Grant Shapps tried to prevent housing plan for airfield where he keeps plane

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/dec/16/grant-shapps-airfield-plane-housing

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Grant Shapps, the Conservative party chairman, attempted to designate an aerodrome where he kept his private aircraft as a "community asset that can never be replaced" after the site was earmarked for 700 homes, the Guardian has discovered.

Shapps keeps his £100,000 foreign-registered Piper Saratoga at Panshanger airfield, which Welwyn Hatfield council identified as a site for new homes.

The Tory MP, who represents Welwyn Hatfield, said he had received "bucketloads" of mail about building on the airfield.

Panshanger, the current home of the North London flying club, is a 20-minute drive from Stevenage town centre, where Ed Miliband said he would be backing authorities that wanted to build new homes.

Shapps, however, waged a campaign to save the airfield. In the Welwyn and Hatfield Times, he said it should be considered a community asset, but the report did not mention he keeps his plane among the others there.

Shapps does not disguise the fact he is a keen pilot. He flew to attend a recording of Radio 4's Any Questions in 2010 and, under the pseudonym Michael Green, boasted of his "two aircraft".

The council rejected Shapps' arguments. It said: "The airfield site is not considered to meet the criteria for conservation area designation. It has become fragmented over time and … is not of special architectural or historic interest."

Shapps's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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