Caption: It seems the Cambridge Aero Club will continue to operate from Cambridge Airport for a few years yet (pictured are two of the Club’s aircraft)
The proposal for the Marshall Group to leave Cambridge for Cranfield appears to have stalled, according to the BBC. In 2019 the company, which has been based at Cambridge Airport since it opened the current airport location, had previously announced plans to relocate to Cranfield.
In 2019 it announced it would leave Cambridge Airport, with 12,000 homes set to be built on the site. It had agreed a ‘potential relocation’ to Cranfield University’s base at Cranfield Airport in Bedfordshire, but is now ‘actively exploring a number of alternative options’. The company signed an option agreement in 2020 providing it with ‘the right to take a 150-year lease’ at Cranfield Airport.
A strategic review last summer had concluded that “all major components of the group’s engineering businesses, which currently occupy Cambridge East and the surrounding land, will vacate no later than 2028″. However, the company recently announced that “after a lot of work and analysis, we have had to conclude that this proposed location is no longer affordable” and added that “our focus remains firmly on securing the long-term future of the business, and we are actively exploring a number of alternative options for relocation. Although commercial sensitivities mean we cannot share more detail at this stage, we are committed to providing updates as our plans continue to develop.”
Cranfield University’s chief executive and vice-chancellor, Dame Karen Holford, was quoted as saying “this isn’t the outcome we’d hoped for; however our airport remains an important asset for the university and a unique facility for research and innovation in the UK. The land proposed for development retains long-standing planning permission and we are actively exploring other options for the site.”
PHOTO: KEITH WILSON
