Farnborough Airport's Planning Breaches

A number of planning conditions were put on the airport in 2010 when the previous operator (TAG) got planning consent to change the airport for commercial use. These are covered in a S106 agreement. The airport is not complying with several of these conditions. FNG raised this with the FACC, then RBC. RBC rejected the points so FNG raised a complaint with the Local Government Ombudsman. The Local Government Ombudsman, quite remarkably, didn’t uphold the complaint and it would appear they don’t understand airport operations or there are other hands at work behind the scenes.

 

As an example, one of the conditions clearly states that the airport must provide sound monitoring equipment to the public. FNG and others have asked for the equipment for years and we have been told it is not available and then that the public aren’t entitled to use it. 

​

​

​

​

​

It is difficult to understand how anyone could interpret this condition as anything other than the sound monitoring equipment should be provided to the public when they request use of it. FAL is breaching the planning condition but there is no enforcement by RBC.

 

Another serious breach of planning is that the airport is allowing scheduled flights when it only has a licence for charter flights. An example of people being able to book a scheduled flight is here. Since the airport only has a licence for “business” flights, holiday and leisure flights are not permitted. The complaint to RBC is here.