The new night flights proposal from Manston contains just two rules that matter: how many planes, and how noisy. What will happen when Manston breaks the rules?
Absolutely nothing.
Manston has removed all the penalty clauses from their proposal.
In the autumn of 2010 when Manston came out with a proposal that even TDC (They Don't Care) couldn't take seriously, it contained the following puny penalties:
This was, of course, a significant watering down of the penalties in the laughably inadequate S106 agreement, which doubled the fine for each repeat offence. And we know that only a tiny percentage of the flights that caused annoyance and distress to the (voting, Council Tax-paying) public ever attracted a fine.
However, in the glorious new future that Manston has planned for us, there will be no fines and no penalties. There will be no incentive for them to abide by any rules. There will be no point in TDC bothering to monitor them - not that they do much of that at the moment.
We will have to hope that the airport that is happy to stick two fingers up to the American government will be good and considerate neighbours.
We will have to trust them to regulate themselves responsibly.
Come to the public meeting on November 25th and tell us what you think.