A Justice of the Peace in Brockton, Ontario has ruled in favour of a local pilot whose escalating dispute with local airport officials led to him being effectively banished from the airport. The ruling by JP J.J. Ziegler essentially threw out all claims by the Saugeen Municipal Airport Commission against Phil Englishman, a former Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) director who has a private lot with a hangar adjacent to the airport. About six months ago, the commission put a concrete block in front of Englishman’s hangar door, effectively blocking his access to the airport.
The issue grew from a squabble over the state of Englishman’s property and an alleged safety violation while Englishman was in the circuit of the airport. But Ziegler essentially said the airport commission’s claims were baseless and that it had not proved that Englishman was in violation of an access agreement that was in place when the concrete block was put in place.