Doncaster Sheffield Airport reopening survives as deal struck between Reform UK and Labour

The City of Doncaster Council will continue with its reopening of Doncaster Sheffield Airport as planned, after Reform UK and Labour struck a deal to avoid rescinding a £57million loan supporting the project.

Reform UK called the May 11, 2026, extraordinary meeting to revisit a decision in November 2025, when the loan was approved.

The party claimed it was not given the full facts of the reopening before approving the loan, such as controversial details of the site lease between the council and the landowners, the Peel Group, which the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) has decreed must be renegotiated.

However, after weeks of uncertainty over the airport’s future, negotiations between Reform UK and representatives of Mayor Ros Jones resulted in the motion to rescind the loan being amended in the chamber.

The changes allowed the loan to continue as planned, but Reform UK secured conditions which the group’s deputy leader, Councillor Jason Charity, said meant the reopening was in a position to succeed.

It includes a requirement that any new lease agreed with Peel is made available to councillors before it is approved.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) after the meeting, Cllr Charity said: “I think we’ve got to a position where DSA is more likely to succeed than fail.

“We’ve landed in a position where this council will now see the renegotiated lease before it’s approved, which I think is a big deal.

“There’s been a lot talked about today about scrutiny and audit, there’s been a lack of it, historically, in this council. We want to change that, so I’m hoping today there’s also a bit of a cultural reset.”

The negotiations over Reform UK’s support of the £57m loan involved the party’s deputy leader in Westminster, Richard Tice MP.

In a statement following the meeting, the MP said: “We at Reform are very enthusiastic supporters of regional aviation and all the broader benefits that it can bring to local economies with jobs and investment.

“Council and national taxpayers of course expect us to scrutinise proposals to ensure public money is being well spent, to ensure an acceptable balance of risk and reward. Our thanks to all who have engaged with this process in recent days to help move the airport plan towards take off.”

He was echoed by Cllr Craig Ward, who did not give interviews following the meeting but said in a statement: “Doncaster cannot afford a bad airport deal and is fortunate to have Reform councillors prepared to hold the Labour administration and officers to account to improve the viability of the airport reopening.”

Mayor Ros Jones, who was re-elected on the promise to reopen DSA by Spring 2026, said: “We’ve seen the u-turn that we all wanted to see in order to get Doncaster’s airport open.”

However, she said during the extraordinary meeting that the uncertainty had led to new staff opting not to take up their roles.

Reform UK also secured written commitment that the methodology of a ‘Soft Market Test’, which was previously agreed would happen within six months of airspace approval from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), would go before the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee (OSMC) in the current financial year.

The CAA is not expected to approve airspace for DSA until May 2027.