Colour me completely unsuprised that a civil aviation administrator operates in a (small-C) conservative, risk averse manner. Given that we don't have an easy several thousand km of sea East of us to soak up prograde launch failures without too much trouble, and that airspace access has to be co-ordinated with multiple countries, I honestly think the CAA has done its job pretty well. Still, moaning about the local regulator works for SpaceX so why not everyone else too; Space Forge knowingly put all its eggs in VO's basket despite it being an essentially unproven launch option - increased rapid uplanned disassembly risk is therefore part of what they had to have accepted prior to launch.
Personally, I can't wait for Orbex and especially Skyrora to get their act together. The engine powering the latter's XL has much more successor-to-Black-Arrow feel about it; though if you want some John Scott-Scott love*, his influence lives on through Reaction Engines Ltd and the Skylon spaceplane.
* as a boy Scott-Scott carried bell jars of peroxide home on the school bus to build model rocket engines using bic biro tubes as injectors - when he joined Armstrong-Siddeley's rocket dept they worried there had been a security leak. He was part of the Black Arrow brains trust. What we could have had if people like him had been allowed to achieve their potential.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
