The publicly-funded company behind Dundee Airport has been urged to make the case for the city after its submission to a major inquiry on air links instead focused on business benefits in Inverness and the Highlands.
Dundee and Angus Chamber chief Sandra Burke said the Highlands and Islands Airports (HIAL) response to the Airports Commission made scant mention of Dundee, and warned that the city needed transport infrastructure if it was to reap the benefits of waterfront and prospective renewable developments.
Her warning echoed that of Guggenheim effect expert Beatriz Plaza, who stressed that connectivity was crucial to the success of the city’s V&A at Dundee project when she visited the city earlier in the summer.
HIAL used its response to the UK Government commission, which is examining the prospects for airport expansion in the south-east of England, to warn on the vulnerability of regional facilities.
It says the loss of a service or route can have “serious implications for the local economy, damaging the region’s employment, investment and tourism potential” and focuses on the Highland and Islands area in which 10 of its 11 facilities are located.
The report highlights Inverness and the Highland capital’s connection to the wider world via a link with Amsterdam Schipol, and hails the impact of air links in its “growth as a business and commercial” centre.
Flights connecting Dundee to Belfast and Birmingham were axed by operator Loganair late last year in the face of declining passenger numbers.
HIAL has since insisted it is doing all it can to attract new business, but warned that it faces challenges in the present economic market.
Ms Burke said the Dundee and Angus Chamber was “very supportive” of the city’s airport, and would do whatever it could to help its development.
But she warned that connections between Dundee and a major international hub were critical to the city’s aspirations for a growing tourist economy and as a base for the renewables industry.
“We want the case to be made for better connectivity to Dundee,” Ms Burke said of the HIAL submission.
“I would have liked to have seen HIAL make more mention of the criticality of Dundee Airport, particularly because the city needs to be ready for the impact of the regeneration of our waterfront and the opening of the V&A.
“Our position is that we think Dundee Airport is absolutely vital, and that it is vital we maintain services and, ideally, expand them.”
Dundee City Council has pledged to support the Riverside Drive facility as part of a new tourism strategy adopted in the spring.
City fathers hope to aid the introduction of new services by highlighting opportunities during regular meetings with operators, and promoting the airport as an important part of the city’s proposition as an operations and maintenance base for the renewables sector.
In June, Dr Plaza told Dundee’s second economic summit that “something had to be done” about the city’s transport links.
The Bilbao-based academic who has written extensively on the power of museums as tools for urban regeneration said connections were a crucial factor for the £45m V&A at Dundee project.
The HIAL submission’s publication came as the chairman of the Government-appointed commission revealed summaries of all the responses received during the first phase of its examination of airport expansion in the south east of the UK.
His commission said the need to consider the UK’s connectivity as a whole was one of several strong recurring themes during the consultation.