I've obviously not made myself clear, so I’ll explain again.
My problem is not with increasing activity at DTVA and have said a number of times that the airport needs to diversify and attract other, preferably aviation related business - think Kemble, Staverton, Hurn, Norwich.
I also agree that anybody who buys a house near an airport deserves everything they get.
However that isn’t the case here – we’re not talking about existing householders, but about selling houses that haven’t yet been built.
Here’s how it might pan out
House Buyer: “what’s that noise?”
Estate Agent: “that’s just the parachute dropping/microlight training aircraft”
House Buyer: “Oh, and how often do they fly?”
Estate Agent: “Only on nice day’s at the weekend and the odd summer evening”
House Buyer: “So just when I want to be outside in my nice new garden?”
Now, will their response be option 1, “Oh good, where’s my Binoculars?” or Option 2 – “Thank you, but where’s next on my list?”
Again, and keeping it simple, a large part of the Peel Masterplan rests on selling land near the terminal for housing, and using the profit from that to fund the other areas of the plan.
Another part of the plan is diversifying the aviation activities at the airport and this they’ve done with the Parachuting and now the microlights – as others have said, that these can hardly be major money makers, can't have cost a lot to bring in and might well have an impact on the sale of the land which then impacts on the rest of the plan. Just looks a bit odd.
You can be sure developers will be using it to knock down the price Peel get, as they'll be saying it might put off future house buyers