SOU - misconceptions of missed development opportunities
TCAS Fan, Rivet Joint et al....for the benefit of all of the thread watchers on here, I have to say my piece to make sure that everyone gets a fair opportunity to make their minds up that SOUs perceived lack of development is the fault of the misplaced notions of Ops Directors with other agendas, or were the decisions simply as a result of economic and planning circumstances at the time. My SOU tenure was relatively short during 1998-2003, but long enough to have gained a valuable insight in to many of the decisions that were taken at the time. TCAS Fan-very good points raised but your memory is failing you chum. The cost of the northern taxiway was a key consideration for the runway resurfacing in the late 1990s but it just was not viable to construct it at the time. The finished (lit) cost of the taxiway was closer to £340000, arguably 'cheap' but not when you have just 550000 passengers a year and comparatively small scheduled aeroplanes to pay for it. It seems, with hindsight, to be a poor decision but actually at the time, it simply didn't stack up. The runway finish in a grooved Marshall asphalt was the absolute necessity because of safety concerns. The Ops Director at the time, a civil engineer, whilst not meeting your perception of a competent person was the one person who could mobilise a significant construction effort that saw the fastest runway resurfacing project in BAA history. Perhaps, though, that doesn't meet your criteria for a competent person but in the eyes of airlines and passenger safety, I'd say that it pretty much ticks all of the boxes. One important point worth making also, is that the northern taxiway construction has to cross the runway and can't run parallel to the runway on the western side. This isn't about centreline clearances, it is necessary to meet a planning condition that states that no part of the permitted airport development can be closer than 300m to any domestic housing on Southampton Road.
On the subject of the Southern business park site where the post office now resides, again a simple matter of economics. There was no loco airline on the horizon when this land came up for sale, which when added to the 600k or so passengers that the airport was handling, the £21m price tag for a piece of land that the airport couldn't afford to develop and wouldn't need until it got to 2.9m passenger per annum, just didn't stack up. Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing but do not do the 'Ops Directors' the dis service of making people think that these things were never considered.
I'll close by saying that I generally admire the way that people contribute to the threads in here, but to lay the blame at the feet of individual in senior positions rather than giving some credence to some decisions taken on an economic basis is somewhat poorly judged.