Originally Posted by IB4138
Ah! The Airport Development Tax raises it's head again.
Time for the
police to investigate where those funds went and how they were spent. Was it on
airport improvements,as they should have been, or were they used to offset
claimed operating losses? The acquisition of the site by BB for £14million from
the Council also needs rescrutiny.
IB4138
Good point about the ADF IB4138 - Where did it go? Hundreds of thousands of our cash not spent on any development and did not even keep the airport open.
Just a few months ago things appeared to be looking up for the airport as
passenger numbers showed a 12 per cent rise year-on-year.
Airport Director Paul Rankin told The Gazette in May: “We are delighted to
see the rise in passenger numbers and particularly pleased to see all the routes
to our established sunshine destinations doing so well.
“The load factor on the aircraft is around 95 per cent which shows they are
well supported by passengers.”...................
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Also I remember posting on the 17th October 2017.
If anything Blackpool council should have took the airport, until a new buying could be found. They after all spent The Blackpool Airport contingency fund and that would have helped.
In the absence of that - It should have been made clear by the local authorities involved - There would be no chance of planning permission to build on the site - That would have made the plot, fit only for aviation.
If the terminal in built on, no point in preserving the runway - My guess Blackpool has come to an end. I thought my town had a rubbish council, Blackpool Council take the Gold Award for ineptness.
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Questions are if Paul Rankin was so delighted by the airports performance just months before it closed, what went wrong in such a short time?
Also what happened to the contingency fund? That could have bought more time if a new owner was needed?
What was so special about "October 7" - It takes a while to find a buyer for an airport. Not a lot of point in revisiting the past. But question never got answered.