A £1.38 million airport hangar at St. Angelo airport which has lain empty for almost five years may soon have a new tenant.

However, the tenant would be “a local indigenous manufacturing company in the vicinity of St. Angelo”, rather than an aviation company, as was originally intended.

READ: Work starts on £1.38m workspace at airport

Fermanagh and Omagh District Council (FODC) has been paying vacant rates on the property since 2013, a practice one local Councillor has described as “a real burden.”

The 37,000 square foot hangar was completed in 2013 to provide aircraft maintenance facilities at the airport. It was funded by the Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) and the European Union’s Interreg IVA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB). The then Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster said the workspace would create 14 highly skilled jobs in aviation, engineering and technical disciplines.

The hangar is a Council asset which was leased to Enniskillen Airport Ltd. as part of its wider management responsibilities for the airport. Despite “sustained efforts”, Enniskillen Airport Ltd. was unable to find an aviation client for the workspace. The SEUPB closed the project on the EU database in 2015 on the condition that it would be reopened once a suitable tenant had been secured. SEUPB has now agreed that the unit can be leased to a non-aviation business.

The Council’s December Regeneration and Community committee recommended that Councillors take action to allow the workspace to once again be leased to Enniskillen Airport Ltd., which would manage the letting of the facility to the local company.

DUP Councillor David Mahon voiced his unease at the fact that the Council would only be entitled to 20 per cent of the rent paid by any future tenant of the workspace, while Enniskillen Airport Ltd. would be entitled to 80 per cent.

“Twenty per cent is a very, very low amount for the Council to be getting – it seems a bit strange,” he said, adding: “The Council has been paying vacant rates on this for years and it’s a real burden to us, so it would be great to get the burden hooked off to somebody else.”

He wanted to know more about potential rates implications for the future, should the unit become vacant again. “If a manufacturing company goes in there for a number of years and whether they manufacture or just use it for storage, that’s two separate things when it comes to rates. If a manufacturing company vacates, then there’s no rates burden, but it’s different if there has been storage or other uses,” said Councillor Mahon, adding: “It has cost the Council a lot over the last years in vacant rates so I think it would be more diligent to get as much as possible back.”

In response, the Director of Regeneration and Planning, Alison McCullagh agreed to re-look at the recommendations. She said “a local indigenous manufacturing company in the vicinity of St. Angelo have embarked on discussions with Enniskillen Airport about the suitability of the workspace for their requirements.”

The meeting then went into committee to reveal the name of the company to Councillors.