A decision on Cornwall Council’s controversial deal to find a financial partner to run Newquay airport and develop the 650-acre airport estate, currently owned by the council, will not take place before the end of the year as originally planned.

A meeting of the council’s corporate finance scrutiny committee heard this week that the proposed deal with private finance company Adynaton Asset Management LLP is “still up in the air”. As a result, the matter will not now be discussed by an economic growth scrutiny committee next week as previously expected. The matter has also been removed from the agenda of the next Cabinet meeting on December 18.

If the deal is signed off it could see Adynaton taking a large slice of the estate, which includes Aerohub Business Park, the Spaceport, Kernow Solar Park and 200 acres of land. The company would also oversee the running of the airport which has always proved costly for the council and is subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of around £4.8-m each year.

There has previously been some criticism aimed at the council’s Conservative administration over a perceived lack of consultation with Cornwall’s business community. The council’s own economic scrutiny committee expressed serious concerns about the ongoing negotiation process and was “troubled” by the apparent lack of audit and risk assessment when it met in October.

At this week’s corporate finance committee meeting, Labour councillor Stephen Barnes asked why the airport partnership deal had been pulled from the agenda of this month’s Cabinet meeting.

The council’s Conservative deputy leader and portfolio holder for resources Cllr David Harris replied: “We have always said that before any airport deal went to Cabinet it would go through scrutiny. Sitting here today we do not believe we have sufficient detail and certainty in relation to the deal. It isn’t a question of being in a row with our preferred partner, it’s the issue of being able to present the details of a deal, the way the legals work and the way monies flow.

“When we have that, which I firmly believe will be in January, that’s when it should go firstly to scrutiny and secondly to Cabinet. There is no point in taking it to scrutiny or Cabinet this month when it’s still up in the air and you’d be asked to approve something you couldn’t pin down.”