Dear Mark

Your letter of 24 April 2026 is part of a pattern. The #saveDSA campaign produces a great deal of material; very little of it survives a check against the actual figures, the actual lease, or the actual papers in front of councillors. I will answer on substance, if there is any.

Where we agree. Reform UK Doncaster wants the DSA reopened. So do I, and so do the 130,000 people you cite. The disagreement is on terms, evidence, and governance.

The claim that the loan is not taken from "everyday council spending" is wrong. Under the 2003 Local Authorities Regulations, borrowing creates annual interest and repayment charges. These charges fall directly on the General Fund. Council taxpayers are the underwriter of last resort. Treating Gainshare as if it ringfences ordinary council finance is presentational, not actual.

"You knew what you were voting for," depends on what was put in front of you. Members were not shown the Superior Lease with Peel Group before the November 2025 vote. We have now read it. It changes the financial fundamentals. Peel takes 20% of airport turnover, not 20% of profit. Peel holds the terminate rights based on planning approval. The council gave up the last leverage they had in renegotiating this lease when they passed planning consent in favour of Peel. The energy supplier is locked in with LEEP (a Peel company), at an inflated market price.

Passenger thresholds carry consequences no commercial counterparty would have accepted without leverage. Read end to end, it is a textbook case of a public body failing at a lease negotiation. The mayor kept it from members before the vote (her words, not mine). Acting on it now is what councillors must do. The alternative is what brought down Croydon, Thurrock, and Woking.

Gainshare is forecast income, not contracted income, and the lease has taken a slice off the top. £160 million over 25 years is a projection from the 2024 business case, dependent on growth against a SYMCA baseline. Forecast contingent receipts cannot prudently underwrite £57 million of fixed liability. The problem compounds once the lease is read: 20p of every pound of turnover is pre-debited by the freeholder before the council sees it. If receipts arrive late or are low, the General Fund absorbs the difference. That is the structure I am unwilling to defend.

The "private investment is already in the plan," point misreads its own safeguard. The right point to test private appetite is before committing £57 million of public borrowing, not after. A safeguard that operates only retrospectively is not a safeguard. If commercial capital cannot be secured before public capital is exposed, that is information the council needs, not a problem to be deferred.

On instability. Investors prefer counterparties willing to revisit decisions in light of new evidence. A council that proceeded after the Superior Lease had surfaced, wave through a deal it did not properly understand.

On operations. The Civil Aviation Authority's work towards a May 2027 decision does not require £57 million to be drawn down today. Recruitment and contracts are matters of managing the project envelope, not arguments against scrutinising its funding. A project that cannot survive a financial review months after approval was not financially robust at the time of approval.

On the petitions. I respect them. 130,000 signatures speak to whether DSA reopens. They do not speak to whether the council should borrow £57 million for a lease that gives 20% of turnover to the freeholder. That is not what signatories were asked.

Your three questions. How long will the delay be? That depends on whether commercial investment can be secured on terms that share risk, and on whether the Superior Lease can be revisited with Peel. I consider both essential, not a delay.

How much will it cost? The honest comparator is not "pause versus proceed". It is "properly structured deal versus £57 million of council exposure on contingent income, into a lease that takes 20% off the top". I am not persuaded that the second is cheaper.

What if investors do not appear quickly? Then the council will know something that Gainshare projections cannot show, and members can revisit the decision informed by that knowledge. That is what scrutiny produces.

Closing. I do not take the framing of your letter seriously: it conflates support for the airport with support for one particular financial structure, agreed to under a lease that members were not shown. Reform UK Doncaster's position: DSA reopens on a structure that holds up to scrutiny, with private capital where it most protects public funds, and on a lease that does not begin each year by paying a fifth of revenue to the freeholder. That is not anti-airport. It is pro-airport, soberly.

If you want to meet to discuss any of this, I am willing.

Yours

Cllr Jason Charity Deputy Leader, Reform UK Doncaster