After a summer of discord at Luton Borough Council (LBC), Monday the 14th of September saw 19 years of Labour control of LBC end: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgy883ev16o
What does this mean going forward for the Airport Expansion plans? Frankly, who knows?
The new Leadership Coalition is formed from Liberal Democrats, Independent Councillors and Conservatives, and they have stated they will be focused on what is right for the people of the town, both now and in the near future. Labour was obsessed with their Vision 2040 Project (solely dependent on Airport Expansion), to which they committed millions of pounds through their airport-owning company Luton Rising (LR).
During the previous tenure of Luton by the Liberal Democrats, between 2003 and 2007, they delivered the New Airport Way approach road into the Airport’s Central Terminal area, which took airport traffic away from the residential streets of Luton, between the M1 and the airport. There were also many other social improvement projects. So, based on these facts, we have some hope of better things for the future.
We also hope that they will return to Keystone Conditions from the original Operating Concession Agreement.
When this was written, once again by a Labour Authority in the late 1990’s, one of those Keystones, was that all business risks would be undertaken by the Operating Concessionaire, including all Development Investment costs, except in cases of force majeure.
Another Keystone was to maximise revenues to LBC, whilst minimising financial risks.
Under Labour control during the 2010’s, LBC decided to transition LR from a simple Concession Fee Collector, with a couple of staff, to what on paper amounts to an Airport Operating company, with a substantial staff, huge budgets, and more crucially, over £500 million of debts, to match. During that time, LR has diverted income from the Dividend payments to LBC, to fund a discount scheme for airlines to grow their passenger throughputs ahead of natural growth trends, to the extent that current facilities were at capacity.
This of course, then created an excuse to pursue their Expansion Plans.
During that period, when the Airport Operator conducted its own investments in the airport, LBC/LR decided it would build the DART Rail-air Link. The project appears to have a deeply flawed Business Case, with no net financial gain to LBC and the residents of Luton, and it is based on the aspirations of one airline, that contributed nothing to the project.
LR has also paid the current airport operator Force Majeure costs during and after the Covid Outbreak. These were substantial sums to keep airport employees in work over that period, whilst laying off, and outsourcing many more Council staff.
All these are breaches of those original concession Keystones. Were those rewritten over the years, or did LBC/LR simply ignore them? Only they know the answer to that.
LBC and LR, have run a great PR campaign about the entertainments and concerts they fund in Luton, yet this is a fraction of what they spend on projects, administration and debt servicing. It is also never stated that this is funding is with moneys that belongs to the residents of Luton anyway, so they are paying for their own entertainments and have seen declines in services rather than improvements.
In our opinion, these actions show that Labour thinks that the airport is there to fund LR and Airport Developments rather than the town and the quality of life of its residents, which is exactly what it is supposed to do.
We understand that the new administration will have their hands tied by the Contracts signed by LR in recent months, as these will have been done at significant cost to LR. We hope that all future spending on Airport Expansion and other LR projects, will be scrutinised thoroughly, to ensure it isn’t simply more wasted cash, but that it delivers instant, real time new income for LBC budgets and resident services.
When you add up all the debts, give aways, and staff costs of LR, the total is very close to £1 BILLION!
You could rebuild Luton with that sort of money, rather than fritter it away, hoping you might get it back some day. If you watch the video of this meeting, two words feature strongly from both Liberal Democrat and Independent Councillors: “transparency” and “democracy”. There has never been either of these for many years, when LBC has discussed LR and the airport — video streams are switched off, documents withheld, or heavily redacted, to the point that they become useless.
“Transparency” has been opaque, and “democracy” has been “we know best, so we are just going to follow our plans”.
We sincerely hope that these days are now over?
We wish the New Administration Good Luck, with the mammoth tasks they have in Luton, and will be watching as always, to make sure that good common sense and people now come first, and not egos and fantasy ideas.