Nick Fletcher

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Lest we forget.

Doncaster Sheffield Airport, Our airport!

What a mess they have got themselves into.

Back in 2022, @olivercoppard said at a public meeting he had neither the power nor the money to buy the airport. Yet the Gainshare funding and powers had been provided by the Conservative government. And in August 2022, Aviation Minister Robert Courts wrote to him explicitly urging him to consider the public ownership model used at Teesside.

So what was missing then that makes a purchase possible now?

In 2024, just before Oliver’s re-election (coincidence?), @MayorRos approved what was, quite simply, an appalling lease with Peel.

In 2025, her manifesto promised to reopen our airport by 2026.

Now it’s 2026. Still no open airport and, millions of pounds later, the @SouthYorksMCA board papers say the necessary lease changes could not be secured. So poor was this lease that, without changes, SYMCA would not release the funding.
The proposed solution?

Buy the airport.

Officials at both authorities told the @DonnyFreePress
it was "categorically incorrect" to say the lease renegotiations had failed.

Unfortunately, somebody forgot to tell the people writing the board papers.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects are clapping like performing seals at a water park. All we need now is somebody throwing them a fish.

Before the next round of applause, somebody should ask the obvious Yorkshire question: HOW MUCH?

Nobody seems to want to. Hardly surprising when the same council sycophants have dominated the town for decades. So I will.

How much?

I also ask: how can you negotiate a good price when you're stuck in a lease you're trying to escape?

Reform, meanwhile, are taking the glory for what many of us said four years ago: buy the thing. But they, too, are applauding before they know the deal.

They backed the £57 million borrowing, sought to reverse it, then backed it again. Labour's leaders are inept. Reform appears not to have a leader at all.

So where are we? No passenger flights. No freight flights. No controlled airspace. And, in my view, no convincing plan.

What we do have is officials posing for photos and two mayors who want to spend our money.

And, as I often say, "Spending money is easy. Earning it is the hard part."

Build a business with your own money and mistakes come out of your own pocket. Here, they come out of ours. Our mayors have never built their own businesses, just spent our money. And it shows.

The people of Doncaster deserve better. It is our money, and we will all live with the consequences.

I want our airport open. I want holidays abroad not freight flights at 2am and our Gainshare money gone for decades.

I want leaders who do the right thing for the right reasons, not for their own careers.

Sadly, I think we will all be waiting for a long time.

#NotFitToLead

OLIVER AND HIS TOURIST TAX

Oliver Coppard @SouthYorksMCA proving once again that he has no idea how business works.

Why would he? He’s spent his career in politics.

Now he wants a tourist tax to “bring us into line” with other places.

Oliver, why would you tax something you actually want people to do?

We WANT people to visit South Yorkshire. We WANT them staying in our hotels, eating in our restaurants, drinking in our pubs and spending money in our shops.

Our hospitality businesses are already being hammered by rising costs and taxes. The last thing they need is another tax making South Yorkshire more expensive to visit.

And let’s be clear what this really means: more money for politicians to spend on their pet projects, while businesses across the region they are supposed to support struggle to survive.

All while Oliver continues to take home a six-figure salary.

You don’t help businesses by making it more expensive for their customers to come here.

South Yorkshire deserves better.

#Notfittolead

In case you missed it, Doncaster’s Labour MPs really excelled themselves last week.

Three of our local Labour MPs, Sally Jameson, @LeePitcherMP and @JohnHealey_MP, voted against an amendment that would have prevented puberty blockers being prescribed to under-18s for gender dysphoria.

Three Doncaster MPs. Three votes against protecting our children.

For all those across Doncaster who voted Labour, I hope you will think twice next time around.

#notfittogovern