A Tolhurst welcomed everyone to the April meeting of the Airport Consultative Committee (ACC). 

An extended welcome went to Norma McCarron in her new capacity as Ex-Officio Member of the ACC.  Members were informed that Norma had previously been Blaxton Parish Council’s representative since the Committee had been formed in 2005 and had also been heavily involved in discussions at the very beginning of helping to form Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield Airport. 

Following Norma’s retirement as a Parish Councillor, A Tolhurst said it was felt appropriate to invite Norma to continue as a Member of the ACC, due to the significant contributions she had made at ACC meetings. 

Parish Councillors Raybould and Ward were also welcomed to their first meeting of the ACC.  

A Tolhurst hoped that the new Members would find ACC meetings interesting.  He also took the opportunity to remind all Members that discussions regarding activity taking place at the airport which local residents would find interesting, should be reported back as a matter of course. 

On behalf of the Committee, A Tolhurst congratulated Keith Moran on his recent promotion to Operations Director at DSA and welcomed him to his first ACC meeting. 

Apologies for absence were noted as above.

A Tolhurst opened the meeting and he said that given the easing of Covid-related restrictions he had considered holding today’s meeting in person for the first time in two years.  However, due to increasing Covid cases, it was felt sensible to hold today’s meeting virtually.  He hoped that a future ACC meeting would be held in person. 

A Tolhurst said that just when it looked that the outlook was getting brighter, events have served to reduce enthusiasm generally.  Surging inflation and the war in Ukraine are weighing heavily on economic forecasts and on travel in particular.  And the dreaded virus was having a huge impact on travel with so many flights being cancelled at present for shortage of crews. 

In today’s Times newspaper the headline had been ‘Airport Staff Shortages threaten two months of disruptions for travellers’. 

And only this week, the CEO at Manchester Airport had resigned over the huge queues at check in-desks, with some passengers missing their flights even though they arrived in good time.

Despite the current setbacks, flight bookings in general were showing an upturn, although some analysts were concerned that as turbulent times are far from over, the overseas holiday activity might not turn out much better that that of the last two years.

That said, it was good to note that locally there are developments which the Committee would no doubt hear about during the meeting.

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the Ordinary meeting of the Airport Consultative Committee held on 27 January 2022 be agreed as a correct record of the meeting. 

i)          Update on the GatewayEast Rail Scheme

It was agreed that a discussion would take place at today’s meeting at agenda item 8. 

ii)         Traffic Management – Airport Customers using local Estate Roads for car parking

Councillor Cox reported that complaints had increased significantly from local residents with regards to DSA customers parking their vehicles on local residential streets, especially on the Pembridge Park Estate, Spitfire Way and at Auckley village church. 

Councillor Cox asked again if the Airport’s NPR patrol vehicle could patrol the local estate roads.  He acknowledged that the roads on the Pembridge Park Estate had not yet been adopted by Doncaster MBC. 

A Tolhurst reported that he had recently discussed this issue with DSA’s Managing Director and Director of Aviation Development and Corporate Affairs.  It had been concluded that it was very difficult to patrol the estate roads due to them not being adopted by Doncaster MBC.  It had been suggested that local Councillors seek Doncaster MBC’s agreement to issue residents with parking permits to help address the problem. 

Councillor Cox added that local residents had asked if signage could be installed to deter airport parkers from using the estate roads. 

Following discussion, A Tolhurst suggested that all relevant authorities be brought together to talk about the situation with the hope that a solution could be found. ACTION: K Moran / A Tolhurst. 

A Tolhurst said that it would also be helpful to understand if other Airports, and in particular, if Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LJLA) had similar problems with regards to airport passengers using local estate roads for car parking and how they were addressing it. 

A Bosmans reported that there had been recent reports in the Liverpool Echo on 24 and 28 March 2022 regarding holidaymakers causing parking problems on residential roads near LJLA. 

K Moran said that he would obtain feedback from A Dutton at LJLA to understand how they are addressing this issue.  ACTION: K Moran

iii)        DfT Information Gathering Exercise for Airport Consultative Committees

A Tolhurst remined the Committee that the Department for Transport (DfT) had launched an online information gathering exercise for ACCs on 10 January 2022 to understand the challenges faced by ACCs and other organisations established to perform a consultation process on the operations for UK airports and aerodromes through the information gathering exercise. 

It was noted that a summary of the results from the review was currently awaited. 

The UKACCs Secretariat had recently informed ACCs that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had taken over responsibility of this exercise from the DfT. 

A Tolhurst said that he would update the Committee when the summary results had been made available. 

Members are requested to note the following changes of membership on the Airport Consultative Committee:

-     Ex Parish Councillor Norma McCarron has been appointed as an Ex-officio Member of the ACC.

-     Following the Noise Monitoring & Environmental Sub-Committee meeting held on 24 March 2022, Town Councillor Cropley, Parish Councillor Raybould and Parish Councillor Ward were elected to represent the Committee on the ACC. 

RESOLVED – That the Committee noted the following changes of membership on the Airport Consultative Committee:

·      Ex Parish Councillor Norma McCarron had been appointed as an Ex-officio Member of the ACC. 

·      In accordance with paragraph 8 of the Airport Consultative Committee’s Constitution, following an election held on 24 March 2022, Town Councillor Cropley, Parish Councillor Raybould and Parish Councillor Ward had been elected by the Noise Monitoring and Environmental Sub-Committee to represent the Committee at the ACC for the 2022 calendar year. 

K Moran provided the Committee with a verbal update on airport business. 

It was reported that DSA was operating as normal despite travel across the UK being affected due to staffing problems and flight cancellations.

There had been some local staffing issues due to staff testing positive for Covid.  The impact on service delivery and flights had been very minimal.  There had been slight increases on queue times, but they were currently within the Airport’s limits.  There had been no queues reported over a ten-minute waiting time. 

There would be an increase in flights at DSA during the Easter holidays. 

It was reported that the Terminal Expansion Project to install three new departure gates, a new lift for passengers with reduced mobility and improvements at Central Search was currently two weeks behind schedule.  It was anticipated that new x-ray machines would be installed at the Airport towards the end of April. 

DSA were currently anticipating there to be 1.5 million passengers set to fly from the Airport during 2022. 

TUI had launched a weekly long-haul service to Melbourne Orlando International Airport, with the first flight departing DSA on 27 March 2022. 

From 2 May 2022 to the end of September 2022, TUI would be operating a weekly long-haul service to Cancun, Mexico on its Boeing 787 aircraft. 

RESOLVED – That the update be noted. 

N Biddle provided the Committee with a verbal update on Peel Land and Property development issues. 

The following updates were noted:-

·      Following the January ACC meeting, Vendor Qualification Questionnaires had been completed with contractors set to work on the IQ site to ensure that they are meeting Peel Land and Property’s procurement targets for local employment, apprenticeships, and use of local suppliers.  Contractors were also being asked to meet stringent sustainability criteria. 

·      Five contractors had now been selected with the tender process scheduled to commence at the end of May / early June 2022. 

·      The IQ site infrastructure programme was still scheduled to commence towards the end of 2022, dependent upon weather conditions. 

·      A large site in the airport area had recently been sold to the industrial developer Panattoni to bring forward a new scheme, subject to planning consent. 

·      Trebor Developments had now let two industrial units (one to ScS and the second to an engineering company).  It was noted that ScS had taken on 100 extra staff at its new site. 

·      Priority Space had recently started a development and CPD were also starting their final phase of two units. 

·      Armstrong House had recently been sold to a North-West property investor. 

A Tolhurst asked if the Committee could receive an update at a future meeting with regards to the total number of job opportunities available via the creation of the new units onsite around the Airport area.  ACTION: N Biddle.

Councillor Cox reported that noise monitoring devices had been installed in the nearby woodland area to monitor noise.  He said that the noise monitoring devices had now been removed and that a request had been made to plant trees along the boundary of the industrial units to try and shield noise. 

Councillor Cox added that he had received reports that the onsite plastics company were omitting some odours into the atmosphere. 

In addition, Councillor Cox reported that there was also an issue regarding standing surface water on the corner of the Avro Park development. 

N Biddle acknowledged Councillor Cox’s concerns and agreed to investigate following today’s meeting.  ACTION: N Biddle.

Referring to the Community Issues Matrix, Members’ were provided with the following updates:-

Flooding on First Avenue

Following the January ACC meeting, a design solution had been turned down by Drainage/ Highways Authority, due to a technical design issue.  Engineers were currently looking at a hybrid system with a new design being submitted to the Drainage Authority as soon as possible. 

Assurances were provided that any flooding occurring on First Avenue would continue to be pumped away as soon as Peel Land and Property had been made aware.

Hayfield Lane Footpath

A new issue had arisen recently regarding the footpath on Hayfield Lane.  It was understood that the footpath alongside the primary school was cut-up and very muddy.  Investigations were currently taking place regarding the ownership of the footpath in order to provide a solution to help improve the surface of the footpath. 

RESOLVED – That the updates be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

G Finch provided the Committee with a verbal update in relation to Peel Land and Property planning issues. 

The following updates were noted:-

·      Peel Land and Property were currently working with Northstone (Peel Land and Property’s housing delivery arm) regarding a first phase application for a residential zone at Hurst Wood for 280 units.

It was anticipated that public consultation regarding the scheme was likely to commence during the Summer. 

The public consultation exercise would also coincide with Peel Land and Property’s consultation regarding key strategic documents on GatewayEast together with consultation on the Sustainable Transport Strategy and Green Infrastructure Strategy. 

·      Work was currently taking place on a detailed reserve matters submission for a plot of land South of Redline Security and East of the Trebor development for a number of smaller units. 

·      K Moran reported that the Airport would shortly be seeking to appoint a consultancy firm to manage its Solar Scheme project. 

G Finch added that he had received confirmation from the local Planning Authority that the Solar Scheme was classed as permitted development with no further planning required. 

In relation to the GatewayEast Rail scheme, P Kennan informed the Committee that the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) had recently received a letter from the Secretary of State in relation to the outcome with regards to the SYMCA’s final City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) programme business case. 

The Committee were informed that the SYMCA had been allocated a full CRSTS allocation of £570m for funding in local transport networks in the SYMCA. 

It was noted that Department for Transport (DfT) had made the decision not to fund the GatewayEast rail link scheme through CRSTS.  This would remain under discussion with the DfT by SYMCA officers. 

It was agreed that a copy of the letter be circulated via email to the Committee following today’s meeting.  ACTION: P Kennan via A Shirt. 

P Kennan said that he would provide a further update at the July ACC meeting. 

RESOLVED – That the updates be noted. 

There were no declarations of interest in relation to agenda item 10. 

The Committee was informed that six applications had been submitted to the Airport’s Community Investment Fund for 2022. 

A summary of each application was contained within the agenda papers and the Committee considered each application separately.  

Following consideration, it was agreed that three applications would be recommended by the Committee to receive full financial support. 

In relation to application ‘DSACIF_03_2021’ the Committee recommended that, although the project did not fully meet the scope of the funding criteria, an exception would be made this year to support the project. 

In addition, the Committee agreed that three applications would be recommended by the Committee to receive a financial contribution to support the development of their projects. 

The Committee wished to thank all applicants for the considerable amount of time they had taken in completing their applications. 

A Tolhurst asked if the total amount of funding available for 2022 projects could be confirmed by DSA.  ACTION: K Moran to ascertain with K Stow. 

RESOLVED – That the Committee considered and made recommendations against each of the six individual projects. 

There were no declarations of interest in relation to agenda item 12. 

The Committee was informed that three completed applications had been submitted to the Airport’s Community Investment Fund for Community Defibrillators. 

A summary of each application was contained within the agenda papers and each application was considered separately by the Committee. 

Following the Committee’s consideration, it was agreed that all three applications be recommended by the Committee to receive support. 

The Committee expressed its sincere gratitude to DSA for funding Defibrillators in the local community. 

A Tolhurst queried if DSA would be supplying and installing the Defibrillators.  ACTION: K Moran to ascertain with D Monks. 

RESOLVED – That the Committee considered and recommended that DSA supports all three applications. 

RESOLVED – That the draft minutes of the Noise Monitoring and Environmental Sub-Committee held on 24 March 2022 be noted. 

RESOLVED – That the Committee noted the minutes of the Liaison Group of UK Airport Consultative Committees (UKACCs) 44th Annual Meeting held on 18-19 November 2021. 

i)          DSA’s Community Investment Fund

In response to a query from Town Councillor Cropley, A Tolhurst informed the Committee that applications for the next round of Community Investment Funding were scheduled to be open in January 2023 with all completed applications to be submitted by 31 March 2023.  

Further details would be circulated in January 2023. 

ii)         Thank you to outgoing ACC Members

A Tolhurst thanked and sent his best wishes to all Members who would either be standing or standing down at the forthcoming Local Elections on 5 May 2022. 

The Committee noted that today would be Councillor Rosling-Josephs’ and County Councillor Pearson’s last meeting.  On behalf of the Committee, A Tolhurst thanked Councillor Rosling-Josephs and County Councillor Pearson for all their contributions to the work of the ACC and wished them all the very best for the future. 

RESOLVED – That the next meeting of the Airport Consultative Committee be held on Thursday 14 July 2022 at 10:00 am.