Recent content by Eusebius

Well quite, which makes this all very odd. I suppose a deal in which SYMCA buy the site and then sell it back to Peel in a few years when the project collapses might suit everyone's purposes. I don't know. The only other thing I can think of is AFFF decontamination. It seems to be a new problem...

Broadly, Peel would have been willing to sell the site for A LOT of money, reflecting their investment in the site and of course the profit they could realise from developing it. Obviously we don't know what that figure might have been but you'd have to suspect a few hundred million pounds. If...

Exactly. As Pug says, everything is for sale at the right price, and £80m is clearly nowhere near what Peel expected to be able to make from the site and would previously have been willing to sell it for. If they're willing to sell it for £80m then something has changed that means they now...

That's as fishy as f*%#. Everything agreed so far, everything in the 'toxic lease' was blatantly engineered to make sure Peel get the site back as soon as possible. And now all of a sudden they want to part with the freehold for what'll likely be an insignificant sum to a company like that? If...

The fire engines can always be sold on to another airport, so a cheap way to buy some 'good news' and give the appearance of progress. Although I'm not sure why they're still bothering, it's clear to a pig that the project is dead. It would be interesting to know whether the Raytheon contract...

So, the council is skint - "a recent financial report for quarter one of 2026/27, which projects Doncaster Council will overspend its budget by £7million by year-end."...

Rumble on how? It'll be costing millions a year just to have the site on their hands. Coppard is obviously sticking to his guns on the conditions for releasing the gainshare funding... how much money has CDC got down the back of the sofa? That they can legally keep spaffing up the wall on a dead...

Ros Jones is a tragically amusing combination of Monty Python's Black Knight and Comical Ali. If someone nuked Doncaster she'd have her picture taken, beaming amongst the rubble, declaring that this was precisely the outcome she'd been working towards all along. It's like trying to construe...

What confidence? Does even Chadwick really still believe this project is alive and well and likely to succeed? It'll be a huge step for CDC/SYMCA to say it out loud, but everyone knows it's dead in the water.

If they soldier on into October then they're committed to paying for the new radar (that'll never get used) in full. Alternatively they can cancel the radar but somehow try to convince the public that despite having cancelled the radar the project is somehow still alive. They'll say they can't...

Nah, this is the end of the road. It's dead and they know it. Did you see this the other day? https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/easyjet-flights-cancelled-leeds-bradford-airport-b3036207.html If easyJet can't make the unit economics work at a functioning, established airport...

Right, so now we know: this ends next month. "Should the grant agreement not be finalised and the project cease... This will limit the exposure of the Council to [REDACTED], providing the clause is exercised prior to or on 30th September 2026. After this date, the full payment will be due...

However, Burnham has spent years arguing that mayors should have more fiscal autonomy. If his first act as Prime Minister is to have the Treasury bail out a mayor who has mismanaged a £193m regional infrastructure deal, it destroys the entire premise of devolution. Furthermore, Burnham is...

If Burnham touches this project, the inevitable collapse in September becomes his failure. He won't go near it. Besides, bailing it out would signal to every mayor in the country that they can pursue massively expensive crackpot vanity projects, safe in the knowledge that Westminster will step...

Right on cue! https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/doncaster-sheffield-airport-andy-burnham-8814367 When local funding mechanisms hit a statutory wall and commercial negotiations reach a terminal deadlock, the architects of the disaster inevitably look upward! Dan Fell and the local...