Airport boss resigns, businesses announce plans to leave and legal challenge to takeover emerges

On the day the councils selling Gloucestershire Airport launch a media campaign saying the deal on the table will safeguard its future, the airport's boss has resigned and a legal challenge emerges.

Dear reader,

Just when you thought the sale of Gloucestershire Airport couldn’t get any more controversial, messy and dramatic, it has.

Who cares? If you live in Gloucestershire you should probably care as the land is yours. It’s public property.

Depending on the side you take - it’s either an airport and home to numerous businesses employing hundreds of staff about to be sold for upwards of £25 million in a deal benefitting the taxpayer, preserving its future and that of its tenants and ridding the councils of a long-standing loss-making headache. Sounds good?

Or… it’s all of the above, except it is actually 375 acres of land worth potentially £300 million to £400 million if redeveloped, and someone - not the people of Gloucestershire - could be about to get their hands on that asset. What do you think they’ll do then?

If that is true and happens, many of those businesses will be lost from the Staverton site and possibly Gloucestershire.

Why can’t the councils sell it for development and, as one critic says, keep the alleged £300 million-plus potential windfall here in Gloucestershire and wipe away their deficits? Good question.

The council disputes the idea the land is worth this much, for a start.

At the same time I’m well aware of how this makes Gloucestershire look. This is high profile and we’re helping make it so.

It will be viewed from outside the county too - perhaps by those we want to invest here, in the likes of the Golden Valley Development. They will have to deal with at least one of the local authorities in the story. What will they think?

In a media landscape thin on the ground with journalism The Raikes Journal is here to flag as much of this story as we are allowed to write. It’s called a public interest story.

You can post stories onto social media, but they will arguably remain marketing unless they are adopted by a credible news channel.

So if you think a credible platform edited by a journalist is valuable and you want to see us do more of it - please think about joining the many who have signed up to our newsletters, or better still think about paying for a subscription to support what we do.

If we disappear you’ll be left reading stories that tell you how good deals like this are for Gloucestershire, and the businesses we’ve given voice to in this story won’t ever be heard.

Best regards,

Andrew Merrell (editor).

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Airport boss resigns, businesses announce plans to leave and legal challenge to takeover emerges

On the day the councils selling Gloucestershire Airport launch a media campaign stating the deal on the table will safeguard its future, the airport's boss has resigned and a legal challenge emerges.

We’ve run comprehensive stories elsewhere on The Raikes Journal explaining the depth of feeling around the 375-acre Staverton site that is Gloucestershire Airport, and how the two local authorities that own it are intent on selling.

We’ve covered how Gloucester City Council and Cheltenham Borough Council have agreed in principle to a deal estimated as above the £25 million asking price with a newly formed business called Horizon Aero Group Ltd (HAG).

And we’ve highlighted how there are serious concerns from a group of businesses on the site that the intention Horizon is to sell some or all of the site for redevelopment, and not keep it as a fully functioning airport at all.

Horizon, for its part, has said no such thing and talked only about a commitment to running the airport and providing for its tenants, but that significant group of businesses have lost faith and fear if the deal goes through Gloucestershire will lose too.

It will lose not just an airport, but miss out on a potential windfall of several hundred million pounds, according to those businesses. And we have learned most of them have stopped investment in the site and some already plan to leave.

They suggest the site’s real value is actually several hundred million pounds, if sold for redevelopment, and the £25 million-plus deal sells the public short of a sum that could help wipe away deficits at both local authorities.

And now, on the day the borough council releases a press release stating that Horizon has unveiled a “comprehensive Social Value Charter setting out a bold vision to transform the airport into a thriving, sustainable, and inclusive regional hub”, we also learn the airport’s boss has resigned.

And we learn of a deadline due to expire tomorrow (Friday 19 September at 5pm) which if not met will see a London barrister employed to try to force full disclosure of the deal by the local authorities in Crown Court.

In a letter seen by The Raikes Journal, Jason Ivy, a man with 37 years of aviation experience who was bought in two years ago to steady the airport and ready it for sale, said: “After two years as managing director and other commitments, I have taken the decision to leave the business to pursue other interest.