“Nobody is to blame” but Gloucestershire Airport is now losing £2.7m a year
Following the collapse of the sale of Gloucestershire Airport the scale and rate of increase of the debt is now clear, as is the consultants’ bill and how little profit the deal would have made.
Dear reader,
Regular readers will see we have rather broken with our usual routine of a Monday edition, an infrequent Thursday story and a Friday edition (we hope you’re enjoying the ride still). Normal service will resume post-Easter.
In the meantime, here’s the latest take on the defunct sale of publicly-owned Gloucestershire Airport. We wish we had better news to say about it (and as a matter of fact we do, just not today).
The tale focuses on some of the numbers that have emerged around the airport and the deal, why the deal might have collapsed, and we repeated a comment from the leader of Gloucester City Council, that “no one is to blame” for where we are with it all. I can sense blook boiling in various quarters already.
Special thanks to Carmelo Garcia from the BBC for the bulk of this one. The Raikes Journal is the only independent news outlet in Gloucestershire allowed to use the BBC local government reporter’s copy. We’ve done some additional reporting too - and left the comments open as well for you to have your say.
There’s also a short piece marking some senior appointments at a certain Cheltenham law firm very close to our hearts here at The Raikes Journal, not least because without it none of this reporting we do would be possible. It’s one of our Founding Partners that helps us report on and support the county’s business community, its charities and education and training providers.
You might read stories elsewhere, but they are not written for a website edited by a journalist on an independent, credible, editorially led website.
We think you’ll notice something striking about this particular raft of promotions in the story: a new generation of women rising to the senior ranks, not unnoticed in national guides for legal expertise either.
Congratulations to everyone who’s been asked to step up.
Expect a full edition tomorrow.
Enjoy.
Best regards,
Andrew Merrell (editor).
Law firms grows by bringing through the very best talent
A raft of promotions has been announced at Willans LLP solicitors that reflect the “continued investment in talent” at the Cheltenham-headquartered practice.
Emma Thompson and Charlotte Cowdell are promoted to partner in the firm’s highly rated real estate team. Both advise a range of clients on a broad range of commercial property matters and are also recognised by independent national legal guides.
Thompson, who joined Willans almost a decade ago, has established a reputation for supporting local and national businesses with property transactions and is particularly known for her expertise in respect of real estate refinancing.
Cowdell (with whom The Raikes Journal happens to have a profile piece, due to run tomorrow!) has extensive charity law expertise, assists charities with property transactions and acts for local and national charities and not-for-profit clients on a range of legal issues. Since joining Willans in 2019 she has achieved a ‘Star Associate’ ranking in the Chambers UK guide for the last two years.
Alasdair Garbutt, head of real estate, said: “I am delighted to see both Emma and Charlotte recognised. Each brings their own niche area of expertise to our practice, strengthening and increasing the breadth of services we can offer clients.”
Hifsa O’Kelly has also been promoted to partner in the firm’s Legal 500 top-tier-rated employment law team.
O’Kelly advises a wide range of organisations, including small and medium sized businesses, schools, colleges and charities and is particularly skilled at conducting employment tribunal work.
Jenny Hawrot, head of employment law and business immigration, said: “This promotion is truly deserved. Hifsa’s extensive experience and strong technical ability are a great addition to our team at a time when we are seeing ‘once in a generation’ changes in employment law.
“Our ‘partner-led’ offering means we are ideally placed to help our clients through these changing and challenging times.”
These latest promotions bring the firm’s total partner headcount to 24.
Elsewhere in the practice, Angela Newman has been promoted to senior associate within its residential property team, alongside Héloïse Brittain who moves up to associate level.
Bethen Abraham, a specialist in property disputes, is promoted to associate, together with her litigation & dispute resolution colleague, Kafula Chipasha.
“We’re proud to have so many talented lawyers at Willans. They all share our commitment to providing exceptional and personal client service,” said managing partner, Bridget Redmond.
Charity of the Week: YMCA Cheltenham appeals to local community to join record-breaking Sleep Easy event
YMCA Cheltenham is looking for individuals and businesses to sign up to its SLEEP EASY 2026 challenge. Taking place on Friday 24 April, the annual fundraising challenge invites you to give up your warm bed for one night and experience what it is like sleeping on the streets. The event will be held on the grounds of the YMCA Cheltenham Sports Centre, where those taking part will build their own cardboard shelters before settling in for the night. The event helps raise funds and awareness to support YMCA Cheltenham’s work, which includes providing for those experiencing homelessness to family support and community fitness programmes. In 2025, the charity provided accommodation for 278 children and young people, housing 149 families who would otherwise have been homeless.
The morning of the event also marks the return of the Big Shelter Build, where 80 year five and six pupils from Gloucestershire schools and a home schooling group team up with local construction firms to design and build cardboard shelters for YMCA staff.
Registration to take part in the Sleep Out closes on Friday 17 April. More here.
The Raikes Journal is a community interest company. Everything you read by us is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College and Merrell People, our sponsors, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you upgrade to become a paid subscriber you’ll be part of this CIC too. You’ll help make us sustainable, be able to see past the paywalls, comment on our stories, and know you’re making possible the county’s only editorially-led platform dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire about its businesses, charities, education and training sectors.
Sign up for just £2.30 a week - or £1.80 a week if two or more people sign up at once. Or go all in and become one of our Founding Partners or Founding Members!
“Nobody is to blame” says council as they reveal Gloucestershire Airport is now losing £2.7m a year
Figures revealed in the wake of the collapsed sale of Gloucestershire Airport show the scale and rate of increase of the debt, the size of consultants’ bill and how little profit the deal would have turned.
In the wake of the collapsed sale of Gloucestershire Airport it has emerged losses are now nearly £20m - rising annually by £2.7m - the sale would only have netted £4.5m at a £25m asking price and consultancy fees will cost tax payers £150,000.
The leader of Gloucester City Council confirmed the figures this week, adding that “no one is to blame” for the deal not going through, a situation which been called “a farce” by some.
It is just weeks since the much-hyped sale of Gloucestershire Airport to the Anglo-Indian business Horizon Aero Group by owners Cheltenham Borough Council and Gloucester City Council fell though.
Anyone following the story will not have missed the controversy swirling around the saga since the off, not least with the many businesses based at the 375-acre Staverton site claiming they were not kept in the loop and openly questioning Horizon’s credentials.
Last week Raikes reported that any way forward now needed to address dealing with the sizeable debt growing within the business, which is on paper as £12 million but we were told had risen closer to £20m.
Councillors have now revealed the rate of growth of that black hole is costing taxpayers an extra £2.7m annually, that consultancy fees for the now defunct deal will come in at £150,000.
Perhaps most astonishing of all, probably because of the associated debt, is that the sale would only have netted the councils £4.5 million had it gone through. For a piece of land some have argued is potentially worth £300 to £400 million if sold as houses, you can imagine a few eyebrows being raised.
Both councils strongly dispute that estimation. Raikes did speak to an independent agent about the figure.
All of which only adds more pressure to the two local authorities to find a solution.
When the deal first collapsed word was that Horizon Aero Group, which was understood to have initially offered upwards of the £25 million asking price for the airport, could no longer raise all of the money.
But it now appears it may have tabled a much lower offer than that when it arrived at the sharp end of negotiations, with the council now confirming the offer was “nowhere near the original offer price”.
At a meeting of Gloucester City Council on Tuesday evening (March 30) it revealed that the operating loss at the site had increased from £1.4m to £2.7m since the site was first marketed.
Officers confirmed the city council would have received a total of £4.5m once the sale had gone through after all debts were paid off.
Why this was not apparent to the councils from the start of the deal, bearing in mind the debt was known and on public record, is unclear.
Council leader Jeremy Hilton (LD, Kingsholm and Wotton - pictured above) told the overview and scrutiny committee that nobody was at fault.
“Nobody is to blame, it’s just one of those things. A sale fell through,” he said.
“The bidders worked really hard and I know the chief executive of Horizon worked exceptionally hard to try and get the purchase over the line.
“That’s why we gave him extra time while he was seeing if he could secure other backers.”
Hilton also said most of those interested in operating the airport were consortiums.
“Everybody tried their very best,” he said. “I know the officers of both Cheltenham Borough Council and Gloucester City Council and also our agents Savills and BPE [solicitors] worked really hard to deal with that.
“It is a very difficult and complicated site so we do know we have an exceptionally good data room if we were to put the airport back up for sale.
“But in the meantime, the short-term objective is to keep the airport operational”
He said they have been to the airport to reassure staff and tenants at the site and explained that he did not know what the future options for the site are but will be presented with options next week.
“What we need to do is keep calm, be considered and take our time on it. But it’s unfortunate the sale fell through,” he added.
Hilton said selling the site was not his first preference, but it was the only option available at the time to keep the site operational.
He said a buyer was needed who had the working capital to invest in new hangars, up-to-date radar and the development of the planned CGX business park.
Making the airport a site which is attractive for business jets to land, be stored and maintained would help bring in income, Hilton added.
“The landing fees and sales fees and everything else for a business jet are considerably better than for single-propeller private aircraft,” he said.
“They don’t make much money for the airport at all.
“We need those other ones in there. But in order to get those jets in there you need the hangars.”
Chairman Andrew Gravells (C, Abbeydale - pictured above) asked at what point over the last eight months did Cllr Hilton realise the sale was “never going to happen”.
He replied saying “a few weeks ago when we were getting near to the end and we were waiting for the final offer.”
“A couple of weeks ago I got a copy of the letter from Horizon Aero Group giving us the last two offers. Receiving advice from officers that it was probably unacceptable.”
Hilton said he agreed with Cheltenham Borough Council leader Rowena Hay and said the offer was “nowhere near the original offer price”.
“It would have left us with a liability to operate an airport,” he said.
“It seemed no point in continuing with a sale that did not meet our original requirement that you bought the airport for above the asking price, you had a business plan for development of the airport and you had the working capital to buy and develop the airport.
“And there would be strict overage conditions and covenants on the site to ensure it was only developed for aviation and business purposes and nothing else.”
Vice-chairman Tree Chambers-Dubus (L, Moreland) asked how the failure of the sale will affect the council’s ability to pay back their £15.5m emergency Government bailout loan.
Andy Hearne, the city council’s head of place, said the capital contribution from the airport the authority would have seen once all the debt was paid off, was factored into their consideration.
“It wasn’t completely put into the budget for this year but ‘yes’, the £4.5m that would have been left once it was all gone would have gone towards our exceptional financial support [EFS] recovery,” he said.
“That said, we’ve now lost that, so we’ve already started to look at what our secondary measures are. We know we’ve got to achieve capital sales to pay off the EFS position.”
The council has a plan in place, he added.
Councillor Alastair Chambers (Community Independents, Matson, Robinswood and White City - pictured above) said that it had been reported the airport is making a loss when it was previously making a small profit.
He asked how much was being lost per year in comparison to before.
Hearne said at the start of the marketing process the loss was approximately £1.8m across the two councils.
“As we stand today, the estimated loss is around £2.7m so it would be around £1.35m [for Gloucester City Council], an increase of £450,000 per council.
Chambers also asked how much the failure to sell the airport has cost taxpayers in legal, consultancy, officer time and agents fees.
Hilton said it was “pretty modest” and it was around £150,000.
“You need to incur that cost to sell an asset as complicated as this one,” he said.
Gravells asked if the costs are expected to rise.
“Turbulence,” said Hilton. “We don’t know”.
“The objective is to drive down the losses so that will be one of the first discussions we will be having.
“What the immediate actions that can be taken by the airport board with the support of the shareholders to drive down those losses.”
Read more…
Will the public have to pay nearly £20m to save Gloucestershire Airport?
Nobody is to blame--this is a farce