New Plymouth airport masterplan is drawn up ahead of looming D-day

A masterplan for Plymouth’s disused airport has been drawn up as its protection for aviation use is about to expire. Sutton Harbour Group Plc, which has a long lease on the Derriford site, said it will submit plans to Plymouth City Council[1] for development of the land. In a short update in the company’s six-month interim accounts, SHG said it has a plan for the 113-acre site ready for when the moratorium on alternative uses runs out in March 2024.

The company has an unexpired 135-year lease, with a right to renew for a further 150 years. In its report, which revealed the company had made a pre-tax loss of GBP119,000 in the six months to the end of September, SHG said: “The planning freeze of the former airport site to protect it against alternative use expires in March 2024. It is expected that the company will submit a masterplan to the local planning authority in the near future.”

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”. The former Plymouth City Airport has been out of use since December 2011 when AIM-listed SHG triggered the Armageddon clause enabling it to stop flights if the airport was deemed uneconomic. The 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, was placed on the land in March 2019.

Plymouth City Council has said it wants to acquire the lease[2] and a report from Plymouth City Airport Ltd, the SHG subsidiary which controls the land, this year said the company is in talks with the authority, which has the freehold of the site, to “maximise value from the former airport site through alternative uses”. SHG has said the site is not viable as an airport and should be built on and that without significant subsidy there is no prospect of sustaining aviation. It said developing the land would provide a far greater social and economic benefit for the city .

SHG owns about eight acres of the former airport land and holds about 105 acres through the 135-year lease, with a right to renew for a further 150 years. In September it was revealed that the site had gone up in value[3] by almost GBP150,000 in the past year and is now worth about GBP27m, according to SHG. The Plymouth City Airport Ltd accounts also showed the company had spent more than GBP1m on maintaining the site in the past two years – and the costs are going up.

It was claimed that maintaining the mothballed site was a major drain on finances and the company. In its newly published interim results, SHG showed its net assets had increased in value from GBP56,067,000 in March this year to GBP58.850,000 six months later. The report said: “The increase in net assets of GBP2,783,000 is largely attributable to the issue of 12,994,407 new ordinary shares at 22.5 pence each by way of a subscription by the Company’s major shareholder, raising gross proceeds of GBP2,900,000 in May 2023.”

SHG said it recognised its borrowing level was high and wanted to reduce debt.

But in its report it stressed that the former airport site was not being used as security against a banking facility of GBP21,700,000, which was secured on other property owned by the business.

References

1. ^ Plymouth City Council (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
2. ^ wants to acquire the lease (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)
3. ^ the site had gone up in value (www.plymouthherald.co.uk)