Plans to rebuild old Blackpool Airport Infrastructure as plans are submitted

Plans for a new office, security and small passenger handling building for Blackpool Airport have been submitted to Fylde Council.

The new offices would be built immediately behind the current buildings at the entrance to the airport off Squires Gate Lane.

The plans are part of Blackpool Council and Blackpool Airport’s strategy to rebuild old airport infrastructure to make the airport more commercially successful and create new jobs on the Fylde Coast.

The current administration and security buildings are both well over 20 years old and are in need of modernising. The proposed new buildings would allow a combined service offering an enhanced arrivals and departures area, as well as a larger security checkpoint to host new X-ray and scanning equipment recently purchased by the airport. The passenger facility would allow the airport to grow the number of corporate aircraft, executive and charter flights it can handle up to 45 passengers at a time.

Within the same building would be three offices and a meeting room for the airport senior leadership team.

Steve Peters, Managing Director of Blackpool Airport, said: “This is a major step forward in the future of Blackpool Airport. Over the last five years we’ve done a lot of work internally to make Blackpool an attractive airport once again, and we’re seeing the rewards of that with increased corporate and executive aircraft flights accommodating larger cabin class aircraft, and welcoming new customers to the airport for the first time.

“This new facility will allow us to grow these executive flights by numbers of movements and increased aircraft size by offering more space as well as improved security, while a new building will provide a modern and welcoming environment that is more suitable as a first impression for departing or arriving visitors.”

This is the latest in a range of plans submitted to upgrade airport infrastructure. A planning application for a new road and hangars was revealed last September and is expected to be decided on by Fylde Council’s Planning Committee later this summer. Future plans for the airport include new executive hangars at the west of the airport, and a solar farm for land south of the main runway.

A new fuel farm enabling the use of sustainable and alternative aviation fuels and battery storage are also under consideration.

Once demolished, the land which the current administration building sits on will combine with the recently demolished fire station and engineering yard to form the site of a first data centre demonstrator building as part of the Silicon Sands development.

The development is part of the third phase of Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone, which is aiming to create 5,000 new jobs for the area by 2041. As of 2023, 2,500 new jobs had been created in the Enterprise Zone.

Once old airport hangars are relocated, almost 20 hectares of land around the north of Blackpool Airport can be unlocked for Silicon Sands, a data centre-led business park powered by renewable energy and creating quality jobs for the Fylde Coast.

Cllr Mark Smith, Blackpool Council’s Cabinet Member for Levelling Up (Place), at Blackpool Council said: “We’re working hard to make sure that we can support an airport that is commercially successful and a leading transport hub, and one that drives the growth of our Enterprise Zone.

“These plans would give the airport more scope to attract new business and customers, which is crucial to its success. In turn, it allows us to nurture the growth of the airport, while also releasing unneeded land for high end data centre companies to invest in Silicon Sands and create well paid jobs for local people.

“It is a complex task to redesign a working airport while keeping it fully operational and that can’t happen overnight. As a council, we are very keen to protect and grow the airport as a thriving transport hub and a community asset, but that needs to be done in a fashion which is economically sound and accounted for.”

Lead architectural consultants Cassidy + Ashton and engineering consultants WSP have supported Blackpool Council on the masterplan for the airport.

Blackpool Airport is already a thriving hub for business, medevac and general aviation and offers aircraft handling, parking, engineering and refuelling services, flight and instrument training as well as having facilities for executive lounges and crew briefing.

Around 39,000 flights took off and landed at Blackpool Airport in 2023.

Blackpool Council reacquired Blackpool Airport from Balfour Beatty in September 2017 for £4.25m via its ownership of Blackpool Airport Operations Ltd and Blackpool Airport Property Ltd. The purchase saved the airport from risk of permanent closure and secured its long-term future as part of the Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone.