By Lauren Monaghan, Junior Local Democracy Reporter
A café branded a ‘haven’ at Nottingham City Airport could be one of several businesses lost if plans to build hundreds of homes on the site are approved.
Chocks Away! has run at the small Tollerton airport for the past 12 years, offering customers a space to sit and watch aircraft arrive and leave the airport.
Other businesses at risk include an aircraft maintenance company, two flying schools and a helicopter training company.
After an initial development to build houses and a school was submitted to Rushcliffe Borough Council in 2020, new plans submitted in March could see the runway demolished.
The developer, Vistry Homes, is set on a wider plan of 1,600 homes being built if planning is approved.
But the most recent plans involved creating four hundred properties on the historic site and closing off the runway.
It’s led to concerns from people living and working nearby that a much-loved facility – and many businesses – could be lost if the plans were approved.
Alison Holt, owner of the café, is worried for the future of her business and employees’ livelihoods.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “That would be the end of 12 years of work, gone down the drain, we’ve got staff that rely on their jobs here, but in a broader sense it would cause a great loss to the customers that come.
“Lots of families come, lots of children, because of the unique environment that it is.
“It’s a little haven for people, a haven people go to and they know they’ll get a friendly welcome.”
Her café is popular among families with small children and the elderly, but it has also been a safe environment for children with special needs.
Alison added: “We get lots of people with special needs, parents coming down with children with special needs, we get a local school with children with special needs and they’ll come down on a regular basis.
“They do little tasks like the students coming to pay for their drinks individually.”
The group Save Nottingham Airfield has been campaigning to prevent the large development by promoting the airport’s local and national importance.
Group campaigner, Sarah Deacon, said: “The National Grid use this, the Forestry Commission refuel here, the police helicopter comes in here and we must keep this place for the air ambulance because [the airfield] has night landing capability.”
The airfield is home to an engineering and maintenance company that services the Slingsby Firefly aircraft.
Sarah added: “That’s the aircraft that commercial pilots use to do their upset recovery training if something goes wrong in the air.
“Flying schools across the country use the Slingsby Firefly to do that training.”
Clare Simms, a healthcare assistant at Spire Nottingham Hospital in Tollerton, expressed hospital patients’ appreciation for the airport.
She said: “It’s just so nice for them, to recover, it’s very peaceful, they love watching the airplanes.
“We talk about what we can see, the planes, if we can see any wildlife- just looking over [the airfield] just makes their recovery a lot better.”
The plans haven’t been decided by Rushcliffe Borough Council yet because the developers haven’t put forward a broader masterplan for the airport site.
That’s despite original plans for housing, a primary school, a local centre and supporting infrastructure first being lodged to the authority in December 2020.
But in papers submitted to the council last year, the developer Vistry said: “Particular attention will be given to the safeguarding of the physical remains of the pillboxes within the site, which offer the potential to deliver a heritage benefit through the sensitive repair and interpretation of the structures.
“Opportunities to better reveal the significance of the pillboxes within the site through appropriate interpretation will be explored.”
A Rushcliffe Borough Council spokesperson added: “The council is the statutory authority for overseeing an independent process for any planning application.
“It has advised the applicants it cannot determine the applications until such time that a Supplementary Planning Document is in place, which is a masterplan for the site.
“As and when this arrives, the council will then formally consult local residents, technical consultees, ward members and the relevant Parish Councils, all of whom will have the chance to comment on the proposals.”
