Thanet Labour - Making serious matters clear

At the meeting of Thanet District Council on the 14th July Thanet Labour Group will put forward two motions to council in line with their 2011 Manifesto.  In doing so Labour councillors will make it absolutely clear what is acceptable and what is unacceptable here in Thanet with regards to two serious issues.

 

 

The first notice of motion is in relation to night time flying and has been proposed by Cllr Clive Hart and Cllr Alan Poole the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Labour Group at TDC. 

 

It reads: ‘The Council adopts a policy of not allowing scheduled, pre-planned or otherwise timetabled flights between the hours of 23:00 and 07:00.  That a period of 1 hour at either end of the flying day be allowed for late/early arriving flights only.  That a penalty be applied to any flights arriving during the 1 hour periods.  No take-offs will be allowed between 23:00 and 07:00 hours and a schedule of exceptions to the above be prepared to include ‘mercy flights’, and flights for medical emergencies, coastguard movements etc’.

Cllr Clive Hart said "night flights are a key issue covered in our Thanet Labour Manifesto for 2011 and the wording of our motion follows precisely the recommendations of the TDC Airport Working Party. The current section 106 agreement was put in place over a decade ago and has served Thanet well but the council has failed in it's commitment to update the agreement every three years and it is clear from recent reports sponsored by the airport that it may soon be pressing to extend its operations at night. The Labour Group therefore believes the council needs to give a clear steer as to what is and what is not environmentally acceptable here in Thanet. We support the airport but not at any environmental cost to the people of Thanet".  

The second notice of motion is in relation to live animal exports and was proposed by Cllr Michelle Fenner on 7th June.

Thanet District Council has just publicised the fact that it received legal advice on 23^rd June which “supports its views that there is no legal way to prevent the trade” but the unacceptability of the live trade remains unresolved.

There are still a number of conflicting legal documents from the UK law and various European Union regulations.

The fact that so far no UK court nor the European Court of Justice have justified the ban and that neither the UK Government nor the European Commission have legislated to prevent the trade does not stop TDC from taking part, as a stakeholder, in the EU review of its regulation on this issue to express its views and how it might be improved.

There will still be a motion on this issue from Cllr. Fenner at Full Council on 14^th July.

Cllr Michelle Fenner said "Since I submitted my motion on 7^th June I feel that TDC’s administration and Leadership have not been totally candid about the way they sought legal advice but I hope that in the interest of cross-party co-operation all elected members will support me at full council next week. I appeal to their sense of moral duty.”