Representation by Martin Wise
- Date submitted
- 3 October 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
- Thanet District Council is reducing services as budgets are cut or reduced. Services to residents are noticeably poorer - street cleaning, graffiti removal, floral decoration, grants to community groups/CAB/Age Concern, etc.. Business rates from all the structures at Manston will benefit the Council and will feed back into services.
- Cultural heritage is important to a Thanet as a tourist resort. The Council has no budget to maintain or restore our built-environment and physical heritage infrastructure. Business rates from Manston will help fund the staff needed to undertake necessary works.
- Much employment in Thanet is low-skilled and related to tourism, and salaries are therefore lower than most places in Kent. Disposable income is generally low, and so local people are less likely to spend money in the bars and restaurants. This makes it hard for local leisure related-businesses to survive in the quiet off-season. An airport at Manston will provide year round work for a great range of different skills and, most importantly, will provide opportunities that have never been available in Thanet due to its relatively isolated location. Generations of Thanet families have not benefited from prosperity seen in other parts of the South East. Opportunity is a new buzz word for the national government, and reinstating the airport at Manston would be a perfect example of a bold decision which would make a real difference to a local population.
- A 2005 report by the Kent Child Protection Committee Thanet Board of Inquiry gives a grim outline of prospects for child and public protection issues in Thanet. In the introduction to the report the Chairman of the Committee, Peter Gilroy, states "The inquiry team have done an excellent job to bring together evidence that, for perhaps the first time, clearly establishes the links between the general economic and social conditions prevalent in the District, the impact of a transient and extremely volatile population, and the critical effects of rash practices by other local authorities in placing vulnerable people away from their homes and communities.
The report portrays a community at a "tipping point" where this explosive mixture will have potentially serious consequences for those people who are placed there and the local communities,unless fundamental measures are taken now".
The report contains much detailed information, and whilst there have undoubtedly been improvements, Thanet is still a place where most people will acknowledge that poor employment prospects have a direct relation to levels of crime, feelings of hopelessness, depression, suicides and levels of deprivation. I believe that an airport at Manston will raise aspirations, lift spirits and bring hope to many who are currently excluded from the benefits of meaningful employment. I personally recall the pride I felt when taken on as a labourer during the construction of the Channel Tunnel, and on subsequently transferring to a permanent position at Eurotunnel. Opportunities like this, which would be similar to an airport at Manston, are life-changing.
The report portrays a community at a "tipping point" where this explosive mixture
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