Doncaster Airport Reopening Survives: Reform U-Turn As £57m Loan Passes 45-6 With Last-Minute Oversight Deal

Doncaster councillors have voted to keep the £57 million borrowing facility behind the Doncaster Sheffield Airport reopening in place, by 45 votes to 6, after Reform UK pulled back from outright rescission and instead struck a last-minute deal with Labour Mayor Ros Jones giving the party the right to review any renegotiated lease with the Peel Group before final approval. Reform''s deputy leader, Cllr Jason Charity, has since told reporters the party "never genuinely intended" to cancel the loan and that the threat had been a negotiating tactic.

What was decided

City of Doncaster Council’s extraordinary meeting on Monday 11 May voted by 45 votes to 6 to keep the £57 million borrowing facility approved in November 2025 in place. The motion originally tabled by Reform UK and Conservative councillors had sought to rescind the borrowing outright — a step council officers had warned could end the airport reopening project entirely and increase the council’s bankruptcy risk.

Instead, in negotiations on the morning of the vote, a deal was reached between Reform — the largest party on the council — and Labour Mayor Ros Jones. The agreement transformed Reform’s rescission motion into an oversight motion. Reform secured one specific concession: the right to scrutinise any renegotiated lease between the council and the airport’s landowner, the Peel Group, before that lease is granted final approval.

In return, the loan facility remains in place and the reopening project proceeds on its current timetable.

Reform’s position — and the post-vote U-turn

The intervention from Reform’s deputy leader on Doncaster Council, Cllr Jason Charity, in the hours after the vote was notable. Cllr Charity told reporters the party had never actually intended to cancel the borrowing — that the threat of rescission had been a negotiating tactic designed to force the council to engage with Reform on the lease terms.

Reform’s group leader, Cllr Craig Ward, framed the outcome as a win for governance, arguing the council had previously failed to provide "tighter oversight, scrutiny, and governance" and that "proper financial accountability, transparency, and scrutiny should have been there from the very beginning".

The framing — that Reform had always been negotiating rather than seeking outright cancellation — is a noticeable shift from the position the party had publicly held since January, when the leaked lease with the Peel Group first prompted the rescission motion. In the run-up to the vote, multiple national outlets had reported the outcome as on a knife edge.

Mayor Ros Jones’s response

Mayor Ros Jones — who holds executive authority in Doncaster and had been the most prominent public defender of the reopening — was sharply critical of how Reform had handled the run-up to the vote. She said Reform councillors had "had all the information there and just not read it", and that the threat of rescission had delayed substantive negotiations on the lease by approximately two months.

Jones had previously warned, including in a Local Democracy Reporting Service interview on 29 April, that rescinding the loan would "kill the airport project" and that the costs would fall on Doncaster Council and local taxpayers.

What it means for Bassetlaw

For Worksop and the wider Bassetlaw district, the practical outcome is that the airport reopening proceeds. Doncaster Sheffield Airport sits roughly 20 minutes up the A1 from Worksop and was a significant local employer before its November 2022 closure. Bassetlaw MP Jo White had been one of the most vocal Labour supporters of the reopening, with more than 2,000 Bassetlaw residents backing her campaign to bring the airport back into service.

The current target for the return of passenger flights remains Easter 2028, according to the council’s most recent agenda papers. The £48.6 million quantified future liability for the council also stands — that figure was published in the agenda papers ahead of Monday’s vote and reflects what the council expects to spend across the life of the project. (The previously published bankruptcy-risk warning related specifically to the rescission scenario and falls away with the loan now confirmed.)

What we are watching now

• The renegotiated lease. The deal Reform secured turns on their right to review this document. The current lease, leaked in January 2026, was reported to include a £5 million annual base rent, the potential for a 20% turnover rent above certain thresholds, and break clauses favouring the Peel Group if passenger targets are missed. What the renegotiated version looks like — and what Reform make of it when they see it — is the next decision point.
• Confirmation of any major operator deals. Fly Doncaster Ltd was reported in late April to be in "advanced talks" with a major freight operator for around 20 flights per week.
• Wider South Yorkshire devolution funding. The £160m of devolution funding controlled by South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard sits behind the £57m bridging facility. Confirmation of that funding flowing is the next material milestone.

Sources: ITV Calendar; The Doncaster Free Press; Yorkshire Post; DM News; LDRS. Read our full preview of the vote, our £48.6m liability agenda paper update, and the Bassetlaw Section 151 officer''s pre-vote intervention.