Every effort must be made to block this sale

“Has anyone given any consideration to how this will effect Derriford Hospital? Sea kings can NOT land at Derriford, one recently was forced to land at Marjons which is not sustainable! we are a major city and now have the trauma unit in the emergency department we need an airport to save lives!!!!”

“..from Madmax- '"Bob...there is nothing short sighted about the council twerps,they knew exactly what they were doing,wrong as it may be. Blame Mr Evans"..

Flogging the airport land no doubt contributed towards making disgruntled voters give him and his comrades the boot and consign them to the political wilderness for 5 years, they should have seen it coming..:)
Then the Tories took over and didn't lift a finger to try to keep the airport, (Viv seemed more concerned with getting the Life Centre built so she could do her 50 lengths a week), so the voters got rid of them too, that's how democracy works as the voters say loud and clear to the ruling council -'shape or or we'll ship you out!'”

“Time to move on!
The Airport is beyond its sell by date IMHO and no commercial operator with the money to run it has come to the table as far as I know.
Plymouth loves wallowing in its "glorious past" but Britannia no longer rules the waves and we need to face hard commercial realities.
The Airport is gone and no arm waving will bring it back.
It is naïve IMHO to expect the Council to use the planning process as a tactic to get it reopened and any clever QC on a planning appeal would in my view walk all over such a tactic.
Much better to recognise that Plymouth has a very valuable and probably unique asset 100+ acres of land in the now vibrant North of Plymouth. My take -much better getting best value out of the development of the former Airport -75% of this comes to Plymouth rate payers!
That's better than flogging a dead horse with seemingly no commercial prospects. The only thing don't let it be used for more Ticky Tacky houses but for some innovative form of use that brings money and jobs into Plymouth”

“the Labour Council should be sorting out the lease with Sutton HH but as they gave it away in 2004 don't hold your breath”

“The pro-airport folk need to remember the difficulties those of us who tried to fly to and from Plymouth routinely experienced. The number of delays and diversions pro rata which prolonged interrupted or cancelled flight were very much higher flying to London that getting the train. The number of times flights were cancelled through poor weather or operational problems or diversions to Newquay severely disrupted my work and commitments too often to be tolerable. The problems on the railways were minuscule by comparison and outgoing could invariably be overcome by driving to St David's. The flights I travelled on we're often less than half full. The angst and frustrations caused by getting the train to Gatwick and then the security and other formalities were not only stressful but disruptive and mindbendingly frustrating. The ability to work relax communicate eat comfortably and socialise or discuss work or anything is infinitely better on a train than on a prophet aircraft. I regret to say that the flight times and accompanying time consuming parts of getting to and from and checking in made any journey from central London to Plymouth as compared with the train were such that there was generally little advantage in flying. That practical situation went a long way to explain why the trains were so busy and the flights so under used. As to the suggestion that there would ever be the facilities and number of flights for Plymouth to support holiday charters and be more attractive than Exeter, I fear that the Plymouth Airport proponents have little understanding of the realities or local demography. Those businessmen who really care about minimal reductions in UK domestic travel time often use small private jets the better of which can operate from remarkably short runways. How many of them ever used Roborough?”

“Readers must not forget that the First Great Western (FGW) franchise ends this year and currently other existing franchise owners are preparing bids to take over from FGW.

It is all very well for readers to carry on about the rail links between Plymouth and Paddington but if FGW do not retain the franchise what will the other bidders offer?

According to the latest issue of a highly respected railway magazine not a lot!

Why should I as a business person spend three hours or more on a train from London to Plymouth when, if built, HS2 will get me to Birmingham in 50 minutes? It would even be quicker to get to Paris using the Channel Tunnel!

Those who are gloating over the demise of the airport are ignoring the pitiful transport links of road and rail between Plymouth and Exeter.

There is not the political will or the finance available to do anything to improve the A38 or the railway lines.

Do not forget it was once proposed to end all rail links at Exeter.

Sadly the end of the airport will not help the economic regeneration of Plymouth. It will deter people, with the right connections, in the business world from visiting the City.”

“Bob...there is nothing short sighted about the council twerps,they knew exactly what they were doing,wrong as it may be.Blame Mr Evans.”

“and we are now prospering so much from the work and business that the airport has brought in over the last 10 years...not. the airport will never serve all businesses. i loved the advert in a field near Reading that you could read from the train stating "You would be home now if you flew with Air South West" until I actually looked into the flight times and logistics. You might have been home earlier if you could have caught the once or twice daily flights. It was actually more time and cost effective to use the train by the time you had caught a taxi/train or tube to Gatwick or London City. If you missed your flight you would also be waiting the best part of a day for the next one, or waiting until the next day if you missed the early evening flight...trains are every hour to / from Paddington. yes they can be delayed, but that is the same with any form of transport - i lost count of the number of times my flights back to Plymouth were cancelled or re-routed to Newquay followed by a long and tiresome minibus journey back to Plymouth.”

“And the leader was Tudor Evans, who is now back in power, so he will do all he can to avoid being blamed, such as not getting involved with the airport and keeping a low profile.”

“SHH are property developers who go around buying land to build on, it's what they DO so they can't really be blamed.
The short-sighted council twerps who sold them the airport land in the first place are the ones to blame..”