Long term threat to Booker/Wycombe Air Park

I visited last year for the general aviation show – my first visit in 20 years or more – and thought it was one of the better GA fields that I have visited. The cafe/bar had a pleasant terrace, the food was good and reasonably priced and it all seemed to be thriving with a nice atmosphere. It would be a big loss.

I have not been to Booker for many years but I believe there used to be a small museum including a Percival Provost among other things. Is it still there>

Sadly, this comes as the fall-out from that cheerful chubby chappy John Prescott classifying airfields as brownfield sites for purposes of redevelopment.

And where did Prescott get that idea from?

Why Labour led Ipswich Borough Council no less!

Note past tense in both sentences;)

Perhaps this thread should be in GA………………..

I ummed and ahhed, but due to the presence of PPS (with their well known work on various types) and others in the past, felt it deserved a mention here.:)

co-location of the Air Park for continued aviation.

Does this offer a hope for the future? And if not, what does it actually mean?

One suspects losing a substantial part of the original grass airfield and being left with a strip, similar to Panshangar post development.

This proposal should be kicked a very long way into touch, together with the a**e of the proposer.

On Google maps there appears to be a Lightning and a Hunter which have seen better days, just inside the entrance to the right of the road. On Bing they are not in view. Is the Bing picture later and have they been moved? What are they and where are they now?

Having looked at the property requirements we would need to deliver the full potential of the scheme, we are now clear that Wycombe Air Park at Booker is our preferred site. It has the size, location, topography and combination of attributes that would best enable us to progress our vision, including the potential of co-location of the Air Park for continued aviation.

Does this offer a hope for the future? And if not, what does it actually mean?

re;

Does anyone have pics of the airfield? Are there any listed buildings, or any unique ones?

And the award for the most gratuitous use of the word ‘Community’ in a Press Release goes too…..

This makes my blood boil..

But..

If it was Harliquins I would be spitting blood…

Cheeful and chappy are not the too most immediate epithets I would have ascribed to the individual you referred to – chubby, yes, and a few others. I imagine it has a long history – I made a couple of heli flights there back in the late 60s but have not been there since. Has it been a thriving private airfield? Perhaps this thread should be in GA………………..

Sadly, this comes as the fall-out from that cheerful chubby chappy John Prescott classifying airfields as brownfield sites for purposes of redevelopment.

It opened the doors for moneyed property developers to see lucrative opportunities in converting airfields’ wide-open spaces into yet more boxes, large and small.

Wycombe is sadly the latest in a long line. Sandown, Weston on the Green, Dunsfold, Leicester and Coltishall all spring to mind in having suffered similar threats (and worse) in the last few years.

NO!

D O N O T L E T T H I S H A P P E N.

On the other hand, how about ‘Twickers’ as a heliport.

That would be fun. And watch all the woodworm come to the suface then.

If you really want somewhere to kick a bit of inflated leather around, look for one of those yellow fields in the Spring. They are not being used for anything useful.