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We have welcomed a decision to take new land into Yateley Common at Cottage Farm.
Photo: The Cottage Farm lands © Blackbushe Airport Ltd
Paul Freer, BA (Hons) LLM PhD MRTPI, a Planning Inspectorate inspector, granted the application of Falcon Propco4 Ltd (the owner of Blackbushe aerodrome) to deregister just over 14 hectares of aerodrome common land, and designate about the same area of land at Cottage Farm as replacement common land[1].
The Cottage-Farm land has previously been used for equine livery; it is thought during the medieval period to have been carved out of the wastes of Yateley. The intention is that the land should revert to heathland (as it once was).
Our case officer Hugh Craddock said: ‘We welcome this exchange. For too long, Blackbushe aerodrome has occupied much of Yateley Common to the exclusion of the public. We helped defeat the attempt in 2017 to deregister the land as ‘curtilage’ of the control tower[2] —which would have brought no replacement land—and we are pleased to have helped influence the present application.’
Hugh added: ‘The land at Cottage Farm will be managed to encourage a reversion to heathland. This land will become subject in perpetuity to access rights on foot and horseback, thanks to a condition in the consent for which we campaigned. And the internal and boundary fences at Cottage Farm will be removed, better to enable public access.’
Hugh concluded: ‘We lament this final recognition that much of the land at Blackbushe aerodrome will never again be common land[3]. But we recognise the reality that there had been no public access to the aerodrome since the Second World War, and this application makes sensible permanent provision for new land to be given in substitution, to the benefit of the public and wildlife.’
[1] Decision given on 14 May 2025 under reference COM/3336312. The decision letter includes a plan of the release and replacement land.
[2] See the decision of the Court of Appeal in Blackbushe Airport Ltd v R (On the Application of Hampshire County Council) & Others, the society intervening as an interested party.
[3] This application affects only around 14 hectares of registered common land mainly on the southern side of Blackbushe aerodrome. Much of the rest of the airfield will remain registered common land, to which there is no public access.