Jesus, that sounds even worse than I thought it was, a lot worse.
His freeport idea was possibly worse than his airport idea, and a lot more crooked. He's either just become more and more bent (likely), or been backed into a corner via his naivety, but either way his pockets will be being lined an public money gifted to individuals.
I'm glad the turbine place has gone over that way, and other green tech, at least that's allowing in "modern" industry, in the place of "outdated" industry, but the cost this has come at is ludicrous, and it's been handled extremely poorly, or criminally. If we had made money from the scrap, or had been doing well out of it, then they would have been publishing the numbers, but hiding them clearly means something is up.
To me, the only people who seem to support Ben Airport seem to be:
1 - People who do ok, but who have no concept of budget, and spend every penny they get in the wrong places
2 - People who say they like airports, but don't use airports
3 - People who like local airports, but who drive 100 miles to Manchester to save £50 on a flight
4 - People who have lucked into money, which makes them think they know more than others (they often don't)
5 - People who get duped by simple marketing tactics