Doncaster Council reveals ‘other interested parties’ for deal on private investment in airport
The council has spoken out - after a company offered £100m for a stake in the reopened Doncaster Sheffield Airport
Last updated 18th Nov 2025
The City of Doncaster Council has said there are “other interested parties” who have contacted the authority over private investment in Doncaster Sheffield Airport.
Communications officials issued a statement to the media after days of silence from the authority, following the criticism from a private investment consortium offering £100million to purchase Fly Doncaster Ltd.
The consortium, led by Chris Jordan, CEO of Labyrinth Investments International, wrote to the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, earlier this week lamenting the council having “delayed, suppressed and frustrated” the private offer.
Grant Freeman, a Doncaster-born businessman and UK strategic advisor to Labyrinth, said the consortium also offered to cover the capital investment required to provide power to the airport and for rail infrastructure – which he said made the offer worth a total of roughly half-a-billion pounds.
As reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Doncaster Council did not respond to the letter when initially approached.
However, following the publication of parts of the letter, a spokesperson for the council said: “The council refutes allegations attributed to Mr Freeman and his associates. We do not conduct negotiations in the public domain.
“We have been engaged with Mr Freeman continually since winter 2022. He has brought several proposals to the council, none of which have had substantial proof of funds attached to them including the current proposal. Therefore they have not progressed.
“We are always interested in genuine and substantiated offers and will, as expected, apply proper due diligence to them to ensure they are robust. There are other interested parties who have similarly made contact with us and due to confidentiality, we cannot comment further.”
The statement is the first time Doncaster Council has confirmed to the LDRS there is active private interest in Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA).
However, later in the statement, the spokesperson revealed it was not the right time for the council to be negotiating with the private sector.
They said: “We have repeatedly said that we and our funding partners want to seek financial investment as soon as possible however we recognise that the procurement exercise demonstrated that the public sector needs to be, as is often the case, the investor of first resort.
“We will, therefore, be going out to the market again when the time is right and the time is not now because our focus is on securing a certificated and licenced operating airport. Without these essentials, then there is no airport.
“We are engaged with our technical and financial advisors, and they confirm that now is not the time to go out to the market. Not only does this take time but would be an unhelpful distraction in achieving the key elements needed to fully reopen the airport as soon as possible.”
When approached by the LDRS to respond to the council’s statement, Mr Freeman said the investment group felt the council was not negotiating with them “in private or in public”, describing the decision to go to the local press as being “regretful”, but born out of frustration.
He said the only member of staff engaging with the consortium was Fly Doncaster Ltd director Christian Foster, who Mr Freeman said they had been working with daily “in good faith”.
Mr Freeman suggested the consortium had been more than willing to provide the proof of funds alluded to by the council in many of its previous offers.
He added: “Over the 3 years and due to total exasperation in dealing with CDC some investors have provided offers but walked away. However, we provided proof of funds in a previous bid that was specifically ring fenced for DSA investments as required at the time.”
The LDRS was also provided with a letter to Doncaster Council in January 2025 introducing the authority to a legal representative for Castlepines Global Equity – who lead the consortium in partnership with Labyrinth.
“We provided legal representation that confirmed ‘know your customer’ details and provided a direct legal representative of a leading law firm on behalf of Castlepines to conduct detailed due diligence including proof of funds once the level of investment required was determined and could be ringfenced with specificity,” Mr Freeman said, adding the legal representative is still yet to be contacted.
He also revealed the potential investors from Spain-based Labyrinth and Monaco-based Castlepines, flew in to conduct a site visit on July 8, 2025, and were accompanied by “Fly Doncaster and Chamber of Commerce representatives”.
Mr Freeman called on the council to “provide full disclosure on what they have pro-actively done to progress the information and direct contacts they have been provided”.
Councillors in Doncaster are due to vote on an additional £57m in borrowing in the final step to begin down the path of reopening the airport.
This money is not required due to a lack of funding, rather the cashflow of the £160m in gainshare funding from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA).
Gainshare funding is provided on an annual basis and the agreed £160m total will consume Doncaster Council’s share for a quarter-of-a-century – meaning the council will receive roughly £6m-per-year.
Officials told the LDRS that Fly Doncaster Ltd needs more than £6m annually in the first few years of reopening, which is why the borrowing is required – in theory, meaning the council will have more gainshare funding than it needs later on.
Sources within the council have suggested that if councillors, of which Reform UK has a majority, reject the borrowing, it would “kill” the reopening.