A controversial new Scottish airport has been closed to emergency flights at night, The Herald can reveal.
Officials at the multi-million-pound new-look airstrip in Oban have told air ambulance, search and rescue, and other lifeline services they can no longer land after 5pm.
They did so amid a growing and increasingly bitter dispute between Argyll and Bute Council, which owns the airport, and TLC, the firm that used to run it on the council's behalf. Its owner, Paul Keegan, has been an outspoken critic of the council and its much-derided proposals to turn Oban into a major air hub for Hebrides.
The airport, and sister strips on the islands of Coll and Colonsay, has still to secure a licence that would allow it to operate subsidised passenger flights that were supposed to have started earlier this year. The council has now spent more than £8.5m on rebuilding and running the three airports, far more than proposed.
Last week, Mr Keegan was told by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) he was no longer entitled to use council-owned radio frequencies to guide aircraft, including emergency helicopters, into Oban for refuelling.
He had been doing so, without a problem, for the best part of 10 years. The council withdrew permission for him to use the frequencies. Mr Keegan said he only found this out from the CAA.
Mr Keegan said: "I had no choice but to stop."
However, an Argyll and Bute Council spokeswoman said: "The reason why the airport has been used in the past for out-of-hours services was for TLC to provide fuel to aircraft. The appropriate way for this to be managed is for TLC to apply to the CAA for a business radio frequency to operate air-ground services."
The council appears unwilling to provide the service instead of Mr Keegan and TLC. The spokeswoman said: "This matter of providing fuel to the emergency services during out of hours has never been a council function and for TLC to continue providing this service, they should take appropriate steps to acquire a business licence."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article