Sites like this are ideal for a development opportunity and should be welcomed as such, houses and people will bring more prosperity to the area than continuing to support a failed local airfield.
If you look at an Ordnance Survey map of the area there are thousands of acres that are a hell of a lot closer to the town centres of Middlesbrough, Darlington, Stockton, Hartlepool etc. I really can't see where people have got this idea that DTVA, stuck as it is halfway between Darlington and Stockton, is prime land for house building. It's got a railway line next to it , true, but other than that, can't see what makes it any more attractive than any other Brownfield site where development wouldn't involve removing the region's airport.