Does the airport need money spent on its infrastructure? Stobart will be more than happy if 75% of the cost is met by the public purse - not least because the main contractor for major upgrades is likely to be part of the Stobart Group.

Do bears sh*t in the woods?

New lights were installed a few years ago, new radar is being fitted right now. Terminal is currently suited to low capacity. New entrance road was built. Who paid for all this is a long story.

Given the new era of transparency promised by the Mayor, what is done, who does it, etc should all be a matter of public record, given as it will be taxpayers money paying for it.

I thought Look North showing the derelict parts of the terminal and saying Peel have let it go to rot was harsh, they made no secret of moth balling 40 percent, what kind of state were they expecting?!

I presume that if traffic at MME was to increase, surely an improved Cat ILS system would need to be installed, that won't come cheap.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...NB3TWbilQtZnOc

Not looking good for Cobham

Depends - they're the ones currently sitting with a contract. Bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.....

That was a 2 million pound contract keeping the airport going over the lean years.

So..let’s hope there are not too many lean years ahead..or else the good old Teesside tax payers will be picking up that tab as well!

Its the Mayor's money not the Tees Valley tax payers.

And where do you think the Mayor gets his money from? Central Government - so it's all taxpayers money which is being used to subsidise MME.

Completely off-thread but people need reminding sometimes that there is no magic money tree....Central Government has only two sources of funds.....Taxation and Borrowing....the latter has to be repaid.

Jamesair, read the local press and come back, the Conservative Mayor has a magic money tree it is fruiting millions for him, as well as the airport he has 500 million to buy the local steelworks site. The local labour councils tried to grow a magic money tree but failed.

That may be a political spending decision made by the Government of the day but the source of the money remains the same. Governments of whatever colour make political decisions on how to spend in accordance with their political agenda.

Having followed this story for years and , I genuinely feel sorry for all of you who of course not only support your local airport .
But it's your right as with all ' public transport' , This is a point government forgets , public transport is a necessity and a right - from reopening wrongly closed rail lines to this situation.

Why is Alicante for example a bad idea , if offered they'd have to take it, because as car use costs increase. Plus more and more conjestion, getting to Newcastle from the south ,the road to it is nigh on impossible due to traffic volumes . I don't know about public transport to it.

But Teeside it's catchment area must have potential, I fear it's slow decline was down solely to mismanagement imho.

For the future , another ' Hub ' Destination would be good, for example Dublin , preclears ' US Immigration , so a Stobart air service to Dublin should do very well.
A London route should also do well , Southend likely if again Stobart air offer any routes , which we can but hope.
It would be a strange move not to .

So I guess the question to you guys up there , if you could have any destination served ( it has to be in the realm of possibility) but what would work well , could the above ' suggestions I made ' work with Stobart, starting small say using I'd guess an ATR? .

Ok - I'll bite - is the A1 from the south to NCL that bad? At peak times maybe, but given the main waves of departures from NCL what really is the impact? Also, the alternatives aren't exactly a breeze - Edinburgh by-pass, A1/M18 junction to DSA, A658 to Leeds, M62/60/56 to Manchester and dare I mention the A19/A66 and the "Yarm crawl" to MME?

As for public transport, mainline train to Newcastle Central station then Metro directly to the terminal

https://www.newcastleairport.com/pas...here/by-train/

Do we really need to re-open the Durham Tees Valley versus Newcastle and Leeds debate.

He's not a shy bairn - buys the airport with taxpayers money and now wants APD cut.

Politicians clash over future of airport tax

I agree. The road is only a big issue if you are on the A1 around Gateshead at 7:30-9:00am in the morning. On Monday, I left Darlington at 6am, drove to NCL, parked in the long stay and comfortably got the 7:55 BA flight to LHR. Last night I landed at 9pm and walked in the house an hour later.

The train can work quite well but as the first train from Darlington does not arrive at Newcastle Station until about 7am, even if you get straight on the metro there is no way you would dare take a flight before 8:30 in the morning.