Doncaster Sheffield Airport: Reform UK slams lease agreement after cap on electricity use revealed
Reform UK Doncaster has slammed the Doncaster Sheffield Airport lease as a “serious failure of judgment” after it was revealed power usage on the site had been subject to a cap.
The lease, obtained and verified by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), contains a requirement that electricity use on the site “shall not at any time exceed 1MVA”.
According to the Yorkshire Post, who first reported the power cap, airports do not MVA capacity as standard, however, London City Airport – a single-runway site in the heart of the capital – announced in 2019 it was doubling its power capacity to 7MVA. LCA’s accounts reveal it had over 3.6million passengers in 2024.
A spokesperson for the DSA project previously said the airport operated with a 1MVA cap before it closed in 2022, but said talks were underway on the anticipated need for higher power usage.
Irwen Martin, chair of Reform UK Doncaster, said: “This lease was approved by the Labour Mayor without proper scrutiny and before Reform councillors were elected. It now appears to have hard-wired dependence on future public subsidy, while private partners sit back and wait for Government to pick up the bill.”
Before the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) approved gainshare funding to allow the City of Doncaster Council to reopen the airport – through its wholly-owned company Fly Doncaster Ltd – reports suggested infrastructure upgrades, particularly power, were crucial to the reopening.
These upgrades are projected to cost up to £160m and Mr Martin said the lease has exposed taxpayers to “escalating risk” and claimed additional public funding would be required.
Mr Martin’s party called for the “full disclosure” of the lease and said: “The public were told this deal protected Doncaster. What we are now seeing is a lease that protects private interests while leaving the risks with the taxpayer. That is not acceptable.”
Since the leak of the lease in January 2026, Doncaster Council have repeatedly stressed the lease is being renegotiated to address clauses of concern.
The SYMCA required parts of the agreement to be renegotiated in order for the gainshare funding for DSA to be released.
A new lease is yet to be agreed, the LDRS understands, meaning the leaked document, signed and approved in March 2024, is the current lease – contrary to misleading posts on local social media pages which claimed the lease was “not signed” and “not current”.
The LDRS has previously reported the lease contained termination clauses allowing the landowners, the Peel Group, to end the agreement if planning permission for 1,200+ homes next to DSA was not approved.
Another clause prevented Doncaster Council from objecting to the applications in its capacity as the tenant. However, despite the lease stating the clause did not “fetter” the council’s obligations as the local planning authority, the agreement raised questions about the separation of the council’s interests.
“CDC remains committed to progressing the essential elements required to reopen the airport, including site readiness, as quickly as possible.”
The lease also revealed Peel would receive 20 per cent of the gross turnover of the DSA site, including grants from local and national government.
A City of Doncaster Council spokesperson said: “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.
“CDC remains committed to progressing the essential elements required to reopen the airport, including site readiness, as quickly as possible.”
Opposition councillors raised a number of questions relating to the lease at a meeting of council on January 22, 2026.
Mayor Ros Jones revealed she was working on an agreement to share the lease with councillors for the first time, subject to strict confidentiality requirements.
However, once the agreement to access the lease was shared with councillors, a number refused to sign it – labelling it a “gag order”.
Reform UK Doncaster confirmed to the LDRS it has requested an extraordinary general meeting of council to discuss the lease issue in full. Members were limited to questions at the end of the January 22 meeting, as the topic was not on the agenda set a week before the leak.