Many of the UK’s regional airports are expanding as demand for both passenger and freight flights continues to rise. Paul Strohm reports on how airports across the country are responding to this challenge.
Despite current economic problems, the outlook for the UK’s regional airports is bright: air traffic is forecast to grow by about 6% pa compound before the year 2005 at these airports. They are also likely to benefit from a 7% increase in air cargo during the same period.
Although there is still little construction activity in other sectors, airports throughout the country are now gearing up to secure their share of the action. Their main objectives are to secure landing and freight-handling fees from aircraft operators. But they are also keen to secure the retail spending power of travellers, as well as engineering, servicing and repair, catering and fuel-supply services, all of which can be sources of rent, direct income and local employment.
Research for Manchester Airport published in 1991 shows that, while there were 15,000 aviation-related jobs created by the airport, a further 8,000 jobs in the area were created by service firms, while between 15,000 jobs and 25,000 jobs were attributable to the “inward investment catalyst”.
Many regional airports in the UK are owned by the local authority and, in addition to the problems of intensifying competition, also face political pressure for privatisation. At this stage there is no legislation to enforce the privatisation of these lucrative sources of local authority revenue. But increasing restrictions on the public sector borrowing requirement are forcing airports to turn to the private sector for cash, often in return for equity participation.
After Gatwick and Heathrow, which, with 65m terminal and transit passengers in 1992, accounted for 60% of the UK total, the busiest regional airports are Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Belfast International, respectively.
Manchester
Manchester is the 18th busiest airport in the world and in 1992 it was used by 11m passengers. The airport forecasts that its passenger throughput will increase to 22m pa by the turn of the century, and 30m pa by 2005.
A purpose-built cargo centre known as the World Freight Centre has been built on the south-west side of the airfield with access to junction 6 of the M56, and the airport has been a key factor in the growth of south Manchester generally, aided by a well-developed motorway network. Further demand for land is expected and 68 acres have been earmarked between terminal 2 and Woodhouse Park on the edge of the city. Manchester Airport owns Ringway Developments, which has obtained consent for 145,000 sq ft at the Manchester Business Park where it eventually plans to build 500,000 sq ft of space.
Last year the first phase of Manchester Airport’s second terminal was opened, along with a new railway link to the city centre. Now Manchester Airport plc, whose shares are held by the city council and the 10 metropolitan districts, has applied for consent to build a second runway. A planning inquiry will begin in June and is expected to last for 10 weeks. If the second runway proceeds then Manchester Airport claims that 50,000 jobs will be created by 2005.
Liverpool
However, Manchester’s position as the North West’s leading airport is not going unchallenged. Operators of Liverpool Airport believe that Liverpool could handle the increased demand for flights to the North West, obviating the need for a second runway at Manchester. In December a planning application was made to realign the airport as part of a strategy intended to increase passenger handling capacity to 6m pa by 2010, and 12m pa by 2030. British Aerospace owns 76% of Liverpool Airport and the five Merseyside Authorities own the remaining 24%.
Liverpool Airport’s supporters will make their feelings clear at Manchester’s public inquiry. They will argue that the need for greater capacity at Manchester is not as immediate as is claimed, and that it would be more efficient to allow Liverpool to serve about 20% of the journeys going through Manchester.
Liverpool also has plans for a hotel, as well as engine-testing areas and cargo facilities. Although no planning application has been made, Mason Owen is advising on possible commercial and retail uses for the adjacent former North Airfield.
Leeds-Bradford
Leeds-Bradford has recently gained consent for night flying, which should attract further operators and increase the passenger throughput from last year’s modest 700,000. However, plans for expansion are not far advanced and the airport is currently examining the feasibility of expanding its terminal facilities.
Newcastle upon Tyne
In the North East, Newcastle upon Tyne Airport experienced a 6% growth in passenger throughput in 1993, taking the number of passengers to 2.08m every year. The airport predicts that it will be catering for 2.4m passengers pa by 1997; 3.4m passengers pa by 2002; and 4.5m passengers pa by 2007. Freight handling is also expected to grow and, by 1996, will have risen from the current 5,400 tonnes pa to 8,300 tonnes pa. By the turn of the century the airport expects to be handling 11,100 tonnes of freight every year.
In response to these expectations, Newcastle is currently building an 85,000-sq ft “freight village” within the airport perimeter. This will include freight agents’ offices as well as warehousing and transit sheds, and will centralise freight operations to increase efficiency.
Development around the airport has been hampered by its location in the green belt. But this could soon change as Newcastle’s deposit draft unitary development plan places the airport in a 198-acre “window”, which includes 128 acres for new development for airport-related uses. To the south, another 29 acres has been allocated for economic development which is not directly related to the airport.
Teesside
Nearby Teesside Airport, which handled 400,000 passengers in 1993, expects this to increase to 1m passengers pa by the turn of the century. It is planning a new maintenance hangar and extensions to the terminal buildings to cope with new scheduled services. There are also plans to develop 200 acres of land to the south of the airfield.
Birmingham
Birmingham handled more than 4.2m passengers last year. Owned by the seven district councils of the West Midlands, Birmingham is the fifth largest airport in the UK in terms of passenger figures, and serves a catchment of 8m people within an hour’s drive time.
The airport is currently examining ways to increase its capacity . It expects to be handling 11m passengers pa by 2005, which should create a further 11,000 new jobs in the area. The refurbishment of the main terminal was completed in June and a new terminal, Eurohub, was completed in 1991.
If Birmingham wins its fight to end Government restrictions on US operators flying into regional airports – it claims that many of the 650,000 annual transatlantic journeys with origins in the Midlands are using other airports – its significance could be further increased. This in turn would stimulate more growth in the south Birmingham motorway corridor, where the M40, M69, M6 and M5 all feed into the M42. Developments such as Arlington’s Birmingham Business Park and Trinity Park, in which Burton Property Trust and Birmingham International Airport plc are partners, have potential for further expansion. Last year the Department of the Environment effectively gave the go-ahead to another business park at junction 4 of the M42.
Coventry
Nearby Coventry Airport is not striving to compete directly with Birmingham, but sees its role as a cargo hub. A £3.7m programme of operational improvements has just been finished, while £4m of improvements to local infrastructure will be completed in September. Coventry handles about 20,000 tonnes of cargo each year and up to 30 scheduled freight movements every night. Parcelforce, Securicor, DHL, Lynx Express and AirExpress International are just some of the firms which use Coventry.
The airport’s owner, Coventry council, is currently selecting a private-sector partner for future expansion – another £35m of investment is planned. Coventry Air Park, to be developed on 90 acres of airport land, is targeted for airport-related uses and has outline consent for B1, B2 and B8. Ultimately, it will also include a new terminal building which will allow the existing one to be demolished. Parcelforce paid £2.2m for a 12.5-acre site in December, which will be developed as an international parcel-distribution hub, and negotiations are under way with another parcels distributor.
At P&O’s Middlemarch Business Park, immediately adjacent to the Air Park, and formerly known as Coventry Trading Estate, there is 110 acres of land available for development, including a 1.2m-sq ft business park. Some existing buildings will be retained and crisp manufacturer Walker Smith paid £5.25m for an existing 226,000-sq ft building for a new food snack line in November 1993.
East Midlands
Coach operator National Express bought East Midlands Airport, situated close to junction 24 of the M1, last August. The airport has yet to publish its development plans, although the terminal is likely to be developed to cope with an increase in capacity from 1.5m passengers pa to 2m passengers pa. Planning approval has also been granted for a runway extension.
The airport has 900 acres of land, most of which is for operational use. East Midland’s potential as an economic generator has been spotted by a number of developers, including Arlington, which has plans for a 263-acre business park at junction 23a. These proposals are not supported in the Leicestershire structure plan, which was approved in January, although two smaller business parks in the area have won support. However, the structure plan is subject to a review which could see a shift in Arlington’s favour following positive comments by the panel at the examination in public. In any case, Arlington does not envisage starting construction before 1998.
Southampton
Development around Southampton’s Eastleigh Airport seems likely to be built on a similar timescale. A £21m project to replace most of the facilities at Eastleigh airport should be completed late this year, increasing passenger capacity to 1m. As part of the original master plan, land allocated for business parks includes a 48-acre site at the north-east corner of the airfield and 23 acres beside the terminal buildings on the south-west corner, next to junction 5 of the M27. In December 1992, joint developers London & Edinburgh Trust and Peter de Savary, through joint venture Southampton Eastleigh Airports Developments, obtained outline planning consent for 1.25m sq ft of B1, B2 and B8 space. There is also a 17-acre site, on adjacent British Rail land, with scope for 250,000 sq ft, although no planning application has yet been made. Eastleigh council says that a partial development is unlikely because any development on one site triggers a legal obligation to provide infrastructure work on both sites. Keith Wood of Richard Ellis says that the developers are “taking stock and actively reappraising the project, looking at possible improvements”.
Bournemouth
Bournemouth International Airport is often compared with Eastleigh, although some argue that the different runway characteristics make them complementary. Bournemouth airport’s owners, Dorset County Council and Bournemouth Borough Council, have approved a master plan prepared by planners Terence O’Rourke. It is hoped that this will boost the number of passengers using the airport from the present 200,000 pa to 425,000 pa.
The master plan envisages the reconfiguration of the runways and taxiways, which would extend the main runway to suit more modern, wider-bodied aircraft, as well as freeing land for commercial development. The Dorset structure plan already identifies 99 acres for general industry and warehousing and another 99 acres for a business park. Now the shareholders are reviewing funding options, which may involve disposing of their interests completely.
Exeter
Further development at Exeter Airport, which handles about 2.7m passengers per year, awaits the Government’s review of the road-building programme, which has frozen a proposal to realign the A30. Plans had been approved which would have taken the A30 past the airport while upgrading it to dual-carriageway.
“It would have a dramatic effect on access and on the development potential of land around the airport”, says managing director Geoff Myers. Devon County Council, which owns the airport-operating company, also owns land on the northern perimeter. Here, 107 acres has been designated as a “skypark” although there is no planning consent and this proposal has not yet reached the structure plan. Other land which could become suitable for development is owned by the Rockbeare Estate and the Church Commissioners.
Bristol
While Bristol’s main airport handles more than 1m passengers pa, British Aerospace’s plans for a second airport at its plant at Filton in Bristol have caused considerable local controversy. The airport is close to housing estates and the runway is long enough to cope with the largest and noisiest of aircraft.
However, British Aerospace stresses that its plans are small scale, with a maximum of 23,000 air movements pa generating about 350,000 passengers each year by 2000. The small, quiet, medium- to short-haul aircraft will require only half the runway length, and would be used for scheduled business travel and a small amount of freight. BAe says that it merely hopes to secure the viability of Filton as an aerospace centre.
Belfast
Belfast’s airports complement each other. Belfast City, 3 miles east of the city centre, claims to be one of the fastest-growing airports in the UK. Belfast International, Aldergrove, is 13 miles to the west and has recently completed a programme of improvement to its terminal which boosts its capacity from 2.2m passengers per year to 3.5m passengers per year. At an expected 3.9% pa growth rate, the airport expects to be catering for this number of passengers by 2005.
In a joint venture with local developer McAleer & Rushe, the airport developed a 108-room Novotel hotel which was completed in June. The airport also owns 180 acres of land with planning consent for airport-related business, and is currently deciding its strategy after a market-research project: its options include selling sites, joint development or design-and-build.
Luton
While Heathrow and Gatwick dominate the South East, London’s other airports continue to thrive. At Luton, used by about 2m passengers in 1992, there has already been substantial investment in improvements to terminal facilities. The first of four phases of a new cargo centre has been begun with a 25,000-sq ft transit shed, built at a cost of £3.5m, already completed. The remaining phases will be prelet.
However, far more significant will be the development of the London Luton Interchange, a combined road, rail and air transport interchange able to cope with 7.5m people. The first phase will be complete in 1998.
Stansted
Stansted Airport, which copes with more than 2m passengers pa, is surrounded by greenbelt land which restricts scope for non-airport-related development. Higgs & Hill is developing a B8 distribution centre on a 12.5-acre site under the flight path. There is planning consent for 112,000 sq ft and a 20,000-sq ft unit has already been built speculatively.
Edinburgh
Although the Scottish capital’s airport tends to be eclipsed by Glasgow’s transatlantic status, it is still the UK’s fourth busiest airport outside London, and handled 2.7m passengers in 1992. The green belt restricts any development around the airport itself, but the new M8 link, due to be completed in 1995, will speed travel into Edinburgh, especially to South Gyle to the west of the city centre, where developments such as Edinburgh Park should benefit.
Prestwick
Prestwick, north of Ayr on Scotland’s west coast, has begun an aggressive marketing campaign together with ambitious expansion plans. Much of the airport’s resurgence has been on the back of increased freight: Federal Express serves the Scottish electronics industry and Polar Air Cargo serves the oil and gas industries. A three-phase project to improve the airport facilities involves the construction of a new rail station, a car park and improved terminal facilities, including shops and car hire offices.
A dedicated freight terminal at the Orangefield site to the south of the terminal building is also proposed, which will enable the airport to deal simultaneously with 24 aircraft.
Glasgow
But it is Glasgow which is now emerging as one of the best examples of an orchestrated effort to use an airport as an instrument of regeneration. Glasgow, which handled 4.8m passengers in 1992, completed a £60m extension to its terminal building in 1992 and began a £40m project to develop a new international pier last year.
Now the airport is the focus of an ambitious 15-year plan, led by Renfrewshire Enterprise, to create 12,000 jobs in the district as well as a further 4,000 jobs across central Scotland. Glasgow Airport Initiative involves seven public- and private-sector partners and aims to create a “forest park which will be an envelope within which commercial, airport-related, tourism and leisure developments will take place”.
The commercial elements are likely to be centred on the Inchinnan Business Park, an existing development, and GAI has identified more than 1,500 acres for low-density development – 3,000 sq ft per acre. “We are trying to create a special product as a focus for inward investment,” says GAI director Mike Sandys. “It will allow Scotland to compete in Europe.”
However, the airport’s position in the M8 Corridor is likely to ensure that the benefits spread west towards Greenock and its enterprise zones, and east towards Glasgow itself. Developments such as the 470-acre Caledonian Land-controlled Hillington and Tilbury Douglas’s 330-acre Phoenix Park at Linwood, former home to Chrysler, are also likely to benefit.
