News & Star | News | High Court verdict throws Carlisle Airport plans into disarray
Mr Justice Collins, one of the country’s most experienced planning judges, allowed the challenge by Gordon Brown, from Irthington and quashed the latest planning permission for a new freight storage and distribution facility at the airport.
The judge said that Mr Brown’s claim succeeded, though only on one ground put forward by him. That was failure by the planners to properly consider the viability of the expansion plans.
In a statement issued following the hearing, a Stobart Group spokesman said: “We are disappointed in what the court found was a borderline decision but obviously respect the court’s findings. However we are encouraged that the vast majority of Mr Brown’s arguments were rejected by the court.
“We have worked so hard to build a bigger and better Carlisle Lake District airport. Through our Stobart airline investment [formally Aer Arann, this week renamed as Stobart Air] our plans would have created a huge opportunity for the region.
"These plans included a daily flight to Dublin (and via customs clearance in Dublin, to the United States) and two daily flights to London and the South-East through our London Southend Airport. This would have been fantastic for the people of Carlisle and the surrounding region and would have allowed tourists from London and the South-East and the USA direct access to the Lake District, Carlisle and surrounding area.
“We still firmly believe that a thriving Carlisle Lake District airport will provide economic growth and jobs for the people of Carlisle and the surrounding area and to that end we intend to submit a new application taking into account today’s finding.”
The Stobart statement looks a bit disingenuous - the borderline decision was surely whether to allow permission, not the judges to overturn the permission.
And the permission may have only been overturned on one point, but that point was the "failure by the planners to properly consider the viability of the expansion plans"