The company have submitted several claims for significant maintenance sums for maintaining the site that appear contrary to the actual activities visible on the property.

Since that time it has been mothballed with the aviation infrastructure and navigation aids retained pending an attempt by the leaseholder to change the use of the site in planning so that it can be disposed of for residential development.

In 1923, a mail flight, flown by Alan Cobham, to Croydon carried passengers from a grass strip at Chelson Meadow, Plymouth.

The end of flights to France together with the added security delays associated with internal air travel when compared with moderately fast road and rail links[specify] make Plymouth Airport less attractive than before.

However, despite many local residents sharing the view that these developments represented the 'beginning of the end' for the airport, in October 2007 Air Southwest announced new routes to Dublin, Cork, Chambéry, Glasgow and Newcastle upon Tyne.

In March 2015, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, George Osborne, stated that he would look at commissioning an independent study into the viability of reopening the airport.

On 9 August 2015, a Jodel D.120A light aircraft, registration G-ASXU, was forced to land at Plymouth Airport due to poor weather.

The actions of SHH were widely condemned by members of the UK general aviation community, with a "Free the Jodel" campaign being started online.

When it was operational, Plymouth City Airport signed up to the Strasser Scheme, which exempts pilots from charges for emergency landings or diversions.

[10] On the morning of 28 August, three weeks after landing, pilot Martin Ferid flew his Jodel out of the former Plymouth Airport site in front of a crowd of onlookers.

[16] The study brings together and reviews in detail the findings from nine previous reports commissioned by interested parties on the potential viability of renewed commercial passenger services from the former Plymouth City Airport (PCA).

[17] The study concludes that there is no clear and consistent evidence across the reports reviewed to suggest that sufficient demand exists to operate commercially viable passenger services from a reopened PCA.

It says passenger estimates were found to be equivalent to or lower than the levels seen prior to PCA's closure, when the airport frequently failed to make a profit.

A tweet from BBC Radio Cornwall stated: 'New report warns any plans to reopen Plymouth City Airport would require £9m of Govt funding – would you use it?

'[19] A second tweet on the same day from BBC Radio Cornwall stated: 'Campaigners fighting to reopen Plymouth City Airport have admitted £9m of Govt investment would be needed'.

The source of the £9m subsidy claim appears to be paragraph 5.20 (pages 71–72) of the DfT report which references a business plan submitted by the campaign group FlyPlymouth to reopen the airport.

The report states: FlyPlymouth do not suggest that a reopened PCA under Option 3 will be financially viable in the short term without government subsidy or support, as their business case includes £4 million in government loans (or an alternative) to help cover site 72 acquisition costs, recommissioning costs and initial operational losses.

Further to this, the business case assumes that support from the Regional Air Connectivity Fund (RACF), totalling £5 million across the first three loss-making years of commercial passenger operations, will be provided by the Government.

In February 2017 Sutton Harbour Holdings published plans to redevelop the airport site as a garden suburb called Plym Vale.

The company said the £200 million plan would create a new walkable city quarter with village green, playing fields, shops, homes and social enterprise workspace.

Sutton Harbour Holdings says this would meet up to 10% of Plymouth's local housing need, taking pressure off greenfield sites on the edge of the city and in surrounding towns and villages in West Devon and the South Hams.

The future use of the airport site will be determined by an Examination in Public of the draft Plymouth and South West Devon Joint Local Plan, which is scheduled to take place in the autumn of 2017.

In the draft plan, Plymouth City Council currently earmarks the airport site for future General Aviation use.

[27] However, the aviation infrastructure and navigational aid equipment remains in place under the terms of the airport lease albeit it in a deteriorated condition.

Concern had been expressed about operation of the Devon Air Ambulance with the closure of the airport as no night flights are allowed at the nearby Derriford Hospital.