That could be taken one if two ways. Peel keen to repurpose the terminal, or Council keen not to apply too much pressure cos the don’t want to lose the terminal? As has been mentioned, I think some of the hangars already have sitting tenants, probably wouldn’t be too much of a job getting those others rented out. Most other buildings on the estate are non-aviation related anyway.

The ILS transmitters have already been removed.
They rent land at least on the northern end for the runway lights. If they can terminate the lease I'm sure they will.
Runway markings, that's a bit of paint.

As others said the biggest hurt will be rates. This year the RV is £2,290,000. Next year for some reason it falls to £400,000. I assume that the valuation is at least partly based on turnover. https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/busin...rt/13787199000

https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-busines...ildings-relief

Empty properties

You do not have to pay business rates on empty buildings for 3 months. After this time, most businesses must pay full business rates.

Some properties can get extended empty property relief:

• industrial premises (for example warehouses) are exempt for a further 3 months
• listed buildings - until they’re reoccupied
• buildings with a rateable value under £2,900 - until they’re reoccupied
• properties owned by charities - only if the property’s next use will be mostly for charitable purposes
• community amateur sports clubs buildings - only if the next use will be mostly as a sports club

Presumably, but Peel will know all of this and have experience in such scenarios countless times. To them it seems that the land is more viable in the short term as being unused that it would be as an airport. Whilst discussions are still apparently ongoing with an investor they will not do anything else to the land or facilities. We might not even hear whether talks have concluded or not if they don’t end in a sale. So like I say, the first sign they haven’t concluded favourably will probably be the removal of approach lights etc.

Thanks for the update Asturia, and Pug.

I wouldn't be surprised if Peel don't turn it into a wind farm, as they have been in the wind energy business for years.
A 2009 report.
https://www.reutersevents.com/renewa...farm-liverpool

I would be very surprised if the local topography works for this.

Not much infrastructure in the way. Low country granted, but the company would probably benefit from government grants.

Green is the way to go, and onshore farms are being discussed again. Its all about money which is why Peel got into the wind turbine business early.

Wouldn't the RV of £2.290,000 be its value as an operating airport and £400,000 be the value of a closed airport? Bit of a hit to local authority finances...

Much more valuable as a distribution centre/ office park - the "hit" to local authority finance only lasts while they try and stop its redevelopment - they should be encouraging Peel to crack on ASAP with the the conversion

The wind farms to the north and east between Thorne, Goole and Scunthorpe seem to work well enough.

The ILS is still in place. Absolute nonsense that it's gone.

That may be it, but I spent an hour looking at regional airport rating assessments. This massive drop was not that unusual. Not forgetting that the valuation date for the 2023 list is 1st April 2001.


I'll have a better look. It may be that I've misidentified some radio kit, I did think that the glideslope transmitter had lost its antennas though.

It's possible that the antennae for glidepath, localiser, DME and so on are still in situ but the actual transmitters and receivers in the associated sheds may be gone. Possible but not probable, I concede.

https://find-and-update.company-info...filing-history

Latest filing of the full accounts on 30th December provides a bit more detail of the findings from the Strategic Review and provide an interesting insight into the issues with attracting sufficient airline and freight business to make the site viable.

That alone is enough to make any would-be buyer run for the hills.

Depends on who any would be buyer is and whether they could get sufficient MOU or buy in for any airline partners they may have. But on face value yes, and it’s not just Peel that have come to this conclusion.

· From the Report & Accounts:-

DSA, like most other UK airports, has a high fixed cost base arising from the regulatory environment in which it operates and is capital intensive due to its necessary operating infrastructure. This cost base is high even for a relatively low level of sales, unlike businesses in other sectors which often start with a low cost base which then scales up with demand in a linear fashion, It is necessary therefore to achieve a critical mass of passenger and / or freight traffic to generate the revenue required to offset high fixed costs.

By the time that DSA commenced operations, the majority of the volume passenger carriers in the UK capable of delivering large scale passenger programmes already had a strong presence in DSA's core catchment by virtue of operating at DSA's competing neighbouring airports (Manchester, East Midlands and Leeds Bradford). Such carriers therefore had no need to put material traffic into DSA and would incur significant cost and therefore risk in doing so. Attracting a major carrier was therefore extremely challenging.

The corollary of a relatively weak bargaining position is a requirement to heavily incentivise or even subsidise the flight programme of airlines, producing a longer and lower payback for DSA on any deals done.

Where freight-only traffic (freighters) is concerned, the larger hubs in the UK such as East Midlands have dedicated and substantial infrastructure in place (warehouses, transit sheds and distribution centres) sometimes operated by Integrators such as DHL. These have been developed over decades along with the staffing and processes but are not in place at DSA. Wthout these, winning new scheduled freighter business was very difficult and it was not commercially feasible to put such operations in place speculatively.

The above strategic problems faced by DSA for most of its existence were compounded by an announcement on 3 June 2022 by Wizz Air UK in breach of its agreement with the Airport that it would cease all flights from DSA operated by its based aircraft, effective 10 June 2022.

The Airports shareholders have invested around £250m in fixed assets and to cover losses since the Airport's inception. Despite such investment and best efforts of the shareholders, management team and staff, DSA never managed to generate sufficient revenue to cover costs. Future challenges around the environmental impact of aviation also made the prospects of commercially viable aviation activities even more remote.

Why did the Citation centre leave?

I see that Amazon is shutting its' massive warehouse close to the airport. Whilst obviously this will have no impact on the airport closure, I wonder if it will give Peel pause for thought, before ploughing ahead with develpoment of the site ?