Representation by Kim Edgington
- Date submitted
- 8 October 2018
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Please register me as an interested party who is against the proposed plans by RSP to DCO the Manston airport site.
Flawed Business Plan: PINS should be thoroughly examining RSP’s business plan. It is based on [Redacted] findings. [Redacted] has a track record of failures in the field of airport acquisition and development. In RSP’s presentation she has used snippets from York Aviation’s paper written for DfL as an example of demonstrating the need for additional freight air capacity in the UK using Manston. She has taken things out of context to make her argument. At a joint presentation by RSP and SHP (Stone Hill Park) to Kent County Council on 21 November 2017, York Aviation were so concerned that [Redacted]had misrepresented their paper that they, at their own cost, had their managing partner, [Redacted], a highly experienced planner and strategist with 27 years’ experience in her field, explain how their paper had been distorted. At the said meeting the minutes show [Redacted] stated an airfreight hub at Manston would not be a realistic prospect. She said that shippers preferred belly hold over pure freighters because of cost. Government figures showed a considerable decline in pure freighter movements since 2001 and forecasts showed no further growth in freighter aircraft movements across the UK to 2050.
Night Flights: At every consultation event residents were told RSP didn’t want or need night flights. When their submission became public it was clear they lied, they were planning night flights but what they told us then was that PINS had told them to include them in their presentation! PINS have since confirmed that they had said no such thing. More deception from RSP. In fact, they plan to have night flights with no cap on them. Certainly, the QC applied for allows QC4 planes meaning local residents would be subjected to a worse night flight regime than is allowed at Heathrow. I have personally experienced planes overhead at night, regularly they ranged between 80-100dB; they woke me with a shock, making my heart race and making it difficult to return to sleep.
A thorough examination of the impact of noise events as opposed to average noise levels is necessary as the proposal’s noise mitigation statements are meaningless at present.
RSP’s latest submission is over 11,000 pages long. I believe it was written to hide, confuse and exasperate people so they give up trying to get to RSP’s true plans. Why else are there no page numbers, no contents, index or named Sections to act as a guide? They have sneakily hidden away noise projections, assumptions, worst case scenarios, noise modelling and mitigation plans. These all need thorough interrogation. Aside from the points above, considering the planned scale of RSP’s airport operations, PINS should be examining the following points thoroughly:
• The air and noise pollution and the adverse impacts and damage to the population’s health and well being • Public safety zones • The dangers of fuel transport brought in by road is a major worry considering the vast amount required to maintain RSP’s predicted ATM’s. • Educational attainment • Heritage assets • Loss of tourism and tourism jobs • Overly inflated job predictions • Biodiversity of our natural environment
There is clearly no compelling case in the public interest in favour of RSP’s proposals.