Representation by Jane Roberts
- Date submitted
- 11 September 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I am Jane Roberts and I live with my husband in Ramsgate directly under the flight path of the proposed Manston airport.
I would like PINS to investigate further the distances used by the Applicant in the proposal. RSP claim Ramsgate is 4.5km from the airport. In fact, the Marina is that distance from the end of the runway. However, houses start at just 1.3km from the runway. There has never been a freight airport built so close to such a large population.
I have great safety concerns. RSP will try to attract freight planes which are noisier and dirtier and hence banned from other airports. When it previously operated as an airport, nearby homeowners complained of tiles sucked from roofs, fuel being jettisoned as planes were coming into land and ice and antifreeze falling off wings in the winter. A potentially horrific vortex incident in Southwood Gardens in 2012 caused a roof to crash into a neighbouring garden, narrowly missing the owner. A primary school is nearby.
The applicant has not put sufficient weight on noise data drawn from when the airport was last operational and uses very optimistic assumptions for future use.
A German study recently published shows how aircraft noise has a significant effect on health, particularly children’s, whose long term memory and reading ability are badly affected. Planes will approach the airport 250 metres or less over three schools. Schooling will be disrupted. The children will also be affected by night flights - most of Ramsgate will suffer sound levels of well over 60 dB SEL (taken from a study the last time there was an airport).
I would like PINS to investigate why the Applicant chose this particular airport, when there are several other better placed airfields for sale. Other up-and-running airports like East Midlands are better situated and still have spare freight capacity; the airfreight market has remained static for many years.
Manston is very badly placed for a freight hub. It is 30 miles from the nearest motorway and 60 miles from the M25 – this is already packed with lorries destined for Dover and Folkestone. Based on RSP’s figures, there will be some 50+ fuel tankers and 150 HGVs going to and from the airport.
Ramsgate has a burgeoning tourist market, providing more jobs than a mainly-automated airport could. It has approximately 450 listed buildings; 4 conservation areas, 2 nature reserves and other Special Areas of Conservation. Last year it became SE England’s only Heritage Action Zone. It was recently voted 7th Most Picturesque Town in the country.
How could turning Manston Airport into a 24 hour freight hub, 1.3km from this jewel in Kent’s crown, possibly be in the national interest?