Plymouth City Airport: Fears mount 'time is running out' to save it - when did it close?

A councillor has warned that “time is running out” to save Plymouth City Airport which closed 13 years ago. The airport closed in December 2011 due to long-lease-holder Sutton Harbour Group Plc (SHG) activating a so-called "Armageddon clause" enabling it to stop flights.

Almost 38,000 people signed a petition to save the airport in 2012 but it made little difference. The 113-acre site has not been used since. 

In July 2022, Richard Bingley, at that time Tory leader of Plymouth City Council, told PlymouthLive that he wanted the authority to reclaim the site and restart flights. In October of that year he said the council was prepared to take legal action to reclaim the long lease granted to SHG.

When Labour took control in May last year, council leader Tudor Evans said his party also wanted to acquire the lease. In September 2023 the Tories called for a special cross-party task force to be set up to look at reopening the airport and ways in which the land could be returned to public ownership.

However, councillor Andy Lugger, leader of Tory Group, said he has been told by officers that legal proceedings have yet to begin and accused the authority of “kicking the can down the road”. A five-year-long protection for aviation operations, recommended by the government’s planning inspector during formulation of the Plymouth and South West Devon Joint Local Plan, expires in March this year. 

Mr Lugger said “the sands of time are running out” and scrutinised the lease which handed SHG the site in 2004. He said there are potentially four sections of the lease where the council, as freeholder, could bring legal action against SHG. He said if it is then decided the leaseholder is in breach and the lease has to be returned the council would own the entire site.

SHG company still has an unexpired 134-year lease on the land with a right to renew for a further 150 years. In December 2023 SHG said it was working on a “masterplan” for the site and aimed to submit plans when the moratorium expired. Details of the masterplan were not given but SHG has previously said it wants to create a “garden suburb” on the site which could deliver “housing, community and educational facilities and employment space”.