Consultation response to night flying proposals

From Cllr Clive Hart - Labour Thanet District Council (TDC) Leader.

On Thursday evening (10th May) our TDC Cabinet Committee confirmed its support for Manston Airport but recommended that the council should not support the introduction of scheduled night-time flying proposed by the airport.

The Cabinet's final recommendations were made following an open and transparent public consultation process where absolutely no leading questions were asked, yet 73% of respondents proved to be opposed to night flights.

An independent assessment of the airports proposals was commissioned by my Conservative predecessor and their thorough work also informed our recommendations. 

Subsequently, a draft consultation response document went through the cross-party, Conservative chaired, Airport Working Party where several additions were agreed and through the cross party, Independent chaired, Overview and Scrutiny Panel where no further changes were made. Consequently, on Thursday evening our Cabinet Committee unanimously recommended the report to full council completely unchanged in any way.

As well as underestimating the potential negative impacts, we felt that the proposals overestimated the potential economic benefits, overstated the potential number of jobs and did not consider the detrimental impact of night time flying on Thanet's recovering tourism industry.

Having considered the views of local people, the findings of the independent assessment and the proposals themselves, it was clear what our recommendation to council had to be. We are however, fully supportive of the airport and I have written personally to the airport Chief Executive to clearly reassure him of that.

Encouraging regeneration in Thanet and supporting local business is vital to the success of the area, but this can't come at any cost. TDC will hold an extraordinary meeting of the council on 24th May to approve the final consultation response to Manston Airport's proposed Night Time Flying Policy.

Youth unemployment petition

Will Scobie, Luke Edwards and Linda Aldred

The Thanet Labour team were in Margate high street this morning asking people to sign the Labour petition on youth unemployment. The petition stated:



'Youth unemployment has hit almost one million and the Tory-led Government’s policies risk creating another lost generation like in the 1980s. Sign up to Labour’s campaign to call for the Government to repeat last year’s bonus tax and use the money raised to help create 100,000 more jobs for young people. Getting people off the dole and into work is the best way to get the deficit down – and stop Britain’s talent going to waste.'

Steve Alexandrou

In just one morning the team were able to get over 400 signatures, and it is clear that this is an issue that many people feel very strongly on. Young people are our future and we need to make sure that we give them the training, skills, and experience necessary for their lives ahead of them. The Tory-led Government is trying to save money in the short term, but in the long term this is only going to cost more through social problems and schemes to get people back to work.


The Labour team will be visiting Ramsgate next to get more signatures on Wednesday 16th November. They will be on Ramsgate high street at lunch time, so come along and talk to your local Labour team.

Jodi Hibbert, Louise Drelaud, Will Scobie, Jenny Matterface, Clive Hart, and James Watkins.

Night Flights

by Peter Campbell

Labour will support the development of Manston Airport but will always be mindful of the impact on residents and the environment. To this end we will implement a policy of no flights during the hours of 23:00 to 07:00, except emergency landings and humanitarian flights.

We will work with the airport operators to ensure that a newly negotiated 106 agreement is properly adhered to, and also ensure that the council, once again, takes its own responsibility to enforce that agreement.

Labour is always mindful of the need for jobs within our community. However we have simply not been convinced that the economic argument has been made for night flights, particularly when the airport is so underused during the day.