Perranporth In the Mail

Before they start giving away Spitfires , it may be a good idea to get a decent website designer and spellcheck their text.

Oh my Lord! They are at it again.

All but wet myself laughing at the ‘Repatriations’ page – locked so nobody can read it and Littered with random Capital letters

And the “museum quality presentation Spitfire” to be presented to every Commonwealth country makes its inevitable appearance once again. One wonders where they will be sourced from?

Moggy

Andy, have you seen their new website?

http://www.spitfireheritagetrust.com/

And no, Mooggy C. Still awaited, I presume. But digging still going on in Burma, or so I am led to believe.

The tunnel from Burrma should reach Perranporth soon then!

And no, Mooggy C. Still awaited, I presume. But digging still going on in Burma, or so I am led to believe.

They’re just quoting what the source has said.

Blue Robin – there were attributed quotes from their source, but the part about the Spitfire Society having stored and restored Spitfires there for the last thirty years was not printed in the context of a quote but as a matter of fact within the text.

Remind me. Have the Burmese Spitfires arrived yet?

Moggy

They’re just quoting what the source has said.

What Spitfire Society aircraft have been housed and restored there for the last thirty years?

‘Further plans to restore original Spitfires’: was this not the previously discussed plan to restore the Burmese squadron(s) that was also originally ‘scheduled’ for St Mawgan.

Journalistic licence? Journalistic mis-interpretation? Wishful thinking? Or hyperbole?

‘Hangars there have been used by The Spitfire Society for the last 30 years for work housing and restoring original planes, some of which were located by its team of Spitfire hunters.
The trust also has further plans to restore original Spitfires.’

Really??????

PP is back in the news again

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10094607/Spitfire-Heritage-Trust-fights-to-save-WWII-airfield.html

It’s very easy for a layman to justify that by saying we have St Mawgan up the road!

Think you mean NCA, St Mawgan no longer has an active airfield, but we can get a glimpse of our old one through the fence 😉

quite sad really 🙁

Pobjoy Pete, to specifically answer your points.
A) I too dislike the heavy handed interference of any Big Brother group and your suggestions that the Cornish planning experience may be different to elsewhere in England is not true. My personal, South Coast, experiences testify to that!

B) Cameron & Co seem to be sweeping away many of the established planning safeguards that we have all relied upon in the past. I do not support any political party and hold MP’s and ministers to be generally only concerned with their own self interests – and too rarely with their constituents

C) This idea of Neighbourhood Plans is not ideal but if you live close to PP it does mean that you could influence future protection for the airfield in the way that YOU choose. It will have legal validity, it will influence local planning authorities – Cameron likes compliance with his ideas!

D) Be certain that if you do not use the scheme then the Developers WILL certainly move in and work on the basis of Greed not Need.

E) Perversely, this might also act as a double edged sword, local residents ( and there some!) who would wish to see the airfield completely closed to all aircraft movements may very easily then achieve success as they see it. It’s very easy for a layman to justify that by saying we have St Mawgan up the road!

Planning reforms

We are talking Cornwall here,you set your watch back 20 years as they do the ‘planning thing’ their own way.
Of course that can make it quite nice to live with, but the planning thing is very much a ‘local’ thing.
Letters disappear out of planning files,and rules are changed like the weather.
In planning terms Perranporth is very secure,as it has no restrictions or constraints on aircraft movements.
The insecurity comes from potential changes of ownership and ensuring it stays as an aviation based location.

This may post may seem ‘way off thread’ please bear with me especially if you are a resident living in the PP airfield area.

Mr Cameron and his BIG SOCIETY (like them or not) have started reforms to local planning application rules and laws. The PP area District Council should have publicly said by now that they are obligated to encourage parish or town councils to invite groups of local residents to create a “Neighbourhood Plan”. As a concise introduction topic to this you may like to look at www.locality.org.uk and look through a “Quick Guide to Neighbourhood Plans”. In that document you will see set out the steps required to achieve the legal protections.

It is also possible that if your concern is, for example, the protection of the only WW2 Spitfire base still largely intact then you could consider inclusion of this in the presented plan. Maybe you could apply “English Heritage”, or “Natural England” if they are the correct bodies for preserved listing purposes.

Think about the now common preservation of your village red ‘phone box, maybe your objections to a PP wind farm, or extend your thinking to an airfield and its surrounding area.

My apologies for seemingly going off thread, yes, very boring and it is not aircraft but it IS aviation … and it might just be what you are looking for but your time to do it is becoming limited.

NQY X-Winds

Mawgan lost its two shorter runways years ago when the Ninrods were there,and so NQY only ever licenced the main runway.The main user is Skybus who operate STOL machines and these are x-wind limited (especially the DHC6)
The Classic Air Force will have to face that situation with the Rapide operation.
The guys in the tower are great so no problems there.

Perranporth is located within a ANOB,SSSI,and an article 4 planning area.
This effectively precludes ANY development not associated with aviation or agriculture,and in practice any building within sight of the coastal path.

However the solar brigade will no doubt make a case for its use if it comes to that.

I think we’re barking up the Spitfire tree too much here, this airfield is up for sale at a cheap price for property in Cornwall, especially one in such a nice location and overlooking the sea.
I’m more worried about potential property development, energy farms, and holiday interests of the site – which I would assume is brown field having an airfield on it.

PP in all the time I worked at St Mawgan I never remember any problems with cross wind operations there.
I don’t think the two airfields operations can even be compared.

Perranporth purchase

I am not proposing a business plan for Perranporth,but it is a fact that it is on the market again,and is home to far more machines than Newquay (which is subsidised by Cornwall Council to about £4.000.000 per year)
For the price of a house you get over 300 acres,three runways plus a brand new hangar.
Newquays single runway causes many problems with many types x-wind limits,and only had limited civil availability when Perranporth was first licenced.
The current PP owner operated his business in conjunction with the airfield and there is no reason that someone else could not do the same.
The airfield itself is fairly safe from normal development but is probably an option for solar or wind farm use.
With Lands End not an option for a club or hangarage,and Plymouth gone,PP is the only private base in Cornwall with all weather runways,and it looks like L-End will have to build runways to offer a year round service to the Scilly Isles.Not a level playing ground, with PP contributing jobs and rates to the local economy, and NQY a huge drain on it.
PP has no formal involvement with any trust or society,it has flying and parachute clubs,aircraft groups,a maintenance operation,and private owners,but no gliding at present.The fact that a trust is showing an interest in obtaining it is just one of many options in play at the present time.PP is a GA field revolving around club and private use,NQY is a regional airport not really in the same business.At the recent well attended CAA safety evening for the general area 90% of those there were PP users.

R6915

Yes, I did know the man and met him often. By a quirky coincidence his daughter, I think her name was Debbie, was also the girlfriend of my (then) brother-in-law. Small world, sometimes.

Pete – I am afraid that anyone who thinks they can buy effectively what is a GA airfield for 1.5 million and make a profit when there is a perfectly servicable under used well financed airfield at St Mawgan just up the road is clearly ambitious -just don’t ever expect to get the money back !