The magic money tree lives!

The Yorkshire Post has reported how the Mayor of South Yorkshire is now convinced of the need to spend £160million reopening ‘Doncaster Sheffield Robin Hood’ airport. This venture originally only came into being because RAF Finningley, the former home of the Vulcan V-bombers closed and some bright spark asked what are we going to do with the site? Had there not been a long runway already in existence nobody would have proposed building a new airport from scratch. It was a perfect example of a municipal vanity project and it was failing long before Covid came along. It’s been dead for some years now. But lo! The said Mayor, having already spent £16 million on researching the project is willing to land his own vanity design on the poor taxpayers of South Yorkshire. His reasoning must be that there is nothing better to spend £160 million on. I wonder how much public money was originally spent on this vanity project. And what is so different now that will turn this white elephant into a success? Somebody needs to ask Rachel Reeves if maybe she too could access the magic money tree the Mayor of South Yorkshire has found. I hope other Yorkshire mayors will steer clear of any calls for assistance for this project.