With Grant Shapps appointment as Transport Secretary earlier in July, it was incumbent upon him to stand down as Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on General Aviation. The APPG has recently confirmed his replacement, Mark Pritchard MP.
Speaking of the change in chairmanship, the group said: “We would like to congratulate Grant on his appointment, and we wish him and his new team the very best of luck in their roles.
“We are also pleased to announce that the proposed new Chair of the APPG is Mark Pritchard MP, the Member of Parliament for the Wrekin. Mark and other members of the APPG will be meeting in October to elect the new appointments and layout the broad work structure for the APPG in the coming year.
“We have also been working with the new Aviation Minister, Paul Maynard MP, who wrote to us laying out how the Department for Transport will ‘champion’ General Aviation in the UK.”
Commenting on their ongoing work, the APPG said: “The work continues to go on within our many Working Groups and this includes saving airfields from being closed down and turned into housing developments.
The APPG secured major changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) which will protect long-established airfields from being threatened by the occupants of newly built housing.
There has also been good news from Wellesbourne, where the local authority is completing a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) which will keep aircraft flying for generations to come.
New investment is also going into Shoreham (Brighton City Airport), keeping the site as a cornerstone for flight training in the South East.
“We would also like to congratulate our founder Chair Byron Davies on being awarded his Peerage and entering the House of Lords. Byron will I’m sure be welcomed back into membership of this APPG upon his investiture.
“As work continues, we will update the website. In the event of a General Election, which looks likely, work by the APPG has to be suspended in the same way as Parliament itself. However, I am sure this will only be for a short period and we will be back in action under whatever new Administration is elected.”
