houses within 3 years....

Farewell Sheffield
 

It was sad to hear various aircraft signing off from Sheffield for the last time today. When I left yesterday (first to be gone through combination of circumstances) I realised that it has actually been 4 1/2 years which was longer than anybody gave the field to survive in 2003 so we are at least grateful for that..:(

Good luck to the staff from operations, A/G and the fire crew and all the very best for the future wherever you land.

h-r;) (now back at EGNE and not looking fwd to the drive..)

Sad day then:( Makes me mad to think of a perfectly good GA facility closing for development when there is so much unused brownfield land around in that area.

Not quite dead yet................

Make sure y'all vote in the survey ...... in the link above

HR What survey? I couldn't find it.

Muffin,
Go to the newspaper article, then scroll down, and look very near the bottom of the right-hand column.

I understand some of the objections about the limitations of the runway but I would think it might have a future as a heliport.

It is very conveniently placed halfway up the UK for refuels without the hassle of regulated airspace.

Yes but is unlicensed as of end of the month, and the heli area is being reserved for the polis and air ambulance only (like the West Yorks Wakefield site).

Peel cannot build on this area as it is greenbelt land ...

(RM the survey was to the right of the article on the Star site as NZ notes above. Onew vote each I'm afraid...)

h-r;)

Well just when we thought it was a loser!

I wish SCAM the best of luck and hope they manage to defeat Peel. The comment by Peel 'developing' the airport are classic - they developed it alright - into a business park and treated the airport itself as a boil on their financial @rse!

We have already moved out aircraft to Donny but would gladly move it back to Sheffield if Peel were defeated.

J.

Confusingly, the poll is for a completely different site. Norton Aerodrome is an old derelict WW2 barrage balloon station on the other side of the city which is eminently suitable for housing. Sheffield City Airport will become an extension to the existing business park.

Shame on Sheffield Council for not having any spine.

The poll appears to have changed since last night.

It's a shame none of the big players in commercial training fancied taking an interest, Cabair et al. There's nothing on the scale of that in the north (even MF are small in comparison). I guess the proximity to the city is the only potential issue in that regard.

This was on the cards ever since Peel bought Sheffield, they made it very clear at the time that as soon as Robin Hood was up and running, they would divulge themselves of responsibility of Sheffield City Airport.

The place was a pipe dream from the start, it was built with a very large wad of EEC cash and run on the same basis for many years.

It has been proved beyond doubt that it is unsustainable as a commercial airport, and why should the rate payers of Sheffield continue to subsidise it?

The comments of Julian and Shunter demonstrate their own ignorance - Julian claims to have moved to Robin Hood but would move back to Sheffield "if Peel were defeated", don't forget who your current landlord is Julian. If Peel are so bad, why don't you poke off to Humberside? they are desperate and would welcome you and charge you a lot less.

As for Shunter, well sorry mate, the likes of Cabair and the other major players in flight training evidently know a lot more than you about the facts of aviation life and how to stay in business.

Sheffield is closing, it only ever served a purpose to get Robin Hood up and running, other than that it is totally unsustainable, end of story, time to put this thread to bed.

There are so many holes and inaccuracies in that post that it could have been posted by Peel's PR people. At least you got the name of the airport right.

There are indeed too many inaccuracies to even bother commenting to them all.

One thing does seem clear though. If a property developer signs an agreement with the Council to run an airport, and there is a clause in said agreement that allows developer to pay a nominal fee and redevelop the airport if its a commercial failure, then its hardly surprising that the developer announces that it is indeed a commercial failure!

Its been said before, but it bears repeating that Sheffield will revert once again to being one of the largest cities in the UK or even Europe without an airport.

How do you work that one out with Doncaster space port just up the road?

Not saying I condone what happened to Sheffield but I think it's a bit melodramatic saying it does not have an airport.

Unfortunately DSA suffers from poor road and public transport links, a pity they didn't build new access as there has been plenty of time to do so.

Talking about commercial flights now, a lot of the airport-using population of Sheffield (including myself) live in the west of the city, and for us, its about 60-120 minutes drive to any of DSA, LBA, EMA, or MAN, and that travelling time has a big spread because it suffers from being extremely unpredictable due to congestion.

When KLM had the Sheffield -> Amsterdam Schipol daily route up and running it was extremely popular, not sure why it was withdrawn.

Goatface, so which bit of Peel do you work for? Could be Mr Peel himself judging by your arogance.

As for ignorance, you may want to do a bit of research yourself! Peel bought the place for a £1. Yes there was a large influx of EEC cash which Peel are now repeaing the benefits of. Why dont you visit it and see the nice new business park they have constructed with it.....

It should be pretty obvious why I would move back. For one the airport was close to my house, Donny is a further drive and Humberside would be even further. Feel fee to 'poke off there' yourself though.

J.

Goatface -

It's divest not divulge. Must be Peel management then.

What's next go? Barton? Also owned by Peel.

I don't think the suggestion of a commercial training facility was 'ignorant' at all. An airfield like that, with a low volume of commercial traffic is suited in many ways to something of that nature. I would suspect many people who go for courses with the big boys are pretty fed up of having to head down south in order to do so.

Whilst it may be little more than an outsider thinking aloud, at least it's a positive comment, unlike your stroppy little outburst. Pillock.

How about because that is in Doncaster and not in Sheffield?? They are not the same (and Doncaster is not a City...)

Its actually quicker to drive to East Midlands airport than Robin Hood airport.

Has a major carrier just pulled out of Robin Hood?

Sheffield carried business flights (this generates more inward investment). Robin Hood is just holiday flights (this carries money away from the region).

Sheffield as a training facililty would have been good with ILS/ DME/ NDB and VDF available, and four VORs in range for SID and STARs, as long as the holds were kept high enough to keep noise down. I suggested this to the airport manager (or one of the five we had in the last four years) but I guess that got 'peeled' like anything else that would have made the place a success.

I guess they missed out on the whole Don Valley regeneration :E

There you go, you have 2 airports in driving distance!!!

It was obvious from day 1 that this was never going to be a viable airfield. Runway to short, transport system around it not good enough and most importantly not enough demand.

Airlines are not interested in diverse operating bases, it costs to much in ground infrastructure, staff etc to man them when they can force people main hubs and get a better return. It's the reason why the regional airports are more expensive than the big hubs for flights that are effectively the same distance in operating terms.

Sheffield was one victim of this and Peel just capitalized on the opportunity.

It was a shame none of the bigger flying schools took the opportunity to locate at the site after the SEP restriction was withdrawn. What was left was a few private flyers and a couple of schools using an asset that was far more valuable as industrial space.

As is typical in aviation the demand was not there and pilots were not prepared to pay for the services so good financial sense takes over.

Getting all emotional does not change the fact that a couple of hundred grand in GA business would be matched by one office building. It is simple finance.

Either goatface works for Peel or is a member of the Diplomatic Corps (dismissed):rolleyes:

I was involved with, although not working in any way for, Peel, during their early part of the takeover at Sheffield, but from the outset they made it very clear to everyone, especially the politicians, that they were developing Finningly and as soon as Robin Hood opened, their involvement at Sheffield would end.
I've no idea how much it cost Peel to keep Sheffield going, but it was a political move and they've done nothing that hasn't been done before in the airport industry (MAN PLC buying HUY to get rwy 2 at MAN) or anywhere else in industry.

Sheffield City is a fantastic G/A facility, but it never was, never has been and never would have been a commercially viable enterprise, if it was your business/income, would you keep it going and/or who should subsidise the losses?

True, but only more valuable because of the lucrative deal struck by Peel. Hats off to Peel's negotiators. Without that deal there is far cheaper brownfield land in east Sheffield and around the M1/M18 by the hundreds of acres.

I still believe with motivated ownership and the council on-side it could have been viable as mixed G/A, air-taxi, charter, helicopter, flying school and so on.

Sheffield City Airport was just on the local news (Look North), they revealed the identity of the mystery man but unfortunately I missed the start of the report! :ugh:

The report did not go into much really, just a short interview with the businessman and also a bit about SCAM who are mounting a legal challenge. They are also trying to stop Peel digging up the runway, this is new info to me as I thought they were just placing concrete blocks on it.

Peel and Sheffield City Council were both invited to respond but did not want to be interviewed, what a surprise there. Will see what happens.

J.

The name is Andrew Cook.

If you're quick (ie over the next couple of days), the story is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7353419.stm

If anyone wants to do anything about it they had better be very quick. I rang the airport today to see if would be possible to fly in once it became unlicensed (20:00 Mon 21st April) but before the airport formally closed and was told no way as the runway was being dug up straightaway. The airport closure date of 30th April seems to relate to the airport business as that is when the staff finish.

"I'll buy the airport at the right price"

So would I, around £1 debt free would be the right price.

Unfortunately, whilst Andrew Cook is a very good, British engineer, he clearly knows nothing about airports or aviation and I would suggest that this is no more than a short lived spot of industrial attention seeking.

Perhaps he should concentrate on the battle he's facing with the far East with regard to his engineering prospects and stick with what he knows.