No update on Doncaster Sheffield Airport lease renegotiation two months after 'almost complete' claim
Silence on renegotiation progress will do little to ease nerves as future of Doncaster Sheffield Airport remains uncertain.
The City of Doncaster Council has provided no update on the renegotiation of the Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA) lease, despite suggestions it was “almost complete” nearly two months ago.
Mayor Ros Jones had previously said a larger, more comprehensive update on the reopening of DSA would be provided in her cabinet meeting on April 15, 2026. However, the project didn’t receive any mention.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) subsequently contacted Doncaster Council and the Mayor’s office for an update on the renegotiation of the airport lease, signed with The Peel Group in March 2024, but received no response.
It comes nearly two months after an update in which Mayor Ros Jones suggested talks with Peel on a new lease were “almost complete”.
The parts of the original agreement must be renegotiated as a condition of the gainshare funding approved by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) to reopen the airport – around £160million.
Silence from the council on the progression of the lease renegotiation will do little to provide reassurance to supporters of the reopening, as the future of DSA faces crisis.
Councillor Jason Charity, deputy leader of Reform UK Doncaster, informed those present at an extraordinary meeting of council on April 2, 2026, that his party intended to reverse a decision in November 2025 to approve a £57m loan.
This loan is critical to the reopening of DSA, officials, including the council chief executive, Damian Allen, have told councillors.
However, following the leak of the March 2024 lease agreement to journalists in January 2026, which included controversial break clauses allowing the Peel Group to potentially end the agreement, Reform UK Doncaster concluded they were not provided all the information they needed to agree to the loan months prior.
The lease included clauses where Peel could end the agreement if permission was not granted for a new 1,000+ home estate near the airport, which broke from Doncaster Council’s own agreed Local Plan.
It also included an agreement that Peel would receive 20 per cent of any “turnover rent” at the site.
The council said the clauses are legal, but raised questions about the independence of decision-making in Doncaster Council’s planning process, which is supposed to be quasi-judicial and separate from executive influence.
Oliver Coppard, the Labour Mayor of South Yorkshire, has suggested to the media in recent weeks that if Reform UK went ahead and reversed the approval for the £57m loan, it would “kill” the airport reopening.
Reform UK holds a majority on Doncaster Council, but acts as the opposition party to Labour, who won the important mayoral election in May 2025.
Under the directly elected mayor (DEM) system, the Mayor of Doncaster holds considerable power. Estimates suggest that around 95 per cent of key decisions are made by the Mayor and their hand-picked cabinet, leaving little to the will of the Reform UK-dominated full council.