Leeds Bradford ACP

[C Rule]

Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) has submitted its airspace change proposal to the CAA. Extensive efforts to encourage LBA to understand the needs of local airspace stakeholders have been made over a significant period of time by the gliding and hang/para-gliding community in Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. However, there are significant concerns about LBA’s ACP consultation and submission to the CAA, including;

LBA’s failure to meaningfully engage with stakeholders
LBA’s inclusion of additional Class D Controlled Airspace (CAS) in their submission to CAA that is not detailed in their consultation document
LBA’s misleading representation of stakeholder feedback which applies to the consultation airspace design but not the design submitted to CAA
The absence of agreed and signed Letters of Agreement (LoAs)
LBA’s failure to consider safety issues outside of controlled airspace

The BGA and all other GA Alliance member organisations have submitted a letter of complaint to the CAA. As well as addressing the LBA ACP specific issues, the letter repeats the GA Alliance (and BGA) view that as the CAP725 process is known to be flawed, all ACP’s should be required to comply with CAP1616. The LBA ACP is one of many that the CAA continues to assess against the CAP725 process. Compared to the CAP725 process, the CAP1616 process requires more and earlier stakeholder engagement, as well as greater effort and transparency by airspace change proposers and the CAA.

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