Representation by Natural England (Natural England)
- Date submitted
- 3 October 2018
- Submitted by
- Other statutory consultees
Natural England has been working with RiverOak Strategic Partners Limited to provide advice on the Manston Airport NSIP since April 2016.
At this stage there are several nature conservation issues which have yet to be fully resolved. This is partly due to further information being required from RiverOak and partly because we have been unable to supply appropriate specialist resource to review what has been supplied. These issues are as follows:
- Impacts on European Protected Species (EPS) - there are confirmed bat roosts on site but due to site access issues Riveroak have not yet been able to supply comprehensive baseline survey data. Natural England has yet to form a view on whether the precautionary mitigation and compensation package proposed is acceptable.
- Air quality - the in-combination impacts of emissions from both aircraft and increased vehicle movements on designated nature conservation sites.
- Visual and noise disturbance of bird species which are notified features of designated nature conservation sites.
- Water quality impacts on designated nature conservation sites.
Please be advised that although all of the above issues will require further work from ourselves and RiverOak we have seen no evidence to date to indicate that any of them are likely to be 'showstoppers'.
Please note that we will be providing more detail (as far as possible) on these Relevant Representations in a letter which will be sent as a PDF to manstonairport@pins.gsi.gov.uk by the deadline of Monday 8th October 2018. [please see attachment]