KEEP AIRFIELDS GREENFIELDS. Review Airfield Classification as Brownfield Sites

In 2003 an ‘administrative oversight’ led to the deletion of planning protection from airfields being classified as brownfield sites. As a result, airfields are being closed by developers, breaking transport links and destroying significant areas of natural habitat within airfield boundaries.

The UK aerodrome network is regarded by DfT as an important part of the national transport infrastructure and there is strong evidence that airfield sites offer low-insecticide, low-herbicide, sanctuaries for plants, insects and associated wildlife.

We demand a review of the brownfield designation of airfields for redevelopment, in recognition of their economic benefit and importance as environmental “green spaces”, and that Government Planning Policy reverts to that previously in place.

Brownfield land is defined, for the purpose of national planning policy prior to and in the National Planning Policy Framework, as land that has been previously developed. Airfields, as land that has been previously developed, are therefore regarded as brownfield land. A central premise of the policy has been and remains that it should not be assumed that the whole of the curtilage of a brownfield site should be developed. This has been made clear in the definitions of previously developed land set out in Planning Policy Guidance 3 (Housing - revised 2000), Planning Policy Statement 3 (Housing – 2003 as revised) and the National Planning Policy Framework (2012). The definition in Planning Policy Guidance 3 included a footnote which defined curtilage and stated that “where the footprint of a building only occupies a proportion of a site of which the remainder is open land (such as at an airfield or a hospital) the whole site should not normally be developed to the boundary of the curtilage. The local planning authority should make a judgement about site layout in this context, bearing in mind other planning considerations.” Although this detailed explanation of curtilage was not carried forward into Planning Policy Statement 3 the assumption in relation to developing the curtilage of previously developed land, including airfields, has remained the same and there has been no change to the policy relating to airfields in this respect.

Applications for the re-use or modernisation of airfields must be considered in the context of national policy. The National Planning Policy Framework, Planning Practice Guidance, the Aviation Policy Framework and the General Aviation Strategy acknowledge the significant contribution that aviation makes to economic growth across the country.