Post by PB on Sept 23, 2019 23:22:15 GMT
APPG September Update
It has been a tumultuous summer in Westminster and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on General Aviation has been busy working with the new Secretary of State for Transport (and former APPG Chair) the Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP and his team at the Department for Transport. We would like to congratulate Grant on his appointment, and we wish him and his new team the very best of luck in their roles.
We are also pleased to announce that the proposed new Chair of the APPG is Mark Pritchard MP, the Member of Parliament for the Wrekin. Mark and other members of the APPG will be meeting in October to elect the new appointments and layout the broad work structure for the APPG in the coming year. We have also been working with the new Aviation Minister, Paul Maynard MP, who wrote to us laying out how the Department for Transport will “champion” General Aviation in the UK. If you want to read that letter, you can do so by clicking here.
Earlier in the summer we also published the Lord Kirkhope Inquiry into Lower Airspace Design in the UK and we are looking forward to the Government response. We hope that the Government and the CAA take into account the APPG’s findings in the upcoming Aviation White Paper.
The work continues to go on within our many Working Groups and this includes saving airfields from being closed down and turned into housing developments. The APPG secured major changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) which will protect long-established airfields from being threatened by the occupants of newly built housing. There has also been good news from Wellesbourne, where the local authority is completing a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) which will keep aircraft flying for generations to come. New investment is also going into Shoreham (Brighton City Airport), keeping the site as a cornerstone for flight training in the South East.
We would also like to congratulate our founder Chair Byron Davies on being awarded his Peerage and entering the House of Lords. Byron will I’m sure be welcomed back into membership of this APPG upon his investiture.
As work continues, we will update the website. In the event of a General Election, which looks likely, work by the APPG has to be suspended in the same way as Parliament itself. However, I am sure this will only be for a short period and we will be back in action under whatever new Administration is elected.
There is plenty more to be getting on with and the Secretariat are always contactable. For more regular updates on our work, follow us on twitter @appg_GA.