ATCO

The M67 was originally planned to be a Manchester - Sheffield motorway - however only a short stretch bypassing Hyde was ever built. The plans for the Manchester-Hyde and Hyde-Stocksbridge-Sheffield sections were abandoned in the 1980s. There were two routes on the tableboth roughly following the current A628 to J35A on the M1: one tunnelling for miles under Woodhead (too expensive); the other passing over the top of Woodhead with a large ascending viaduct (dropped due to environmental concerns in the national park). In the end the Stocksbridge by-pass was upgraded on the cheap and the rest of the scheme dropped; they're now building a by-pass at Tintwistle also but it won't be a motorway. The whole motorway is more than needed now but I reckon it will never be built - the environmentalists would block it all the way.

Sheffield Park constituency became Sheffield Central after the 1983 boundary change.

As has been said, it's standard practice for most low cost carriers no matter what airport you use. Ryanair started the trend, the rest followed. They claimed it was to protest against government taxes, and initially they only just quoted the fare without Airline Passenger Duty. Fair enough. But then they realised that it was an easy con, so started quoting thier fares exclusive of charges that really should be included in the fare as a genuine business expense - airport fees, insurance fees etc. It's a big con, basically.

The proposals for which were killed in the mid-1960s, because the soon-to-be-electrified Midland Mainline would connect Sheffield to London with such short journey times that a brand new airport couldn't be justified. 40 years on and there's not a sign of electric trains on that line north of Bedford, in the meantime Sheffield is the only large city in Britain to have lost an electric passenger railway and trains to Manchester are slower than they were in 1954. But that's another story.

I should add that the airport is still open but its days as anything other than a Police heliport are numbered.

Lots of misinformation about the airport on here. Sheffield City airport was conceived in the early 1990s. At that time the last airport to open in the UK was London City, with a short runway (1200m) offering short-hop flights to Europe for business folk. The consultants that the City Council engaged for the original study into the airport didn't twig that Sheffield was not a major global commercial centre in the way that London is, nor did they predict the expansion of leisure travel and the rise of the low cost airline based around the Boeing 737 (which need ~2000m runways). Therefore they recommended a city-type airport for Sheffield in the mould of London City. Where they thought the all the business folk would come from to support this kind of operation I don't know. I suspect it was mainly chosen because it was much the cheapest option, but was a terrible choice that would prove to cripple the airport right from the start. So the constrained City airport was built. To save costs it was initially built without a radar - they're expensive pieces of kit and need expensively-trained staff to operate them. KLMuk moved in and offered Amsterdam flights, British Regional offered Dublin and Belfast flights. The airport looked like it might hit critical mass. However it was still without radar: plans were being put in place but were moving too slowly because of the investment required. In the end KLM pulled out because the Dutch pilots' union was not happy operating into a non-radar airport. This was a crippling blow as any justification to get radar promptly went. The Dublin flights went next, Sabena had a short unsuccesful attempt at Brussels flights, and finally BRAL pulled the Belfast flights. Thus ended the story of scheduled passenger flights at Sheffield City. The airport is a handy little General Aviation airport these days (smaller privately-owned aircraft and helicopters - not exclusive, I have a share in one, I am not rich and thus I drive a battered car ). It still does benefit Sheffield's economy in a small way - having a dedicated General Aviation airport is a sign of an important city - Manchester for instance has one at Barton. Senior business folk like the proximity of the airport to the city and Meadowhall, however the high fees charged by the airport put some people off. MrH suggests that these are a legacy of its high cost base from its international airport days. At the end of the day office blocks make more money than small airports, so the writing really is on the wall for the airport, which is a great shame. It's history now, sadly, forget about it, and long live Finningley. Now Sheffield finally has its name on a proper airport. As for Ryanair operating BAe 146s, it did inherit KLMUK's 146s, however it scrapped them as quickly as it could because they were too expensive to operate in their low cost model. Currently only FlyBE attempts to operate a low-cost airline with aircraft that could have operated into Sheffield, however it is scrapping its 146s too (it will continue to operate the Bombardier Dash 8 Q-400 which can get into Sheffield though).