Stratford-on-Avon District Council’s Cabinet has confirmed the District Council’s commitment to safeguarding the future of Wellesbourne Airfield.
Wellesbourne has been under threat from a proposed housing development, and last year the owners of the airfield moved to evict the resident aviation companies on Wellesbourne airfield, including around six flying schools, and demolish the buildings vacated.
The local council have been strongly supportive of efforts to keep Wellesbourne open as an operational airfield and in December 2016 the council’s Cabinet’s removed the permitted development rights to demolish buildings at Wellesbourne Airfield, this decision on an ‘Article 4 Direction’ was put out for consultation in order to reaffirm the decision.
The consultation on the Article 4 Direction made by the Council with immediate effect on 14 December 2016 was to consider whether the Direction should be confirmed. The Council invited representations on the Direction until 31 January 2017, the Direction would have expired on 14 June 2017 unless confirmed by the Council.
A number of representations were received which The Cabinet has now considered and accordingly has decided that there was a strong case to continue the Article 4 Direction.
Cllr Chris Saint, Leader of Stratford-on-Avon District Council said, “The Airfield is an important employment and recreation site within the District. The Council’s adopted Core Strategy is very much in support of this and the unanimous decision today by The Cabinet greatly endorses this.
The District Council took this original course of action to safeguard the future of this important asset given the eviction notices that had been served on current tenants of the site and the application submitted to the Council’s Building Control service to demolish a number of buildings on the site.”
