Representation by Teachers Against Manston Cargo Hub
- Date submitted
- 7 October 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
We’re expressing deep concerns. In a month when a reported 169 local authorities breached annual legal limits on nitrogen oxide, and the Guardian reporting "could see Manston reopen as a cargo hub, handling up to 83,000 (nearly 230 every day ) freight aircraft a year” and in line with what Paul Luxmore, the Executive Head of the Coastal Academies Trust, said, we have grave concerns for the health and welfare of children in this area. We seek to protect the thousands of children that attend our schools under and near the flightpath, including the children that come from as far afield as Whitstable on the following grounds:
Noise disruption: when the airport was open teachers of local schools had to stop lessons when planes went over as the noise was so deafening. The hub will have MORE flights with louder cargo planes.CCG right under the flight path has single paned glass in a listed building.
Sleepless / disturbed nights: The detrimental effects of lack of sleep on academic achievement is well documented. The proposal says no 'scheduled night flights' but cargo flights aren't 'scheduled'. They come when they need to. No scheduled night flights does not mean NO NIGHT FLIGHTS, it means no prearranged night flights. Later in RSP’s documentation it says up to 8 night flights a night, but this is only a noise quota, not a frequency commitment and there are hints at more. The Harbour Academy has only just managed to start improving and doubled their exam results. This will ruin any of that progress and investment. Likewise the new Free school in Newington and other schools, in an area already deemed to have deprivation.
Air pollution: Cargo planes and lorries transporting freight out and dangerously fuel in.. Smoke from a recent fire at WWX rendered the PRU school closed for 45 days and kept children in other schools in during breaktime. What difference will the cargo hub be. Fumes are fumes.
Accidents - Low flying aeroplanes have previously caused accidents.. Its only time before this is over a school and children are underneath.
Loss of employment opportunities in tourism and community jobs: We have a thriving tourism and care industry based on tranquility and the environment. That’ll go. The rhetoric is new jobs creation,, but these will mainly be low level lskilled jobs in warehouses, and soon automated.. There’s no mention of funding for training in school. Schools and colleges are already facing reduced funding in real terms. Additional training will not be feasible.
An exodus of skills. A recurrent problem of Thanet is the lack of proper career jobs, and so the educated left, leaving a local skill deficit which made Thanet less attractive to new businesses moving in, More recently we’ve economic progress and Canterbury University opening locally has led to people staying and choosing to move here, bringing economic growth and job creation. The cargo hub will reverse this. Leading to a negative economic multiplier effect .