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Advice to The Ramsgate Society

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Enquiry

From
The Ramsgate Society
Date advice given
21 March 2018
Enquiry type
Email

Our concern is with the impact that RiverOaks’ proposed development of the currently redundant airport site as a n international air cargo hub would have on the historic character and heritage of the town with its four conservation areas and over 440 listed buildings, including several Grade 1s.

You will see from our response to the last round of consultation we expressed dismay at the ‘scoping out’ of Ramsgate from the assessment of the Historic Environment due to it lying just beyond 1km from the airport boundary. We accordingly get just a one sentence mention in the consultants PEIR (at para 9.6.16).

I am writing to request that you require RSP to extend their assessment of the Historic Environment to take account of the indirect effects of their proposal on Ramsgate, its listed buildings, conservation areas and its rich heritage.

Advice given

Until an application has been received and accepted for examination, the Planning Inspectorate (the Inspectorate) has no views on the merits or acceptability of any Proposed Development.

The Inspectorate received a Scoping Request in respect of the proposed Manston Airport development in June 2016 and adopted a Scoping Opinion on behalf of the Secretary of State in August 2016. You can view the document here: http://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/document/TR020002-000308. We would draw your attention to paragraphs 3.36 to 3.37 and 3.76 to 3.80 of the report which consider heritage assets.

Scoping is a voluntary process. There is no requirement for RiverOak Strategic Partners to undertake Scoping and the Inspectorate has no authority to compel an applicant to do so.

As part of the Scoping process the Inspectorate consults the ‘Consultation Bodies’ that are defined in Schedule 1 of The Infrastructure Planning (Applications: Prescribed Forms and Procedure) Regulations 2009 (as amended). The consultation included Historic England, Kent County Council and Thanet District Council, who are responsible for dealing with heritage matters at a national, regional and district level. The Inspectorate is not required to consult any other bodies and does not do so.

With respect to the adequacy of the consultation process, if you consider that there are issues with the consultation process you should notify your local authority, who would be invited to make an Adequacy of Consultation Representation in the event that an application is submitted to the Inspectorate. Should an application be made and accepted for examination, you may also wish to consider registering as an Interested Party to the examination process to raise your specific historic environment concerns. More information about how and when you will be able to have your say is provided in our Advice Note 8 series: https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/legislation-and-advice/advice-notes/