I for one don't believe that Peel can't close the airport any time soon. In reality a skeleton service of KL / Eastern & the low pax volumes are simply going to cause more problems than solutions. Running a "part time" airport with "part time" staff is fraught with potential problems. As an example how to deal with delayed flights is one particular example.
As for the terminal, then errecting a wall to reduce the available area and attributable costs says nothing of the passenger experience, believe it or not a fact that often seems overlooked, is that pax travelling through any airport do not enjoy the experience !, however many cafe's/pubs/fancy goods shops are on offer to absorb the waiting time.
Anyhow if they are proposing to close part of the terminal, then why not close part of the runway as well, after all with the largest aircraft likely to be F100's / EMB's then you don't need more than 5,000ft. I'm sure that Peel would seize on such an oportunity when they work it out, it would simply reflect progress on their grand scheme to run the place down.
Finally as to accessibility then the road access to anyone living away from the "A66 corridor" is awful, & the reality is that the only people DTV was ever going to serve were local, incidentally, when driving down the A1 yesterday & I notice there are still signs to "Teesside Airport" drew my attention, though I expect they won't be needed in any form, so there's a cost saving no need to get any paint out.
