2Donks & Vere, I appreciate & understand what you are saying, & obviously you are entitled to that view, but please read it carefully once more.
The implication I read from it is that the landowner is happy to allow flying to continue. It's the bureacracy of the local council (or perhaps their hidden agenda to remove GA from the area) that is demanding that the whole of the land must be turned over to business use.
The landowner obviously must make a living (and being in business myself I totally support that aim). However, the landowner doesn't NEED to close the airfield ops and doesn't really WANT to close the airfield ops.
The problem, as with most of these scenarios, is with local councils and their heavy handed attitude.
There's an excellent paper on how airfields, both used and disused, can contribute positively to the environment and to local economies, which should be required reading for local planning officers.
It's entitled “Re-use of small airfields: a planning perspective” . It contains some fascinating statistics and examples showing the decline of UK airfields post-1945 and examines the ways in which re-use has been regulated by the UK planning system.
The rights of aviation groups are noted as a specific factor that must be taken into account. It’s published by Elsevier Science Publishers and summarised at
www.elsevier.nl/locate/pplann
under “Progress in Planning 55 (2001) Issue 4, Pages 195-262 (May 2001)”.