return from a trolley in a freight shed. This situation remained largely unchanged until early 1967 when the new terminal was opened.
Conversely in 1966 we flew from Teesside to Majorca on same aircraft from a brand new purpose built terminal building, having been coached down from Newcastle. For all extent & purpose at that moment in time one can assume that DTV as it is now known was a step ahead of NCL & that the pax (who were able!!) were willing and did travel the 40 miles with poor transport links.
IF ONLY.................................