IT’S a pitiful sight watching the five leaders of the Tees Valley local authorities and the mayor scrapping over whether or not to feed the corpse of Durham Tees Valley Airport (DTVA) with £500,000 of public money (Echo, Feb 17).

It’s not going to make any difference. The airport is finished and has been for a number of years. Yet, each in their way cling onto this vanity project in the belief that it can be resuscitated.

It cannot. Just let Peel get on with the job of building houses and shops and putting the land to better use.

Focus on the really important transport issues. Locally that means buses, and regionally, road and rail links (with the exception of HS2, an even greater vanity project) that strengthen our trading relationship with the North-West and the rest of the North-East.

Leeds-Bradford’s passenger numbers – without resorting to puns – are soaring away with over four million customers and Newcastle has once again hit over one million. Both have aggressive and bold development plans to win more flights. These passengers are, in part, coming from the catchment area of DTVA. If there is to be a priority related to airports, it’s to find a means of facilitating quicker, easier and cheaper access to Leeds-Bradford, Newcastle and Manchester airports. A £500,000 contribution to such a plan might be helpful?

Another alternative might be to take an imaginative leap forward by making the sole focus of the South Tees Development Corporation the creation of an ‘Aerotropolis’ on the 4,300 acres of land over which it has significant development powers.

A true multi and inter modal site with access by sea, road, rail and air and the status of a free trade or special economic zone would drive growth for the rest of the century.

Now that of all things is worth a 25 year wait and would create a lot more jobs than the current proposals.

Paul McGee, Stockton