TOURISM, roads and council coffers are set to benefit from a £6.2m cash windfall from the skies. A pot of money set aside from the sale of Blackpool Airport is to be spent over the next two years, it has been revealed. Blackpool Council, which sold the airfield in 2004, agreed at the time not to touch the cash in case it had to buy it back.
But the recent success of the Squires Gate terminal has prompted the council to release the funds for capital projects although £1.1m will be transferred into the council's reserves to boost those up to £4.5m by the end of March next year.
More than a million pounds will now be spent on highways repairs, and £1.2m will go towards an Illuminations scheme for the town centre which will cost more than £3m in total. Firm details of the scheme are yet to be finalised, although it is expected it will see buildings lit up at night and new lighting features in the resort.
Other capital projects are also in the pipeline. Council leader Coun Roy Fisher said: "Blackpool Airport is the fastest growing airport in the UK and therefore the council has a great deal of confidence in its future. The growth in passenger numbers is such that we feel able to utilise some of the £6m we received when we sold the airport. "Rather than leaving this money to lie idle the council wants to use it to invest now in the future of Blackpool."
But Tory leader Coun Peter Callow, who is also chairman of the audit committee, accused the council of frittering the money away in order to prop up the budget and keep council taxes low. Blackpool is proposing a rise of 4.3 per cent this year. Coun Callow said: "I don't agree there is no possibility of anything going wrong with that airport and the council could still have to buy it back in the future.
"There is pressure from the Government to cut back on air travel and the terrorist threat has not gone away. "Once we've used that money up it's gone. The only way we could then get the airport back if we needed to in an emergency situation would be to borrow the money, and who pays for that – the council tax payer. "We shouldn't be frittering the airport money away on everyday expenses that should be part of the normal budget so that we can crow about having the lowest council tax in Lancashire."
Last year £1.4m of airport money was released for spending on roads, tourism and CCTV. The airport's owners have invested £4m, building a new terminal and last year passenger numbers increased by around 97 per cent compared to the previous 12 months.
When the council owned the airport it cost about £1m a year to run.
Source: Blackpool Today
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