GOVERNMENT officials were originally persuaded to sell Wycombe Air Park to the district council at a lowered price over fears the land would be bought by developers and lost to flying, documents show.

Letters between the Ministry of Aviation and Ministry of Housing and Local government from 1963 discuss the pre-sale agreement for Wycombe Rural District Council to purchase the airfield.

Campaigners say the documents, obtained at the Kew National Archives, show the modern day council has no right to develop the site in Booker, Great Marlow, for a community stadium.

A letter from the Air Ministry in Whitehall from 1963 reads: “The R.D.C (rural district council) also stated in support for a private treaty sale they feared that if the property were auctioned it might be lost to flying as it was quite possible that it would be purchased either for farmland ...or by some large firm of developers in the hope that as it is on the outskirts of High Wycombe and close to the projected by pass road planning restrictions might be varied at some time in the future an enable it to be developed.”

Putting the council in a bidding war would not only leave it struggling to compete with private buyers but paying a “price unrelated to its true market value as an airfield”, the letter added.

A letter from a Housing Ministry official said, of putting the land on open market, “I do not think this should be allowed to happen, since it would virtually mean the Government is condoning, even more, participating in the profits of speculation at the expense of the local authority which has a legitimate use for the site.”

The letter echoed concerns about eventual residential development.

Subsequently, the land was purchased under a 'private treaty sale' in 1965 for £90,000.

Martin Breen, one of the researchers who uncovered the letters, said the agreement was 'explicitly'

designed to prevent development: “WRDC clearly intended the site to remain an airfield permanently.

“The sale went ahead at a much lower price than might have been expected on the open market because the MOD and other ministries supported this position."

The High Wycombe resident said: “The documents that we found are damning on the council and show they have no right or mandate to develop the airfield, rather the converse as the airfield was intended to survive, as one of the few airfields serving the West of London.”

Mr Breen, who learnt to fly at the park, said building a stadium there would be “an act of utter vandalism”.

But WDC Spokesman Catherine Spalton said: “The letters reflect discussions at that time.

“The freehold title that we hold includes a covenant with regard to use, but this does not prevent development.”

WDC planning chief Gerry Unsworth, said last week:“It's not the worse case scenario that some people have suggested that everything will be annihilated at the site."

He said the council is “hopeful” the air park can co-exist.

“But that's the next step, that's what we hope at the moment,” he said.

He said he had a “degree of confidence” of overcoming possible problems such as the location of the runways.