Stobart to leave at Xmas if airport block not lifted
Last updated 08:10, Friday, 11 July 2008
The Stobart Group will leave Cumbria by Christmas unless the Government lifts its block on its plans to develop Carlisle Airport.
- Video: edited highlights of webchat
Chief executive Andrew Tinkler said the firm would relocate to Widnes in Cheshire early next year unless his scheme to move the business onto the Irthington airfield and create a passenger and freight hub was given the green light.
Hundreds of jobs, a huge chunk of the county’s economy and much of its credibility as a business destination would go with it.
The multi-millionaire haulage magnate withdrew his £35m plan to build a new runway, terminal, hangars, warehousing and offices at the airport on Tuesday.
He said the Government’s decision to call a public inquiry – and the subsequent year’s delay incurred – had made it impossible to meet his deadline of February 2009 for work to begin.
Despite that, The Cumberland News understands talks are at an advanced stage to run daily flights from Carlisle to an airport a 45-minute train journey outside London.
Links to and from Ireland and Amsterdam would also be part of the service, provided a way round the current impasse is found.
Mr Tinkler, who took part in a live webchat with Cumberland News readers on Wednesday, refused to name the airport, but it is not Heathrow or Gatwick.
Mr Tinkler has laid the blame for his withdrawal of the proposal firmly at the door of Government Office North West.
He says they told him in September last year that the plan in its current form would go through without a public inquiry – a promise they broke last month.
Mr Tinkler revealed that he would leave his home at Crosby-on-Eden and move to Cheshire if Stobart left Cumbria.
He warned that his financial backing of Carlisle United, pop music festival Carlisle Live and other non-business commitments would be jeopardised as a result.
But he said his sponsorship of two Carlisle academy schools was safe.
Mr Tinkler told The Cumberland News: “I have waited for so long because I am Cumbrian born and bred, I have built my business on the back of Cumbrian people and I want to give them something back.
“I believe that we can still make this work in Cumbria without having to move to Cheshire.
“This is not a threat and I am not a bully. You can ask the 5,300 people who work for me if I am a bully.
“In business you need a plan B if plan A fails. Widnes is our plan B.
“We have a six-month window now to make the plan work and the clock is ticking.
“What we are trying to do is really find out the key issues of why this planning application was called in.
“A year ago I was in a stakeholders’ meeting before putting our planning application in and I asked all the people around the table to please tell me if this application was so complicated it required the Government to pass it because I wouldn’t proceed with it but look at other alternatives for my proposal.
“I am a man of my word and what I say is what I will do. I believe that Cumbria deserves an airport and also deserves Eddie Stobart to stop here and if I can do that I will try.
“I am committed to the academies with Brian [Scowcroft, Kingmoor Park boss] because they are for the future of the city and I would not go back on that.
“But the other commitments, like sponsorships or Carlisle Live, I can’t guarantee would happen in the future.
“I set those up to help build up Carlisle, but if I don’t live there and my businesses aren’t there, why would I continue to do that?”
The Stobart board has extended by six months its option to buy Carlisle Airport for £15m from Carlisle City Council.
Mr Tinkler will now ask the Government why his original plan was called in for a public inquiry and how he can revise it to avoid one.
Central to the matter is whether the inquiry was linked to the airport side of the scheme or the distribution centre.
All the Government will say is that it was called in because it is of “greater than local importance”.
Mr Tinkler has refuted that view, saying Carlisle people should decide the future of the airport, not the Government.
He added: “In the Department for Transport’s White Paper on Carlisle Airport it says it should be developed because of the remoteness of the area and the fact it will improve the economy, encourage tourism and raise the region’s status.
“The document also says any plans to do that should be decided at a local level. That is clearly not happened in this case.”
Crisis talks have been called for Monday where Mr Tinkler will meet Carlisle City Council, Cumbria Vision, the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), Cumbria County Council and others to thrash out a way forward.
On the negotiations about daily flights out of Carlisle, he said: “We are in talks with an operator which operates a regional airport which is willing, on the back of planning permission, to run a daily service from Carlisle to an airport 45 minutes outside London.
“There is then a rail link to take people into the centre of London.“I eventually want to sell tickets so that people can travel from Carlisle to the City of London in two and a half hours.”
Airport objectors claim Mr Tinkler does not want to fight a public inquiry because he would lose.
Irthington resident Dale Ransley said: “The time limit thing is a smokescreen. It would not necessarily take a year for a public inquiry, in fact it could take just two weeks.
“We think he would lose and that’s why he doesn’t want one.”
