Representation by Vivien Wetherill
- Date submitted
- 6 October 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Having lived in Thanet for 20 years, I have been extremely impressed by how much the people of Thanet have striven to ensure that their airport should remain an airport in the future, despite fierce opposition from the occupants of housing built adjacent to the airport in more recent years. Many tradespeople in Thanet are also championing that the airport be scrapped in favour of new housing so that they may make vast profits from building them. Most aircraft these days are extremely quiet & having lived near Heathrow for many years I can vouch for the fact that noise from night flights is not a problem. However pollution from enormous numbers of cars emanating from new build housing would pollute our atmosphere, already contaminated by shipping passing by. The pollution caused by shipping is very apparent as it is very visible on the horizon. Pollution is exacerbated by the fact that on the east coast here we are lucky to experience excellent levels of sunshine. This coupled with our excellent beaches make Thanet a destination for thousands of tourists. An airport could increase tourism enormously & the ability to handle overspill cargo from other major airports would help our British economy. Our water supply in Thanet is fully stretched in the summer as our rainfall is very low. To build more homes in the area would put our minimal supplies under even more pressure. The strategic site of Manston Airport is ideally placed as a gateway to Europe & the Americas.