Comment: David Parkin on the winners and losers at Leeds Bradford International Airport

WHATEVER you want to accuse those in charge of Leeds Bradford International Airport of, you certainly can’t say they don’t work hard.

The announcement of a restoration of the London service pulled by bmi last month is evidence that chief executive John Parkin and commercial director Tony Hallwood have been working flat out to find and announce a replacement service in just three weeks.

Yes, some will say Flybe’s new three times daily service to Gatwick is OK but it is not Heathrow or London City.

Yet in the current economic climate, getting any airline to add services is pretty impressive.

So, from contemplating no air services from the region to London, at least now – in the depths of recession – we have one.

And just when the team running LBIA might have thought they were getting somewhere, they found out last week that councillors in Leeds have stalled their £70m expansion plans because they want to see more attention paid to public transport links to the airport.

We had the unedifying sight of local councillors and climate change campaigners cock-a-hoop that they had brought development of the airport to a halt – at least temporarily – while it is required to come up with more “ambitious” plans for public transport connections to and from the airport.

And some correspondents to the local media suggested it was a good thing as freezing expansion of the airport would encourage more people to take their holidays and weekend breaks in Yorkshire rather than abroad.

Dear me, what kind of a fluffy, fairy tale world do these people live in? How many of them spend a fortnight in a boarding house in Bridlington every summer?

For Leeds City Council – which received a large chunk of the £145m that private equity firm Bridgepoint paid for the airport two years ago – to demand that more attention is paid to public transport issues, grates more than somewhat.

What improvements were made during the airport’s decades in local authority ownership and why isn’t the council pursuing an aggressive agenda with central government to win funding for future improvements?

After the Supertram shambles, the city is certainly owed something by this Government.

Councillors say they want to see more people travel to the airport via public transport. But given there is no rail or tram link and the airport boasts the luxury of a car park that is walking distance from the terminal, why would travellers, particularly business people, even think about getting the bus?

And in my experience, the problem with Leeds Bradford is not congestion on the roads around it, but getting to or from it into Leeds city centre via the regularly jammed up A65 Kirkstall Road.

The only way most business people would even consider getting a bus to the airport would be if you could guarantee them how long the journey will take.

Leeds Bradford can do whatever they like, but they can’t ensure that a bus won’t get snarled up in the traffic gridlock that consumes the city centre on a twice daily basis.

Perhaps it is time for those in local and central government to become “ambitious” for improvements, rather than trying to pass the buck to the private sector.

If not, I’ll see you at Mrs Miggins’ Bridlington boarding house for a fortnight in July.