Harmless Sky

An update on the progress of Kemble Air Services attempts to bring Llanbedr Airfield back to life makes depressing reading.

Airfield application decision due

On 3^rd November, the BBC website had a story that  the Snowdonia National Park Authority was seeking further specialist legal advice on applications to grant certificates of lawful use of the airfield by Kemble. Apparently the only objections received were from the Snowdonia Society on the grounds that this would ‘go against the key aims of the National Park’. According to this report legal advice received by the planners pointed to refusal of the certificates, but the National Park Authority said that this should be regarded as ‘neither an expression for or against’ the proposals.

Airport bid ‘will go on’ in Gwynedd

The Liverpool Post reported the story in similar terms on 9th November, but with an added quote from Kemble reiterating their commitment to the project and asking local people, who have shown overwhelming support for the project, to bring pressure on the National Park Authority to make a speedy and favourable decision.

[Although this report suggests that Kemble are saying that they can create hundreds of jobs at Llanbedr, it seems unlikely that they have ever made such a claim.]

Park airfield request turned down

A BBC News website report on 12^th November confirmed that the certificates would not now be granted. Kemble apologised to local contractors and local businesses who been engaged to undertake work or rent space at the site. The Snowdonia Society objections have resulted in Kemble’s newly appointed local manager being laid off.

It ends with this statement of the Snowdonia Society’s position from its director, Alun Pugh

“As a society we have always pressed for a full and public debate on this and the best way to do that is to have a full and formal application for planning permission.”

Which sounds very measured and reasonable if you ignore the fact that there has already been considerable public debate. A local petition in favour of Kemble’s plans received over 1200 signatures in a few days, while a petition organised by the Society found just 156 people who were prepared to endorse their campaign. Of these only 25 signatories claimed to be from Gwynedd (the vast county in which the airfield is situated). Nearly half were from England, and more than a third were from other parts of Wales. Stranger still, only one member of staff at the Society’s headquarters seems to have signed this petition, the director, Alun Pugh. Read the rest of this entry »

In December, the Welsh Assembly Government finally gave the go-ahead for Kemble’s take-over of the Llanbedr Airfield. Now only the matter of planning permission has to be resolved before Kemble can, at last, begin operations. This will involve either an application for change of use, which will be considered by the Snowdonia National Park Authority’s Planning Committee, or the granting of a Certificate of Lawful Use by their legal department.The Snowdonia Society has vowed to continue their campaign to torpedo Kembles efforts to bring the airfield back to life, but here is the opening of an opinion piece on the Snowdonia Society’s website by Rob Colllister, one of the society’s trustees:

So, the first battle over Llanbedr airfield has been fought and lost.  The Assembly Government will lease the land of the old RAF base to Kemble Ltd and the Snowdonia National Park Authority will without doubt grant permission for it to be re-opened as a civilian airport. From it tourists will be able to take scenic flights over Snowdon and politicians and businessmen will look forward to flying to Cardiff or Dublin.  Out of this lamentable affair, two depressing truths emerge.

http://www.snowdonia-society.org.uk/news.php?n_id=44

If we set aside the unsubstantiated claim that Llanbedr airfield is about to become an ‘airport’, what are the ‘depressing truths’ that the Snowdonia Society alone seem to be lamenting? In Rob Collister’s view these are Assembly Government’s lack of doctrinaire rigour in its commitment to save the planet and an ambivalent attitude on the part of some Welsh politicians towards the role of national parks.

The latter point is, perhaps, the more disturbing. Read the rest of this entry »

There is good news tonight for all those in Llanbedr and elsewhere who have been hoping that the Snowdonia Society’s attempts to obstruct plans to get the airfield up-and-running again would come to nothing. Ieuan Wyn Jones, deputy first minister of the Welsh Assembly Government has approved the sale of the airfield to Kemble Air Services.

This is a very significant step forward, although there are still some issues concerning planning consent to be resolved.It is to be hoped that, by the time these matters are determined, the Snowdonia Society will have come to its senses. Its indifference to the needs of people who live in the national park has already done great harm to that once reputable organisation. Continuing to disrupt this project on purely ideological grounds would be both perverse and irresponsible.

Provided there are no further delays, Kemble hope to start operations sometime during the first half of next year.

At a time of general economic gloom it is wonderful to be able to post news of such a positive development. And for all those who have the best interests of the Snowdonia National Park at heart it will be reassuring to know that common sense has prevailed. Instead of lying idle, this valuable facility can once again contribute to the economic and cultural life of the area after a break of over four years.

For the people of Llanbedr this decision should herald of a new era; it looks as though we may soon get our airfield back!

Press report here

On the BBC’s Politics Show Wales programme yesterday, David Young of Kemble Air Services warned that his company cannot wait indefinitely for the Welsh Assembly Government to resolve planning issues that are holding up their takeover of Llanbedr Airfield. He also made it clear that Kemble are not prepared to face the costs and delay that would result from a planning dispute which is not of their making. (Full report here)

Government contractors operated the seventy-year-old airfield until QinetiQ pulled out four years ago with the loss of over a hundred jobs. Since then the Welsh Assembly government has been seeking a new operator.

The deal with Kemble was put on hold on the eve of their taking over last May when an environmental group challenged their right to re-start flying operations there. The Welsh Assembly Government had told Kemble that planning permission would not be needed because of the established use of the airfield. But the Snowdonia Society claim that they have found a loophole in the legislation and are using it as a means of disrupting the takeover.

There is massive local support for Kemble’s proposals, Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been away for about three weeks, and the last few days have been devoted to trying to catch up. Anyone who tries to persuade us that the climate debate is over for all reasonable people should try reading their way back into the subject after even such a short break.At Climate Audit, Steve McIntyre and others are dismembering a new climate reconstruction from Michael Mann of Hockey Stick fame - here. It would seem that, once again, there are many questions to be asked about strange statistical techniques that palaeoclimatologists love, and real statisticians find surprising.

On the three Sundays when I was out of the country, the BBC broadcast a series of programmes on climate change presented by Dr Ian Stewart. I’ve only seen one short clip from this that was posted on YouTube. In this sequence the Hockey Stick is presented as a courageous piece of ground-breaking research that has been successfully defended against unwarranted attacks by ignorant and unscrupulous sceptics. Unfortunately, while Dr Mann is given ample screen time to defend his work, the BBC found it quite unnecessary to allow any sceptic to explain why they have doubts about the Hockey Stick.

Closer to home, there has been the usual backlog of mail to deal with, and this contained at least one interesting item; Read the rest of this entry »

Very soon after the Snowdonia Society’s opposition to Kemble Air Services plans to restart flying operations at Llanbedr Airfield became known, a petition with the title, ‘Llanbedr Airfield yes, yes, yes!’ was circulated in the area. The subtitle was, ‘We who have signed below are in favour of developing Llanbedr Airfield in order to bring jobs to the area, increase tourism and boost the local economy’, so no one was in any doubt about what they were signing up to.Petitions canvasing support for some local issue are not unusual in this area, and one often sees rather dog-eared forms lying on shop counters with a few signatures scrawled on them. What made the airfield petition different was the number of signatures that it attracted in this sparsely populated rural area: over 1200 in little more than a week.

As the Snowdonia Society seemed to be under the impression that they would receive widespread public support for their campaign this must have come as rather a surprise to them.

Not to be outdone, the society launched their own petition Against Llanbedr Airport on the Welsh Assembly web site. Being an internet based operation, this had the potential to attract tens of thousands of signatures. The result was interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the advantages of having a large but not very well organised filing system - and there are very few advantages - is that searching for an illusive reference can occasionally yield a pleasant surprise. This morning I stumbled on this and I think that everyone should read it at least once in their lives. The punchline comes, with some brutality, in the last paragraph. Read the rest of this entry »

On 22^nd May 2008 the Cambrian News published a letter from a Dr David Lewis with the heading, ‘Assembly stubbornly refused to answer our questions’. As Dr Lewis is the chairman of the Snowdonia Society’s Policy Committee, and therefor at the heart of the campaign to prevent Kemble Air Services’ taking over Llanbedr Airfield, it is reasonable to suppose that he would take this opportunity to make the best possible case for the society’s opposition.

Here is the first sentence of Dr Lewis’ letter:

Everyone in Ardudwy would like to see new jobs make up for those lost when Llanbedr airfield was closed four years ago.

Now, at first glance, there is nothing in the least bit controversial here, but who exactly is this Dr Lewis Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post I considered the information that the Snowdonia Society is using to brief its members on the issues that underlie their campaign to prevent Kemble Air Services taking over Llanbedr Airfield. The statement on their campaign webpage is very short, and gives the impression that a major new development within the Snowdonia National Park is about to take place. In fact Kemble Air Services aviation plans involve no more than the resumption of flying operations, after a gap of just four years in the airfield’s busy 70-year history, on what will probably be a greatly reduced scale.

Now I want to look at the links on this page to press coverage of the society’s campaign. The obvious intention of these is to inform members and other visitors about what is going on.

Here is a selection of headlines on these linked pages: Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been looking at the Snowdonia Society’s website where they have a page devoted to their campaign to prevent Kemble Air Services re-starting flying operations at Llanbedr Airfield.

On BBC Radio Cymru yesterday, the director of the Snowdonia Society, Alun Pugh, assured listeners that he has a mandate from his members for the campaign to derail Kemble’s plans. But for this to be true, it is of course necessary for the membership to have access to impartial and accurate information about the issues. Given the massive support for Kemble in this area, I thought it would be worth having a look at what the society is telling their members about this campaign.

Here is the headline on their page:

Llanbedr Airport - Latest

This seems very strange, as there is no such place as Llanbedr Airport, nor has there ever been. Throughout its long history this establishment has never been known as anything other than Llanbedr Airfield; an accurate description. But I suppose that if you are running a campaign you cannot afford to be too fussy about such niceties as getting a name wrong. If the term airport gives potential supporters the impression that this remote rural airfield is about to become a rival to Heathrow, then why worry about it being thoroughly misleading?

The term airport implies a major centre for air travel, and there is absolutely no question of any such development taking place at Llanbedr.

Next, we find this: Read the rest of this entry »