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.

Business don't like uncertainty

From Cllr Clive Hart - Labour Leader of Thanet District Council.

 

There are suggestions being made by our political opponents that the Thanet Labour policy to protect our local environment has in some way caused the proposed sale of Manston Airport. 

 

Well, to quote Thanet Tory Cllr Simon Moores - "businesses don't like uncertainty". I agree, and Infratil's decision is more likely to be down to the effect of procrastination, indecision and navel gazing by the previous Conservative administration in relation to the airport, where he was part of a dithering Tory Cabinet. The Conservative's finally accepted the revised night-flying proposals from Manston Airport in October 2011 and despite suggesting at a public meeting that the consultation could start before the end of that year, when we took control of the council, we discovered it was not planned to start for months to come, and after that, take several more months to complete at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds of public money.

 

Indeed, had I not taken swift action to initiate a more focused consultation earlier this year, we would almost certainly now be at the start of a long, drawn out and costly Tory planned consultation process as this latest news hits us. And where would we have been then?

 

Fortunately, our more focused consultation process had just ended before this latest news from New Zealand, so all the consultation responses have been received and can now be processed accordingly.

 

Thanet Labour's concern for our local environment is something I am very proud of and an issue the public is increasingly in tune with. I do not believe it had any impact on Infratil's decision. They have chosen to sell off the airport, to use their own terminology, as a 'no regrets' decision, and they list Manston as an underperforming asset alongside another they intend to offload.

 

This weeks news for Manston is not good, but thankfully the council at least is on target to complete our local consultation process.

Dealing with Night Flight proposals - and halting the creation of a Monster

Since Labour took control of Thanet Council in December it has become clear that the airport, its consultative committee, and many local residents are extremely concerned regarding the long drawn out time the council has been taking over Infratil's night time flying proposals.

 

The former Conservative administration had commissioned an expensive independent consultants report and at further serious cost legal opinions were sought. Large amounts of council officers valuable time had been used up on the process and yet another expensive company had been engaged to carry out the consultation, but little or no real progress was visible.

 

Indeed, many people were rightly angry at the lack of action, mainly because at a public meeting earlier in 2011 the former Conservative council leader had suggested the consultation might even start before Christmas. This when he must have known that through the process he was following, it could not have started before late February (after the TDC Overview and Scrutiny Committee). Even then, under Conservative plans, it would have had to run for several more months before council officers could even started to produce the findings and present them to councillors for further discussion.

 

Swift action is needed to take back control of a process that has clearly spiraled out of control under the previous Conservative administration.

 

Labour council leader Cllr Clive Hart will therefore today sign a TDC decision notice which outlines the intention to carry out an in-house 28 day consultation of Thanet residents that will be weighted strongly for those directly affected. 

The decision follows legal advice which explains that at this stage, the proposals do not require a planning application.  Just as importantly, the advice goes on to state that the council’s role is one of ‘consultee’ only and as such the council will not be in a position to make a binding decision on night time flying at this stage.

Labour council leader Cllr Clive Hart said: "it is clear our Conservative predecessors were struggling with this issue. They had created a monster of a process that had got completely out of control. It would have left the council in the ridiculous position of spending a small fortune of council tax payers money on a consultation process that was only ever going to be used to form the council's 'opinion'. The council has been advised that if there is an intensification or change in operation at the airport in the future then this position may change, and a planning application may be required, but at the moment the council is simply being asked to provide a response to the proposals.

My Conservative predecessor had already spent tens of thousands of pounds on this process before we took control of the council. His plans would have seen us spend around a further £50,000 on consultants to run the process his way. He may be content to use ratepayers hard earned cash but I am not!

Labour will do precisely what is reasonable, proportionate and appropriate under the circumstances".

The decision comes after the findings of an independent assessment commissioned by the former Conservative administration and carried out by Parsons Brinckerhoff Ltd. on behalf of TDC, call into question a number of the environmental and economic claims of the airport in their submission to the council. 

Notes. From the Thanet Labour Manifesto 2011:

'Labour will support the development of Manston Airport but will always be mindful of the impact on residents and the environment'.

'Labour will seek a policy of no flights during the hours of 23:00 to 07:00, except for emergency landings and humanitarian flights'.

Published by Thanet Labour Group Press Office, 44 Northdown Road, Margate, Kent, CT9 2RW.

Night flights study to be taken with a pinch of salt!

The recent study produced by York Aviation, and paid for by Infratil, is based on an aspirational Airport Master Plan which was also produced by Infratil. It was no doubt designed to influence the local media, Councillors and planners, and is an expression of Infratil's hopes for the future. Master Plans are at best guesses and should be treated with appropriate scepticism.

The Manston Master Plan, published in October 2008, predicts a throughput of 2.2 million passengers and 167,000 tonnes of freight a year by 2018 with employment rising to 3,500. There appears little or no justification for these figures as Airports and Airlines, for their own commercial reasons, tend to exaggerate the number of jobs that will be created by airport expansion: they have shareholders to keep happy.

Currently all Regional Airports are suffering due to the economic down turn and if new runways are ever built at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted the future for Manston could be very bleak indeed.

Thanet Labour Deputy Leader Cllr Alan Poole said "Manston is operating nowhere near capacity during the day (07:00 to 23:00) and the introduction of night flights from 23:00 to 07:00 simply cannot be justified. Night flights could bring untold misery to Thanet’s residents. Sadly our local health statistics are already the worst in Kent and sleep deprivation is known to cause heart problems and further reduce life expectancy. The health and quality of life for Thanet’s residents must surely remain paramount considerations".

Thanet Labour Leader Cllr Clive Hart said "In so many ways our relatively poorer district here in Thanet is all too often seen as a very convenient dumping ground by an otherwise prosperous south-east economy and the protection of our local communities and their delicate local environment must therefore be our main priorities. Let's be clear, we - Thanet Labour - most certainly want Manston to succeed and to be prosperous. We certainly want good jobs for local people but we will not be hoodwinked by a study so clearly designed to benefit private interest and run roughshod over the threatened local communities that we represent".