Scandal at Great Britain’s first spaceport at Cornwall airport
A local council in Cornwall has withdrawn £200K of funding from spaceport operations at the local airport — the first spaceport established in Great Britain where Virgin Orbit launched its last flight — because one council member responsible for distributing the funds was also at the same time getting a job at the spaceport without telling anyone.
The decision has come after it was revealed that the council’s then cabinet member for the economy Cllr Louis Gardner – who oversaw SPF allocation as part of his portfolio – was actually in the process of getting a top job at the Spaceport when he was part of an Economic Prosperity Board meeting on February 27. He was among members who agreed to give the space hub the £200k levelling up money. He didn’t declare an interest during the meeting.
Days later it was announced he had got the £70,000 head of future air and space role, which sees him controlling a budget which would have included the £200,001 fund previously agreed by him and other Economic Prosperity Board members. On accepting the Spaceport role he stood down from his position as the local authority’s Conservative cabinet member for the economy and will retire as a Newquay councillor on Cornwall Council at the election tomorrow (Thursday, May 1).
It appears this kerfuffle is also linked to the continuing collapse of the conservative Tory Party in Great Britain. Gardner is a Tory, and it appears his actions convinced two other Tory councilors to publicly break from that party and join Nigel Farage’s Reform party.
Before the meeting even started there was no escaping what many are calling a “scandal” when Tory rebels Cllr Steve Arthur (Perranporth) and Cllr John Conway (Launceston South) arrived wearing NASA spacesuits, much to the amusement of many of their colleagues. The councillors, who resigned from the Conservative group to start an independent non-aligned group, said they had pulled the stunt to highlight the issue.
The decision to withdraw this money however makes sense from another perspective. The spaceport has no customers, as there are literally no rocket companies in existence at present able to launch from an airport runway. Cornwall’s only customer, Virgin Orbit, went bankrupt after its one launch there failed.
Nor should anyone expect any new rocket companies to appear eager to use Cornwall. The red tape that Virgin Orbit had to clear to launch took almost a year, and that delay was part of the reason the company went belly-up. It used up its cash reserves waiting for Great Britain’s bureaucrats to fill out forms.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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A local council in Cornwall has withdrawn £200K of funding from spaceport operations at the local airport — the first spaceport established in Great Britain where Virgin Orbit launched its last flight — because one council member responsible for distributing the funds was also at the same time getting a job at the spaceport without telling anyone.
The decision has come after it was revealed that the council’s then cabinet member for the economy Cllr Louis Gardner – who oversaw SPF allocation as part of his portfolio – was actually in the process of getting a top job at the Spaceport when he was part of an Economic Prosperity Board meeting on February 27. He was among members who agreed to give the space hub the £200k levelling up money. He didn’t declare an interest during the meeting.
Days later it was announced he had got the £70,000 head of future air and space role, which sees him controlling a budget which would have included the £200,001 fund previously agreed by him and other Economic Prosperity Board members. On accepting the Spaceport role he stood down from his position as the local authority’s Conservative cabinet member for the economy and will retire as a Newquay councillor on Cornwall Council at the election tomorrow (Thursday, May 1).
It appears this kerfuffle is also linked to the continuing collapse of the conservative Tory Party in Great Britain. Gardner is a Tory, and it appears his actions convinced two other Tory councilors to publicly break from that party and join Nigel Farage’s Reform party.
Before the meeting even started there was no escaping what many are calling a “scandal” when Tory rebels Cllr Steve Arthur (Perranporth) and Cllr John Conway (Launceston South) arrived wearing NASA spacesuits, much to the amusement of many of their colleagues. The councillors, who resigned from the Conservative group to start an independent non-aligned group, said they had pulled the stunt to highlight the issue.
The decision to withdraw this money however makes sense from another perspective. The spaceport has no customers, as there are literally no rocket companies in existence at present able to launch from an airport runway. Cornwall’s only customer, Virgin Orbit, went bankrupt after its one launch there failed.
Nor should anyone expect any new rocket companies to appear eager to use Cornwall. The red tape that Virgin Orbit had to clear to launch took almost a year, and that delay was part of the reason the company went belly-up. It used up its cash reserves waiting for Great Britain’s bureaucrats to fill out forms.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The times, even in the Caliphate of England, they are a-changin’…
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/local-elections-results-2025-latest-news-live-837xp9bf9
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/2/radical-right-reform-party-makes-gains-in-english-elections
Quoting Andrea Jenkyns, the newly elected mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, “The rebuilding begins here … we’re going to have a Britain where we put British people first.”
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Nowhere in the press coverage, of course, is there any reference to the Orwellian thought control that has been imposed on English citizens by their current government. Voters may not care for this, either.