Plymouth City Airport was an airport located within the City of Plymouth north northeast of the city centre in Devon, England at Derriford (formerly Roborough). The airport opened on this site in 1925 and was officially opened by the future king Edward VIII, as Prince of Wales, in 1931.
The airport is owned by Plymouth City Council and leased to Plymouth-based company Sutton Harbour Holdings.
In 2009, 157,933 passengers passed through the airport, a sharp increase of 34.0% on the 2008 total of 117,823 making Plymouth one of the few UK airports experiencing significant growth during the period. However, following the withdrawal of London flights in early 2011, the airport's owners said passenger totals had fallen to fewer than 100 a day. The London Stock Exchange was notified on 28 April 2011 that the airport would close by the end of the year.
Plymouth City Airport had a CAA Public Use Aerodrome Licence (Number P687) that allowed flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction, and was part of the Strasser Scheme.
The airport closed and ceased all operations on 23 December 2011. Since that time it has been mothballed with the aviation infrastructure and navigation aids retained pending an attempt by the leaseholder to change the use of the site in planning so that it can be disposed of for residential development.
As result of the announced closure a group from the Plymouth business community initiated a campaign to protect the airport site. The group known as Viable delivered a petition to the city council with more than 38,000 signatures objecting to the Airport closure and asking the council to protect the site.
A full Council debate on the petition concluded with a unanimous vote in support of the airport's retention. There were just two abstentions. Accordingly, in 2014 Plymouth City Council decided to safeguard the site for future general aviation use in the forthcoming Plymouth Plan on the basis of evidence provided in the report on which the council had accepted the airport's closure.
Having achieved its campaign objectives, in 2015 Viable wound up its campaign and created FlyPlymouth Ltd with the objective of acquiring and reopening Plymouth airport. FlyPlymouth proposes to operate Plymouth Airport a general and business aviation airport not relying on commercial passenger services, the withdrawal of which led to the airport's closure.
History
Origins
In 1923, a mail flight, flown by Alan Cobham, to Croydon carried passengers from a grass strip at Chelson Meadow, Plymouth. Following the flight, Plymouth City Council looked for a permanent site for an airport. In 1925, the airport was moved to Roborough in north Plymouth. The Prince of Wales later Edward VIII officially opened the airport in July 1931.
As well as transporting mail and passengers, the airport was used as a bad weather training base for the Royal Air Force as RAF Roborough as well as other services of the armed forces.
Throughout the majority of the Second World War the airport was known as RAF Roborough and was the primary protection over the city of Plymouth, with RAF Harrowbeer as its back-up.
Location
The airport was located on Plymbridge Lane, PL6 8BW, situated 2 miles north of nearest Dual carriageway the A38 and 4.5 miles north of Plymouth railway station. As late as 2017, some Road signs across the City still had 'Airport' on them, but the majority had been corrected after the airport's closure in 2011.
As the boundary of the city of Plymouth has changed, the named area in which the airport was situated in had changed as well. Originally named at Roborough, the villages of Roborough and Belliver now sit a mile up the A386 from the site. Developments on both sides of the airport in Glenholt and Estover on one side and Southway on the other see the airport site lie in Derriford now, directly opposite from the University of St Mark & St John.