North Denes Airport is a

heliport A heliport is a small airport suitable for use by helicopters and some other vertical lift aircraft. Designated heliports typically contain one or more touchdown and liftoff areas and may also have limited facilities such as fuel or hangars. I ...

that is located in the northern suburbs of Great Yarmouth, just off the A149 next to Yarmouth Stadium, formerly used as a base for services to the

gas platform An oil platform (or oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, and similar terms) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platfor ...

s in the southern North Sea. Fixed-wing aircraft were not permitted to use the heliport. The heliport was owned by

CHC Helicopter CHC Helicopter is a Texas-based helicopter services company. CHC Helicopter maintains it global headquarters in Irving, Texas and operates more than 250 aircraft in 30 countries around the world. CHC's major international operating units are b ...

, which operated several

AgustaWestland AW139 The AgustaWestland AW139 is a medium-lift twin-engined helicopter developed and produced by the Anglo-Italian helicopter manufacturer AgustaWestland, later wholly owned by Leonardo S.p.A. It is marketed at several different roles, including V ...

helicopters.

History

There had been private fixed-wing flying from North Denes since 1950, but helicopter flying began there on 22 April 1965, with the arrival of a Westland Whirlwind belonging to Bristow Helicopters, which had won the contract to fly personnel and equipment to

Gulf Oil Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger ...

's drilling ship ''Glomar IV'' operating in the southern

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

. The number of helicopters operating from there soon rose to six, with a staff of over 50. By the early 1970s Bristow was serving over 30 offshore installations, carrying more than 5,000 passengers a month. Bristow remained the main operator from North Denes, although

Trinity House "Three In One" , formation = , founding_location = Deptford, London, England , status = Royal Charter corporation and registered charity , purpose = Maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons , he ...

British Airways British Airways (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers ...

, and the search-and-rescue helicopters from

RAF Coltishall Royal Air Force Coltishall, more commonly known as RAF Coltishall , is a former Royal Air Force station located North-North-East of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk, East Anglia, which operated from 1938 to 2006. It was a fighter airf ...

also flew from there. In 1990 Bristow celebrated 25 years at North Denes, having transported 181,377 passengers, 1,810 bags and 1,356 tons of freight that year. However, in 1997 Bristow began to operate flights from Norwich International Airport and Den Helder in the Netherlands, and in 1999 it relocated its operations entirely to Norwich. Bond Helicopters acquired some of Bristow's contracts, and became the main operator out of North Denes in 2000, before being acquired by

CHC Scotia CHC Helicopter is a Texas-based helicopter services company. CHC Helicopter maintains it global headquarters in Irving, Texas and operates more than 250 aircraft in 30 countries around the world. CHC's major international operating units are b ...

. In 2009, about 30,000 passengers passed through the heliport.

Closure

CHC planned to close the heliport in 2011 with operations being moved to Norwich, but backed out of the plan to relocate, and instead invested more than £300,000 at North Denes. However, in 2014 Perenco announced that it was relocating from Great Yarmouth to Norwich, and in early 2015, the heliport was deemed "uneconomical" and "un-viable" by the CHC management in writing to the employees following the loss of Perenco contract and it announced the closure of the facility as an heliport. Redundancies were announced on 2 March 2015 to all staff. The final date of closure was not specified, and with "no plans" announced for future operations in Norfolk, CHC will have no presence in the region. All but three pilots were made redundant as from 31 March 2015. On 1 April 2015, just 1 day after the effective redundancies, CHC management announced the opening of a new facility based at Norwich International Airport (EGSH). This was a surprise to many of the employees who were laid off just the previous day and who claimed that they were still legally employed as their contracts required three months notice. CHC had negotiated a secret deal to relocate their operations and actively decided not to engage with their employees during redundancy procedures. A legal dispute was lodged and CHC made a payment of £200,000 (out of court) to redundant pilots rather than continue their employment.

References

External links

Great Yarmouth (North Denes) (EGSD)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Yarmouth-North Denes Airports in England Transport in Norfolk Heliports in England Great Yarmouth Airports in Norfolk