Connectus provides £500,000 lift-off to Doncaster Airport Business Park

THE leading connectivity and business managed services partner Connectus is investing an additional £500,000 at Doncaster Airport Business Park, the company announced today.

The investment will see Connectus turbocharge its work in and around the site’s Innovation - which consists of 140 business units for start-ups and growing businesses.

Connectus’ cash-injection comes just days after the Government announced it will  plough £30m into the newly-reopened Doncaster Sheffield Airport. 

Roy Shelton, the CEO of Connectus, said one key focus of the investment would be to create additional technical solutions designed to safeguard the airport in event of a Heathrow-style outage.

Mr Shelton said: “This new investment underlines our commitment to provide the very best connectivity services to Doncaster Airport Business Park and the businesses based there. 

“Connectus is the leading managed services provider around the City of Doncaster, and this investment will further strengthen this. 

“We’ve already invested £1m over several years at the Business Park, which has helped to ensure all businesses on the park can enjoy access to our gigabit full fibre network. Now we’ll go further and faster to give lift off to even better services.”

The £500,000 of investment pledged by Connectus, which has offices in Doncaster , Salford and Grimsby, will focus on:

• Creating two diverse links for increased connectivity to the site. This will help ensure that if there is an outage at one telecoms exchange, the site remains live unlike what recently happened at Heathrow;
• Developing new engineering roles to manage and support an increased demand for services;
• Rolling out additional renewable and alternative power solutions to further mitigate the risks of a replay of the Heathrow incident, feared to have unfolded due to an over-reliance on one supplier;
• Building new AI based diagnostics and tooling via our partner Kaseya;
• Investing in more community outreach including continued support to Doncaster Knights Rugby Union and other grassroots sports clubs.

Earlier this month the Prime Minister confirmed a total of £30m would be released by the government to support the reopening of Doncaster Sheffield Airport.

On a visit to Doncaster, Sir Keir Starmer said the previous government's decision in January 2024 to block South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard spending the regional funding to relaunch the site would be reversed.

The airport closed in 2022 and since then South Yorkshire politicians and business groups have campaigned to reopen it as a keystone of wider development plans for the region.

During a visit to the site, Starmer said he was "really delighted" to be able to support the airport's reopening with the multi million-pound investment.

"We are backing this region as a sustainable aviation hub in South Yorkshire and giving lift-off for growth here in Doncaster," Starmer said.

The Airport is located seven miles from Doncaster and 25 miles from Sheffield, serving passengers across Yorkshire, the Humber and North Midlands. 

Formally the home of RAF Finningley, DA commenced commercial operations in April 2005 and by 2011 handled over 840,000 passengers, with flights to over 30 destinations.

Adjacent to the Airport, is the Gateway East/Doncaster Airport Business Park. 

Covering an area of around 62 acres, the Business Park has planning consent for over 2,000,000sq ft (186,000sq m) of commercial development. Opportunities exist for new builds ranging in size from 7,500sq ft (796 sq m) up to 245,000sq ft (22,760sq m). Today, the Business Park consists of a number of business units, with over 180 businesses occupying in excess of 500,000sq ft (46,000sq m). Also located on the site is a 100 bed Ramada Encore hotel, a Children’s Nursery, Health & Fitness club and a private fee-paying school catering for 5 -18-year-olds.