Yet another round of in-fighting has broken out at Oban Airport and was partially reported in last week’s local press.

The current dispute

This time it’s about a fence erected by the Argyll Aero Club around a site it has leased for over ten years from Argyll and Bute Council. The Council says – and can presumably demonstrate, that this fence infringes ‘the runway strip’. This is an area 40 metres wide on each side of the runway’s centre line and  required to be clear of all obstructions to enable larger fixed-wing aircraft to land.

The Council has made a big issue of the fact that such aircraft include the Air Ambulance service provided to the Scottish Ambulance Service by King Air. Last week’s Oban Times reported the Scottish Ambulance Service as saying that King Air had contacted the airport twice recently, to enquire if there were any restrictions to operation at the airport and, if so, what they were.

The spokesperson quoted went on to say: ‘I don’t know why they were checking but we were not planning on landing to get any patients’. He made the point that in Argyll the helicopter is the usual means of air ambulance action and that the fixed wing aircraft had been used only once in the past three years.

You would have to be naive not to see the moves here. King Air had obviously been asked to make the enquiries so that the political – and yes, the operational, point could be made.

The Council has thrice asked the Aero Club to take down the fence. It has not done so and the matter is now about to line the pockets of lawyers at the expense of a local authority budget already incapable of meeting the needs of this complex area.

Rather than tediously recount the details of this issue – which is not actually the heart of the matter anyway – we are publishing at the foot of this article, unedited and in full, the text of communications we have received from both parties. We are publishing them in alphabetical order – which also happens to be the order in which we received them: the Argyll Aero Club’s Press Release followed by a statement from the Council when we asked for information.

The background – locating the heart of the matter

The former air-strip at Connell, north of Oban and just north of the entrance to Loch Etive, was developed and run by Argyll Aero Club. It was a well known and popular facility for leisure flying, held in great affection by the flying fraternity across the country.

The Council decided – rghtly and ambitiously- that Argyll would benefit from the upgrading of this airstrip to the status of a commercial airport, serving our offshore islands and contributing to economic development as its full potential was recognised.

And there the trouble began.

This had been the Argyll Aero Club’s place. Suddenly the club was a side issue, something of a nuisance even, rather than the main event that had been its entire history on the site.

The Council, keen to get the CAA licence for the facility, looked on the project as just that – a job to be done to meet the requirements of the CAA and as quickly as possible.  Understanding and taking into consideration the complex sensibilities of the sitting tenant were neither a priority nor within the public sector skillset.

Relationships fractured – badly. Dark deeds were engaged upon, to the point where the fuel supply of the airport’s fire appliance was allegedly sabotaged. This act of simple criminality became both  evident and potentially homicidal during a genuine emergency with a light aircraft coming in with its landing gear jammed inboard.

Unable to start the engine of the fire appliance, the crew had to attend the scene of the landing in a pick-up truck and a minibus, clutching hand-held fire extinguishers. By good fortune the pilot of the plane was able to lower the landing gear manually and managed to land safely. Had he not done so…

At this time the dispute between the two parties centred on the requirement for all personnel going airside – whether Council, contractors or Aero Club – to check in at the Council security desk in the new terminal. This is a good example of the clash of cultures at the heart of this continuing and damaging stand off.

The Aero Club people were used to coming and going as they liked and resented what felt like having their wings clipped by leaden-footed bureaucracy.

The Council were required by security regulations – which necessarily became increasingly strict after the attack on New York’s World Trade Centre and later on the London tube – to ensure that no one could go airside without being identified and having their presence logged.

The result of this situation was the cutting of the security fence at the airport, simultaneously an act of protest and enabling unsupervised access. It was the row over the access scenario that triggered the much more serious sabotaging of the airport fire appliance’s fuel supply.

The cost to Argyll of this running battle

This is incalcuable. The inability to come to terms in an adult recognition of each other’s position does nether side credit. The resort to law is expensive and does not resolve the underlying cause of the mutual  ill-feeling. The acts of provocation – and worse – on both sides make Argyll look like the venue for a hick country and western hoedown – but with spurs and without either the music or the dancing skills.

The whole scanario casts real doubt on Argyll’s fitness to run an airport and to hold a CAA licence. It questions the judgment of both sides, each unable to put the bigger picture ahead of displacement on the one hand and disregarded status on the other.

It is also worth noting that the Wikipeda entry for Oban Airport has a titled paragraph on its controversial relationships. What sort of credibility damage does that do – especially since it is earned comment?

Relationship counselling

This is indeed a marriage and a dysfunctional one. The most intelligent appropach to resolution is the one that any warring couple woulds be advised to take. Call it arbitration but it’s really relationship counselling – and it would be more productive to be handled as just that.

As one of tne parties involved – and as capable as any of underhand moves (like the King Air stunt), the Council cannot adjudicate on a matter in which it is one of the combatants.

The marriage was a forced one from the start. As such, it could – and should – have been handled more sensitively, imaginatively and inclusively  by the more powerful partner – the Council. The political reality of any such dispute in any field is that the disempowered party feels it has no recourse other than subversion. As with most guerrilla tactics, this has always endangered the general public in a vaeriety of ways.

We feel that the Scottish Goverment must now step in and exert its authority. It must get both sides together in an atmosphere where it is possible to set the past aside and to lay the foundation of a new relationship of collaboration and mutual respect.

There should be no recourse to law until this has been done. Any enforced  outcome can do nothing except deepen the alienation.

The bottom line is that the brouhaha at the airport simply has to stop.

Note: Just over an hour after the publication of this article, we had confirmation of concern for the situation from Jim Mather, Touriem Minister and Argyll’s MSp. Details of the action Mr Mather has now taken have been published in a separate article: Minister acts on Oban Airport situation.

The two statements

ARGYLL AERO CLUB (Press Release issued to For Argyll on 30th June)

The Argyll Aero Club (AAC) is astonished by the recent outburst from Councilor Walsh of Argyll & Bute Council regarding the legitimate fencing for operational reasons of a part the club’s leased area at Oban Airport. He has been ill informed and ill advised to make such patently false and inaccurate statements.

To attempt to deliberately mislead the public about ambulance flights is reprehensible. An enquiry by the club to the providers of the air ambulance services to the Oban area has confirmed that there is no reduction in air ambulance service provision due to any action by the club. Councilor Walsh is further asked to name any operator whose use of the airport has been put in jeopardy.

That the leader of the council should now suggest they will take legal action against the club for normal use of their leased area is nonsense. He should by now know that ABC is not above or beyond the rule of the law.

The AAC has leased an area at the airport since 1995 and have been model tenants spending our own money to enhance facilities for both local and visiting pilots. Our activities have brought nothing but widespread acknowledged credit to the club and the airport.

When the council decided to license the airport they required a part of the club’s leased area in order to comply with Civil Aviation Authority regulations. Instead of trying to resolve that situation by discussion, senior officials within the council provided misleading information to the CAA in order to obtain a license for the airport. It is a criminal offence to provide false details on an airport license application form.

It is this deception that has now come back to haunt the council and it is understood that the CAA is now looking into the license application process.

Over the last 2 years the council have continually harassed and bullied the club in order to move us off the airport and gain control of our ground. This bullying included the illegal destruction in the middle of the night of some 20 trees planted by the club 12 years previously to screen and protect our purpose built aircraft hangar. Officials also ordered the fencing-off of our boundaries in order to restrict the clubs use of our leased area and have used our area as a dumping ground in order to restrict our activities. All of this was undertaken despite the council being informed by the club and their lawyers that they had no right to interfere with, or enter, the leased area.

The club had no other alternative but to resort to the courts to allow us to continue our legitimate occupation and use of our land. The court has entirely supported the club’s position and the council has now to pay the club compensation and our legal costs. In addition the Council have been forced to give the court a solemn undertaking not to enter into the area. Despite this, the council’s latest tactic to coerce the club into quitting, is to attempt to raise our rent by 6 fold and backdate it for 2 years.

The Argyll Aero Club calls upon Councilor Walsh to fully investigate and make public his findings on this disgraceful affair and rid the council of the culture of bullying and deception.

ARGYLL & BUTE COUNCIL(issued to For Argyll on 2nd July)

Council forced to act over airport
Argyll and Bute Council is seeking legal advice in relation to one of its tenants at Oban Airport.

The move comes after Argyll Aero Club, which leases a site at the airport for a hangar, erected a fence which cuts into the safety area around a runway which is referred to as the ‘runway strip’.

The result is that the normal useable runway has been reduced in length by roughly a third and larger fixed wing aircraft, including the fixed wing Air Ambulance, can no longer land at Oban Airport.

Despite three letters outlining how the fence impinges on the airport’s operations and requesting that it be taken down, Argyll Aero Club has so far refused to remove it.

Other methods of delineating the leased ground area which comply with the requirements in this safety area would not cause any problem.

The Council is currently seeking legal advice on what options are now open to it.

Council Leader Councillor Dick Walsh called the situation ‘totally unacceptable;, saying: ‘We are not disputing that our tenant, Argyll Aero Club, has a legal right to delineate the area it has leased, but the way in which it has chosen to mark it has extremely serious consequences for the operation of the airport.

‘We have spelled out these consequences very clearly to the Club on several occasions, but it continues to refuse to remove the fence. We are therefore left with little option.

‘I find it remarkable that anyone could knowingly act in a way which results in such an essential public service as the Air Ambulance aeroplane being no longer able to use the local airport’.

The airport has already been contacted by the King Air Air Ambulance operator to request details of the restrictions to the runway length. However, Councillor Walsh stressed that the issue was not just about the Air Ambulance. ‘This situation has much wider consequences for the airport and the local economy’, he added.

‘We already have, for instance, two Learjets provisionally booked to use the airport next month, carrying visitors who want to spend their holiday in Argyll and Bute. As the situation stands at the moment we will have to turn these aircraft – and these people – away.

‘This is a totally unacceptable situation, and one which we obviously need to act on as soon as possible. It is very disappointing to have to resort to the legal route, but it seems that is now the only option’.

The ‘runway strip’ is an 80 metre wide strip of land, stretching 40 metres each side of the runway’s centre line.
This ‘strip’ is placed around a runway to ensure that if an aircraft leaves the paved area it will suffer no further significant damage. Therefore, it protects an aircraft and its passengers from coming to any harm.

In order to operate the airport safely, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) rules stipulate that this strip has to be maintained in a condition suitable to allow an aircraft, if necessary, to leave the paved area onto the grass in the event of an emergency. Outside of these protected areas, there are slopes that no obstacle is allowed to penetrate in order to ensure the safety of an aircraft and its occupants in the event of a missed approach.

The CAA requirements are quite clear and all licensed airports must adhere to these regulations. Oban Airport is no exception.

As the fence erected by Argyll Aero Club encroaches into that strip of land, the runway length has had to be shortened. Larger aircraft which require the runway’s full length, such as the King Air Air Ambulance, can no longer use the airport.
The operation of the Air Ambulance helicopter, which operates from the helipad at the Lorn and Islands District General Hospital, is not affected.

The Council has informed the CAA of the situation.
NOTE TO EDITORS
Oban Airport is registered as having two runways – Runway 01 (taking off due North) and Runway 19 (taking off due South).
The take-off run available on Runway 01 before the erection of the fence was 1064 metres, and the available landing distance 1110 metres.  Those figures are now 702 metres and 782 metres respectively.
The take-off run available on Runway 19 before the erection of the fence was 1141 metres, and the available landing distance 993 metres.  Those figures are now 842 metres and 642 metres respectively.
The King Air Air Ambulance requires a strip of at least 850 metres to land.

The photograph above was taken by the copyright holder and our photographer, Rebecca Martin, at the first Emergency Exercise at Oban Airport in December 2008. It seemed an appropriate subject in the circumstances.

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