Doncaster Sheffield Airport: Crunch Vote Set For 11 May As Save DSA Campaigner Pens Open Letter

The future of Doncaster Sheffield Airport will be decided on Monday 11 May, when Doncaster Council holds a reconvened extraordinary meeting on whether to rescind the £57 million borrowing agreement that underpins the airport's reopening.

What is being voted on

The £57m borrowing facility was approved by Doncaster councillors in November 2025 by 42 votes to nine. It was designed to provide upfront cash for the reopening project ahead of £160m of devolution funding controlled by the South Yorkshire mayor's office. Interest repayments are accounted for inside the project's overall £193m forecast cost.

Reform UK and Conservative councillors are now seeking to rescind that approval. If the motion succeeds, the borrowing facility falls away – and with it, on the council's own warning from November, the reopening project itself.

The case for reversal

Reform UK's deputy leader on Doncaster Council, Cllr Jason Charity, has argued that councillors did not have the full picture when they originally approved the borrowing – in particular that they had not seen the terms of the airport lease the council had signed up to. Reform has framed the move as a matter of due diligence and financial responsibility, saying councillors should not be asked to commit £57m of public money without sight of the underlying contractual terms.

The party has also publicly stated it supports the reopening of the airport in principle, but says the financial arrangement as currently structured needs to be reconsidered.

The case against reversal

Doncaster Mayor Ros Jones and the Labour group argue that pulling the borrowing now would kill the reopening project – the same word council officers used when warning members about the consequences in November. Without the facility, there is no mechanism to bridge the gap until devolution funding lands.

Save DSA campaigner Mark Chadwick has published an open letter to Reform and Conservative councillors ahead of the meeting, urging them to think carefully before voting the project down. The campaign argues that the airport is one of the largest economic opportunities in the region and that reopening it has wide cross-party and cross-border public support.

The Bassetlaw angle

Bassetlaw MP Jo White has been a vocal supporter of the reopening, saying more than 2,000 Bassetlaw residents backed her campaign for the airport to come back into service after its 2022 closure. She has accused Reform UK of threatening to kill the project and has said publicly that she will not back down on the issue.

For Worksop and the wider Bassetlaw area, the airport sits roughly 20 minutes up the A1, and was a significant local employer and travel hub before closure. A reopening would be expected to bring jobs and direct flight access back within easy reach of the district. A failure to reopen would lock in the status quo.

What happens next

The extraordinary meeting on 11 May is the formal point at which the rescission motion will be heard and voted on. Until then, both sides are likely to continue making their case publicly. Worksop Wire will cover the outcome.