Peel Holdings - owners of the airport - lost its appeal for exemption from paying business rates for five years at a council meeting.

This year the airport paid rates of £803,880 for its site at Finningley.

Airport bosses have now said they cannot afford to market the airport and Doncaster overseas in a bid to attract more people to the area.

If granted, the local authority would have had to pass on a shortfall in its income of nearly £1 million to tax-payers which would have seen council tax bills rise by 1.1 per cent.

Airport bosses had argued the business rates represented a "very significant overhead" and not paying them would have allowed Peel to increase its overseas marketing to encourage more airlines to use the £100m development.

The council declined the appeal - which had initially been rejected last year - stating the case did not satisfy the necessary criteria to be granted under Local Government Finance Act 1988.

For more on this story see Thursday's Free Press