Blackpool council buys back airport
 

Having sold off Squires Gate for £13 million they have now bought it back for just over £4 million.

Here's the news report...

https://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/new...kpool-airport/

Looks slightly better for GA prospects?

Good for them, hope they make a go of it, love using that airport as a stop off on my way back up the road.

Good day at the office. Perhaps they will give the minimum wage cooncil workers a bit of a Xmas bonus.

"When I were a Lad" (thirties), used to be a second GA grass "aerodrome " inland of Stanley Park. From Squire's Gate someone flew a service to Speke with a Spartan Cruiser. Can't remember how nuch, but it was more expensive than rail.

No security at "Stanley Park Aerodrome": a schoolboy could wander freely round the hangars and look in the aircraft. Of course, we were better behaved then, no one would dream of doing any damage or pilfer.

Happy Days !

It was United Airways who only had the one Spartan and it operated the service for a little over a year . They also flew 'five bob' flights around the Blackpool Tower too ! Interestingly the original hangar still survives as part of Blackpool Zoo .

I remember DC3s and Bristol Freighters (Silver City); DH Dragon.

Pleasure flights in an a Piper Tripacer and Lockheed/Aermacchi LASA-60 back in the day (Air Navigation and Trading). Seem to remember their was a car park immediately adjacent to the boundary chain link fence and a gate on to the airfield.

More recently flown out of there quite a bit in the past few years.

Squire's Gate, along with Yeadon, are two of my boyhood aerodromes - however they never quite made it as successful regional airports - due mainly to the development of Manchester and too a lesser extent Liverpool airports.

Always pass over and wave (and contact ATC) as I head North ... :)

Air Navigation & Trading Ltd. Blackpool - Flying Lessons at Blackpool Airport

We are still here 👍

Aahhh nostalgia...

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/full_si...5363-large.jpg

More nostalgia photo link here


Those were the days !

It's a good destination in a useful location. We did a night-stop there in May. All very friendly and easy. Landing fee for a 1090 kg AA5B was about £16 (so not a lot given the facilities). We stayed at One South Beach hotel, very good except for the Wi-Fi which was only workable around reception and wanted far too many personal details but it happily accepted a completely fake set of details. Taxi to and from the airport was c.£3.50 (01 253 401 000). We ate at the Montague restaurant, very good. Oh and there is an excellent cat resident in the light GA reception and briefing area. On the way back from that trip (which went all the way to Stornoway) we stopped at Blackpool again for refuelling and a quick lunch at the pub by the Premier Inn just behind the GA office. Not our usual choice of eatery but the bean-burger was rather good and they had the decency not to charge for soda water (which hotels on Stornoway do).