TAKE FLIGHT AVIATION  AT SHENINGTON - EDGE HILL

Take Flight Aviation is proud to have a base at Shenington Airfield. The owner of Shenington Joe Gibbs approached Take Flight Aviation who shared his vision to rejuvenate flying activity at the site, which is great news given the numerous airfields closing down!   

​Although Shenington has been a predominantly a gliding site for many years it has always had a handful of powered aircraft and now Take Flight members can have access to aircraft there only a stones throw away from our former home at Wellesbourne. We are working closely with Edgehill Gliding Centre to ensure that powered aircraft and gliders can integrate safely and like the airfield owner support EGC to rejuvenate activity and make the site a more open place where people from the wider community will want to come and fly and stay. Joe is upgrading the site continually and has already worked with Take Flight Aviation to provide a small but perfectly formeed club house and lovely patio area perfect for willing away a sunny afternoon. The clubhouse has a kitchen, toilet and shower

​TAKE FLIGHT AVIATION & ENSTONE

​Take Flight Aviation’s flying school at Enstone is now operated by Cotswold Flying School at EGTN. The airfield at Enstone has a hard runway 08/26 that is 800 metres long and a parallel grass runway (known as North side Grass) which is 1000 metres in length not to be confused with the shorter also parallel grass runway to the South. Members flying aircraft from Take Flights Shenington base receive free landings Enstone’s hard runway an ideal location to pick up fuel at a competitive price.

The airfield is next to the exclusive Soho Farmhouse, set in 100 acres of the Oxfordshire countryside, the unique development has been created by multi-million pound investment in renovating a previously derelict farm. Once described as more like the set of the Truman Show than your typical rural retreat, it offers its private member clientele an idyllic setting for restaurants, pub, cinema, gym, pools, rooms, lakeside lodges and more. In addition work has started on a further £150m investment project, recently given planning approval to create a motor museum, that also joins the airfield. Whilst Enstone airfield may once have been considered the poor relation to more established airfields nearby, recent investment has given the airfield a new lease of life.

TAKE FLIGHT & WELLESBOURNE

A lot of people ask why are Take Flight Aviation (TFA) are no longer at Wellesbourne? Put simply its because we saved the airfield! TFA led the campaign to Save Wellesbourne Airfield in support of Stratford District Council's (SDC) core strategy with a commitment to “retain and support the enhancement of the established flying functions and aviation related facilities at Wellesbourne Airfield."

TFA set up the "Save Wellesbourne Airfield" campaign and following the airfield owners winning a legal case to evict the tenants at the airfield, lobbied the Council to protect the airfield by way of a Compulsory Purchase Order. Essentially what saved the airfield was we advised the council that the airfield could be protected by imposing an article 4 direction on the site, removing the owners permitted development rights, stopping the landowners demolishing the buildings on the airfield, without planning consent. The council acted on this advise immediately and the council leader acknowledged that Take Flight were responsible for saving the airfield and possibly its immediate demolition.
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Following the threat of a CPO and unable to demolish the business premises, the owners of the site and the council entered into a "Memorandum of Understanding" which required them to enter into negotiations with all the business remaining at the site, to offer them temporary licences. However, the landlords refused to offer a licence to Take Flight in breach of the agreement, despite being the airfield's biggest fixed wing operator.
The landowners stated the reason they did not offer TFA a licence was because their actions had prevented them doing what they wanted with the site. Despite Take Flights actions alone, having saved the airfield and the obvious discrimination, SDC refused to hold the landowners to the agreement or take the action they had promised if they breached the agreement and honour the commitments SDC had made to TFA despite representations made by Wellesbourne Parish Council, MP and Department for Transport.

Take Flight were refused permission to remove our own buildings from the site, as the council said they were “essential to the viability of the airfield” but failed to hold the owners to account for breaching the agreement. Our buildings remain at Wellesboure to this day whereas we have a much smaller unit at Shenington.