A reopened Doncaster Sheffield Airport will not operate passenger flights until 2028 even if the £150m project gets the green light next month, South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard has revealed.
Doncaster Council, which is hoping to run the airport through a council-owned company if Mr Coppard releases its share of devolution funding for the project, has repeatedly previously said it wants to reopen the airport from spring 2026.
But in a speech to business leaders in Doncaster on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Coppard revealed a new timeframe for the potential reopening of the commercial element of the airport, which was closed by previous owners Peel in 2022 following years of running at a loss.
He said: “We’re now unlikely to be at full operational capacity until 2028.
“We would be unlikely to see commercial passenger flights into or out of DSA before 2028, albeit we will of course aim for that to happen sooner.”
Mr Coppard said “there will be things happening sooner”, with freight and potential private flights “easier” to arrange.
A final decision on releasing funds for the project had originally been due in February this year but was delayed by Mr Coppard to seek independent advice over concerns that backing the scheme carried a “significant risk” to public money.
Mr Coppard said while he has been criticised for postponing a decision by the Mayoral Combined Authority board made up of himself and other South Yorkshire political leaders, further work was necessary following the failure to find a private operator to take the airport on.
“That material change has required us to undertake a new and deeper level of analysis, to satisfy the very significant demands of using public funding for a project of this nature and this scale,” he said.
“I have made, and will make, no apology for that approach; for doing the proper due diligence when being asked to potentially spend in excess of £150 million of public money, to make real a project that has the potential to be either a huge economic driver, or a significant drain on public funds.”
