DAILY commercial flights could be operating to London from an airfield near Tadcaster within a year.

That is the aim of businessman Chris Makin, who bought the former RAF Church Fenton air base last year from the Ministry of Defence and has re-named it Leeds East Airport.

He said yesterday that he hopes it will be granted a civil licence by August, allowing it to carry fare-paying passengers.

He said London City airport would be only an hour away, for planes ranging from a 25-seater up to a 70-seater jet.

The scheduled service would be mainly targeted at business customers, on a daily frequency during the week, and he had no plans at this stage to fly major passenger jets in and out of the airfield.

Mr Makin said the airport was very close to the A1, and only a mile from Church Fenton station on the York to Leeds railway line.

He said Leeds East had two finely paved runways and was almost at sea level, which compared well to Leeds Bradford Airport, which was 650 feet above sea level and therefore subject to poorer weather.

Private planes were already based at Leeds East and others were flying in and out on a daily basis, with some racegoers flying in to head for meetings at York Racecourse.

The base was closed by the Ministry of Defence as part of a range of cost-cutting measures, with the Yorkshire University Air Squadron, which was based there, relocating elsewhere.

Mr Makin, who lives at Garforth, runs a soft fruit business and has an interest in aviation going back decades, bought all but three acres of the 450-acre site.

He said in January that his plans for the site also included opening a flying training school, and said his plans should create 100 jobs within the next five years.