Bovingdon Appeal

Noted this on AFORS :

11th Hour Request !

Please Help Save what’s left of Bovingdon Airfield. R’way 08 / 26.

The Council want to close our airfield as they suggest that aviation use has been abandoned. This may be the case with the main Bovingdon Airfield, now mainly a Saturday Market, but the majority of runway 08 / 26, still in good serviceable condition, is actually on Berry Farm land and is unaffected by ‘change of use’ that the main airfield has been granted by the Council over past years. Berry Farm / Runway 08 – 26 is separately owned and is legally unconnected in any way with the former ‘Bovingdon Airfield’ who’s current website features the Saturday Market, Film Location Hire, Etc;

Berry Farm consists of approx: 150 acres of land, part of which is runway 08 / 26. This is the last remaining ‘active’ leg of the former wartime Bovingdon Airfield. Since the RAF vacated the airfield and when land was returned to various owners, our runway remained a runway and to this day has continued to be used by a variety of light aircraft. In addition, and for the past 27 years it is common knowledge that a local businessman has based his Cherokee at Berry Farm and has regularly used 08 / 26 and associated taxiways for manoeuvring, take-offs & landings.

Please may we ask all pilots who have used Bovingdon runway over past years for the odd Touch & Go or Landing, with or without permission, to make contact with us as we need to prove to the council that ‘use’ has not been abandoned. Over 50 pilots have already responded to our Appeal and to date we have received more than 20 statements confirming use of our runway during the past years, mainly for practice Touch & Go’s. (Evidence covering the past 10 years is crucial to our Application for a Certificate of Lawfulness. )

We were previously advised that our Application had to be presented to the Council by mid November but this has now been extended by at least a couple of weeks, (Hence the 11th hour request. )

Will any other person who can help in this Appeal please email their details and we will return a statement form for them to jot down the dates when the runway was used. We realise that it is not normal to log Touch & Go’s, so just the date and a copy of the log book page to show flying on the day will suffice.

How sad if the Council were allowed to put a final nail in the coffin at Bovingdon !

Many thanks to all those who have already responded to our Appeal. This is much appreciated and we hope we can be of future assistance to you.

Sincere thanks,
Paul Webb.
Berry Farm. HP5 3RW. Email: [email]berryfarm.uk@gmail.com[/email]

P.S. As a separate matter, and at our expense, please advise if you agree we should apply for planning permission to build a wartime museum / memorial to remember Bovingdon Airfield / Servicemen / local area as it used to be in the 1940’s ?