Crucial loan vote buys time for Doncaster Sheffield airport project

Motion to rescind £57m in borrowing threatened efforts to re-open UK regional facility.

Plans to re-open the UK’s Doncaster Sheffield airport remain in place, for now, after the local council backed a crucial loan decision, reversal of which would have derailed the project.

The council had approved borrowing £57 million ($77 million) in November 2025.

But the approval had been granted without knowledge of lease terms for the airport site, and the council met on 11 May to discuss a motion that its members had been “unable to exercise proper and informed judgement” on the matter, and that the loan decision “should be rescinded”.

The terms include a provision requiring the airport to reach a specific minimum passenger threshold, by a defined deadline, to avoid triggering a right by landowner Peel Group to terminate the lease.

The council had submitted projections to the UK Civil Aviation Authority last August indicating 2.5 million passengers within 10 years of re-opening.

But a subsequent submission in March projected 1.1 million by 2037.

The latest estimate falls below a contractual threshold required to avoid lease termination, according to agenda documentation published ahead of an 11 May vote on the project.

This documentation also refers to a “structural conflict” arising from the council’s simultaneous roles as tenant and local planning authority.

But according to the GMB union, the council opted to approve the loan during the meeting.

“It’s a massive relief…that the airport project hasn’t been killed,” says GMB organiser Sarah Barnes.

Political tensions and the lower passenger forecasts, however, remain potential obstacles to the council’s ambtiions to re-open Doncaster Sheffield, which closed in 2022 after 17 years of operation.

The agenda document had noted that the airport programme was “at a critical stage”, with essential long-lead equipment requiring early commitments in order to meet a passenger operations starting date of Easter 2028.

Potential delay in the commencement of passenger flights would have had a significant financial impact. If the borrowing decision had been rescinded, alternative funding would have had to be identified urgently in order to meet costs.

“Even if it could be obtained, it would not be possible to bring forward alternative funding within the timescales necessary to achieve the re-opening programme dates,” the agenda adds.