Leeds Approach
From what i can see no one is denying Leeds a new airport, the problems to overcome are enormous, the fact is nobody other than perhaps you and a few other spotters want a new international in their back garden. Church Fenton is a beautiful rural area and the last thing the locals will want is a new International airport with wide body jets roaring overhead.
The economic argument has been well explained by others, but like them i remain flummoxed that you seem to feel that it should play no part in the debate when most would see it as the very foundation upon which an airport is built. In England there are no state owned airport, you need to look at PIK in Scotland or CWL in Wales to find failing airports kept alive by tax payers money.
So unless you have someone who is both incredibly wealthy and stupid at the same time (a rare beast indeed) then CF will remain a sleepy hollow.
One other consideration is that some of Manchester's flights would not be viable without Yorkshire passenger and would not be viable from Yorkshire either.
It may be that you have missed the debate over new runway capacity in the SE where it is needed, the money is there, the demand is there the airlines are there, LBA provides an adequate service for bucket n spades and BA gives you access to a world wide network the likes of which MAN or LBA can only dream of.
What Leeds needs is an new runway(s) at LHR and have written into planning law that they must grant access to regional airports like LBA, if you want to spend local tax payers money then it should be on subsidies to keep access to LHR open to the good of Leeds