Representation by Laura Marks
- Date submitted
- 30 September 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Irrationality
There is no rational case or evidence for the DCO application as I see it.
Additional capacity exists at numerous existing cargo facilities in the UK (East Midlands and Stansted), as examples but there are others. In addition to significant capacity elsewhere, the location of Manston in a geographically remote part of the UK is illogical in terms of effective supply chain, road and fuel infrastructure. Standalone cargo is also not a growth market.
When the airport closed 4 years ago it employed less than150 people and yet RSP suggest job creation will be in the region of 27,000 direct and indirect. This seems misleading and wildly exaggerated.
Heritage
The large town and port of Ramsgate is the loser should a cargo hub open with the level of movements suggested. It has over 400 listed buildings and is only 1 of 10 heritage action zones in England, and the first in South East England. I challenge this DCO application on the grounds of significant negative impact through noise and vibration on the listed portfolio of Ramsgate, and that a cargo hub would be of gross detriment to the 2017 heritage zone, heritage buildings and unique royal harbour.
Public Health & Safety
RSP is proposing a schedule of flights, noise and movements in excess of Heathrow airport. The potential threat to the safety to a population of a town the size of Ramsgate is well documented. The proposal acknowledges that a decline in health and wellbeing for the population will happen. This is an unnecessary risk given cargo capacity elsewhere in the UK. How is it rational to propose a decline in public health that is wholly avoidable?
Commercial
I see neither evidence that RSP has sufficient funds to run a cargo hub nor evidence of carriers wishing to operate there. With unstable finances and a no interested aviation clients in the 4 years since closure, to approve the DCO seems a financial risk.
Lack of Public voice
Neither MP for Thanet North or South offers those dissenting residents of Thanet a supportive voice in relation to RSP or the DCO. Thanet District Council takes a similar position. This feels undemocratic.
The SHP plan includes heritage aviation and I question why TDC is not able to support this duel development strategy if it is concerned with the preservation of historic aviation.
To propose a cargo hub busier than East Midlands and noisier than Heathrow in order to retain cargo flights from the closed airfield is a sledgehammer to crack a nostalgic nut. To propose a new draft local plan which sites houses on green field land in order to preserve the brownfield Manston site for a 5th attempt at commercial success seems illogical and ill conceived and not in the long term interests of Thanet or its residents.
Conservation
Pegwell Bay Nature Reserve is Kent Wildlife Trust’s largest reserve and is of international importance in relation to birdlife and breeding. I suggest that a busy cargo hub would have a significantly detrimental impact on this important reserve which is avoidable given other cargo facilities in the UK which are not sited near sizeable populations, nor in heritage action zones, nor which are directly in line with a large nature reserve or a listed royal harbour, the only one of it’s kind in the country.
I urge the inspectors of the DCO to make a decision based on evidence.