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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1819.PDF
1002 AIR COMMERCE . . . FLIGHT International, IS June 1964 A NEW NORTH-EAST AIRPORT? WHEN the Yorkshire Airport Development Association recently met at York to hear Mr Alan Stratford present his report on the Yorkshire Airport problem, the question mark in the title above was significant. The chairman, Mr F. A. S. Wood, recalled that the association was founded because its members believed that the region was suffering because of the lack of air transport, and that a regional airport was the correct solution. Mr Stratford had been commis- sioned to carry out an investigation and had recommended two regional airports. His report was factual, and unique in this country. Mr Stratford said it had been agreed beforehand that his report must be entirely independent. As a preliminary to the meeting, Mr Stratford went through the conclusions of his report; underlining particularly how the lack of suitable airports had retarded the development of air transport. The main points were that Middleton-St George should be exploited in the north of the region; that a new site should be developed in the south, preferably at the proposed motorway intersection at Ferrybridge due to be completed by 1971; that the needs of Hull required immediate attention; and that there was an opening for London commuter services to Sheffield. In answering questions Mr Stratford clarified the distinction he drew between a regional and a local airport. A regional airport, he said, would have a runway of around 7,500ft so that it could accommodate medium-range aircraft such as the Trident, BAC One-Eleven and Vanguard, but not the Boeing 707, the object being to provide rapid access to the Continent particularly as inclusive tour passengers were now being transported in large aircraft. On the subject of route licences, Mr Stratford recalled that in the report Mr Wheatcroft foresaw no difficulty in securing entirely new domestic licences, and no major change in the licensing procedures if a Labour Government was elected. But it was emphasized that under any government, the necessary bilateral rights for foreign services may be difficult to obtain from some countries. A strong delegation from Hull, representing the city, the Chamber of Commerce and industry, raised a number of points. BEA was said to have quoted 6s 8d per passenger mile for helicopter services. Mr Stratford felt that Pocklington, 24 miles from the city, was suitable only for general aviation. Two-thirds of the 58,000 passengers predicted might be holidaymakers with most of the traffic bound for London. Several speakers pleaded for rapid action, During the course of an air transport survey in May a Linair Cessna 31 OB made a 4,000-mile round-Libya flight, beginning and ending at Tripoli. Taking part, and seen here at Idris Airport at the conclusion of the flight, were (/ to r): Mohamtd Abdelkafi, Libya Ministry of Planning; Copt Joseph Renson, general manager Linair (pilot); John Paleocrassas of Doxiadis Associates; and John Stroud, air transport consultant and writer even if only a simple runway could be provided. Could nothing be done to make the RAF Station at Leconfield more readily available than at present. An enthusiast from Sheffield said he had an STOL Dornier available now, if only he could find a 250yd strip. His personal researches had demonstrated an annual potential of £lm of business in the city, which another speaker alleged to be the largest in the world with no proper air services. The speakers from Leeds and Bradford were concerned about the competition between the ratepayers investment at Yeadon and the proposed regional airport. Mr Stratford said that central govern- ment finance would be needed for the regional airport, but local authorities would contribute too. These are the considerations on which regional airport proposals will prosper or wither away. Local feeling is generally aligned against financing a remote facility: to sway it would require a large contribution from central government funds. Apart from the financial angle, the fierce local pride which the subject engenders was illustrated by the reactions of Alderman Revis Barber, chairman of the Leeds/Bradford joint airport committee, when the report was first published. He described it as "stuff and nonsense" and said "they can have as many airports as they like at Hull." In Texas it is said that Senator Amon Carter, doyen of the Fort Worth aeronautical scene, always took his own sandwiches when invited to lunch at the Dallas chamber of commerce during the inter-city aviation disputes. He could not bring himself to eat Dallas food. The two airports are 12 miles apart. In the original report curiously little space is given to the prob- lem of Sheffield, a much larger city than Hull, with a population of 500,000. Though the direct distance from Sheffield to Manchester Airport is only 33 miles, the mountain road is tortuous, and liable to snow, ice and fog. Travellers allow between 70 and 90min for the journey, as opposed to the 45min standard adopted in the report. The planned road improvements will have little impact on this route. Though Manchester Airport is used by the majority of Sheffield passengers joining international flights very little use is made of the purely domestic routes. A day trip to London means catching the 7.20 "Master Cutler," and J6hr away from home. The 1958 Ministry of Aviation survey of passengers using Manchester Airport recorded five from Sheffield, against 146 from the area within 10 miles of the airport. Would more traffic be generated by a new airport at Ferrybridge, 25 miles from the centre of Sheffield? And, if this suggestion is not implemented, is there then a case for a South Yorkshire local airport, say on the Al east of Sheffield? The most important aspect of the Yorkshire Airport Development Association work is Mr Stratford's finding that present government policy must lead automatically to the wrong solution from the viewpoint of the overall national economy. "Our study has shown how ill-sited our local airports have been from a regional and from a national standpoint . . . unfortunately no overall airport plan has been put into operation in this country ... the development of air transport in the region has been seriously retarded by the lack of suitable airports." The reader is led to the conclusion that the government's approach has been utterly amateurish. It has delegated responsibility for airport planning to local authorities, who can only cater for and finance local needs. Correct airport location, on the other hand, is shown to depend on Ministry of Transport decisions on the road and rail network; Air Ministry agreement to vacate airfields, or at least permit civil operations; and Board of Trade policy on the location of industry. It also calls for the co-ordination of a large number of local authorities; and the expenditure of public money in one large chunk, rather than the numerous small amounts that a technologically inept Treasury can understand and "control" more readily. Mr Stratford's call for "a Department of State to take more active interest in the location, establishment and develop- ment of airports" is another example of the growing demand by technologists for modernization of a government machine geared principally to the decentralized administration more appropriate to the nineteenth century than to the twentieth.
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