Doncaster Sheffield Airport: Unseen clauses reveal 'tenant' Council agreed in lease not to object to housing plans

Details of the lease, agreed between Doncaster Council and Peel, who own the land at and surrounding Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA), in March 2024 were first revealed last week following a damaging leak.

The first clauses revealed included an agreement which would allow the landowner to end the lease if planning permission was not granted for applications on neighbouring sites owned by Peel

In November 2025, Doncaster Council’s planning committee approved two applications – one for 1,200 homes and another for 1,400 homes – upon recommendation by planning officers.

However, further clauses in Section 3 of the lease reveal Doncaster Council could not object to those two applications as the lease tenant.

The lease agrees “the tenant” will not object to “any redevelopment of the Landlord’s Neighbouring Property that is in line with the Development Strategy”; nor “any redevelopment of the Landlord’s Neighbouring Property that is not in line with the Development Strategy”.

Both the application for 1,200 homes and for 1,400 homes applied to the same site. However, the 1,400 home application sought to break from Doncaster Council’s agreed Local Plan, but removed a link between jobs generated by DSA to housebuilding.

Councillor Steve Cox, a Conservative councillor for Finningley ward, slammed the 1,400 home application as a “back door” amendment to the Local Plan and was subsequently unable to vote on the application in the planning meeting.

The lease does stipulate that “the tenant’s obligations in this clause relate to it in its capacity as tenant and shall not in any way fetter its actions in its capacity as local planning authority”.

However, the inclusion of this restriction raised further questions about how Doncaster Council would separate its interests regarding the airport, from its obligations as the local planning authority (LPA).

The City of Doncaster Council did not provide an answer when asked by the LDRS, how it was guaranteeing the separation of its interests as the lease tenant and its obligations as the LPA.

In a statement read during a council meeting following the leak on January 22, 2026, Mayor Ros Jones said: “Peel had the ability to terminate the lease if they failed to obtain planning permission. But, let me be perfectly clear, that clause did not guarantee that they would receive planning permission and should not be read as though it does.”

Conflict of interest concerns have previously been raised by external auditors, Grant Thornton, who highlighted that the council’s chief executive, Damian Allen, and executive director of corporate resources, Debbie Hogg, would both sit on the board of directors for Fly Doncaster Ltd (FDL).

FDL is the arms-length management organisation wholly owned by Doncaster Council to run DSA when it reopens.

Speaking at a meeting of the council’s audit committee in November 2025, Georgia Jones, a director at Grant Thornton, said: “It’s a big project for the council and there will be risk around that project, whether that’s financial or reputational.

“Often what you need when you have a company linked to the council, you need that separation of governance between the two and the separation of key officers.

“Even if you try to stay objective, if you’re an officer of the council does the council’s interests prevail, or if you’re also sitting on the board of the company, does the company interest prevail?”

Ms Jones told the meeting Grant Thornton had raised the issue, despite the fact FDL had been dormant, due to the fact they had not seen an interest from Doncaster Council to change the arrangements between the two entities.

However, Ms Jones said the council had agreed to undertake advice around the issue, which was described as “helpful”.

“Sometimes with these big projects, a lot of money goes into it and then if it does start to go wrong at what point do you draw a line and say ‘right, we’re pulling out’,” Ms Jones said.

“The temptation always is ‘we’ve put all this money in, we can’t let it go, we need to put more in’, so you need that idea of where do you draw the line. Where is your off-ramp?” she added.

Doncaster Council did not provide an answer when asked what it was doing to address the concerns raised by the external auditors.

However, a spokesperson for the council did say:“A commercial lease agreement, as we have previously stated, is not a static situation as parts of it could be further discussed and amended.

“Conversations with the landowner Peel are continuing and we will be updating the lease with them as we are required to as part of our responsibilities under our grant agreement with South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.

“Whilst we do appreciate the interest in the lease which is confidential and we cannot release publicly, we continue to work with our legal and financial advisers on various aspects in the lease to ensure that as a council we follow the required laws and regulations and due diligence tests. Leases and contracts do change subject to further negotiations and this will no doubt be the case with the airport.

“As we have previously explained the planning committee is quasi-judicial and separate from other council business. It considers planning applications based upon their individual merits and determines whether planning permission is granted or not.

“[City of Doncaster Council] remains committed to progressing the essential elements required to reopen the airport, including site readiness, as quickly as possible.”

The lease was agreed between the City of Doncaster Council and Peel when the local authority was still seeking a private operator to reopen and run the airport. The council opted for the publicly funded reopening after that search failed to find an operator.