Manston's dreams and nightmares

"Nostrildamus nose the future"Nostrildamus says:

• Infratil's Charles Buchanan will shortly unveil his plans to stuff our ears with plane noise 24 hours a day.
• He will brandish carrots and sticks as if they were real.
• He will repeat the mantra that the airport will have to close if the proposals aren't accepted.
• He will never say that he will close the airport - far too personal.
• He will want to distract attention from the fact that the closure of the airport is a purely commercial decision, already more than half-made.
• He will want to abdicate responsibility to 'prevailing circumstances', and shift the blame onto an 'uncooperative' local Council.
• He will alarm the Council with the threat of dozens of jobs lost if the airport closes.
• He will cajole the Council with promises of thousands of jobs created if he gets his way.
• He will present the reports he's commissioned as proof of his case, because there is nothing else that supports his claims.
• He will never say that that the night flights he's asking for won't be enough to make the airport break even, let alone become profitable.
• He will say that night flights will be the catalyst that will make the Master Plan achievable and the airport profitable.
• He will never say that every penny of profit will be repatriated to New Zealand in the most tax-efficient way possible.
• He will never admit that the Master Plan, which has missed every significant target and forecast, is a work of unachievably optimistic guesstimation.
• He will muddy the water with promises of flights to New York.
• He will not explain that the carrier (currently called Acer Airways) says it won't exist until 2013 at the earliest.

• TDC's Cllr Bayford is unaware that KCC's Leader Paul Carter is using him as a disposable human shield.
• He will continue to champion the airport as a 'good thing'.
• He will do everything he can to ensure that TDC Labour don't have a free vote on the issue.
• He will continue the fiction that TDC Conservatives will have a free vote on the issue.
• He will continue to use last minute procedural and legal ploys.
• He will seek to skew the public consultation towards a 'Yes' result.
• He will ignore a 'No' result.

• Thanet District Council denies that it holds any records of legal advice on airport planning issues, night flights or the S106 agreement in the last 10 years.
• Nostrildamus has framed copies of the legal advice TDC has received.
• The legal advice confirms that the airport is long overdue for a formal planning application, due to the incremental development over the years.
• The legal advice confirms that the intensification of use resulting from night flights would require a planning application.
• TDC dreads this: it will highlight a decade of slapdash management and craven fawning.
• The airport dreads this too: it would automatically trigger an EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) lasting a couple of years, while the airport continues to lose £5m a year.

KCC, TDC and Infratil want the night flights proposals to be rubber-stamped with the minimum of fuss.

And they don't give a toss about you.

Comments

[Purple-Ronnie]

"KCC, TDC and Infratil want the night flights proposals to be rubber-stamped with the minimum of fuss."

That way you wont know what has hit you until it's too late!!!

[Nick Cumber]

This depresses me reading this. It appears that we have an organised MAFIA to wrestle with to simply protect a basic human right of sleep. It lacks common sense, and proves the incompetence of Thanet District Council as a whole to protect the health of its citizens.

[maddie]

Nostrildramus' comments hit every nail on the head. Airport managements never tell the truth and their exaggeration of the facts is truly mindblowing. How much longer are these idiot council members from TDC and KCC going to insist that this airport will expand - it is surrounded on three sides by water, ie no catchment area and too far away from London!

All power to your campaign to stop night flights and hopefully Manston will close down as it would be far more productive for the area if this huge amount of 'unused' land (now a dumping ground for derelict aircraft) was developed to create real employment - not just the current 8-10 local employees. Something should be built to promote genuine tourism, ie theme park (perfect place at the end of the motorway and all year round employment). Good luck to all those involved in tirelessly speaking for the sane people who live and work in Thanet and would like their living environment protected.

[only fools]

The problem we've got here is the members of TDC be it labour or tory are fighting to be the first to be mentioned in the history books for creating many jobs in thanet, which is a good thing but not @ any cost.
All you people who will not be affected by the noise of Manston 24 hrs a day will be affected by the pollution, the smell of aviation fuel. It's worth a trip to our other airports, drive around the local area to these airports where the noise is least, but there's a constant smell of aviation fuel - you won't be able to escape it.
Something else to think about - how long will it be before jobs will be created @ Manston, how many people who live on the flight path will lose their jobs due to lack of sleep? All Charles talks about is jobs he can create but seems not to care about jobs lost. It was recenty said on a TV programme that sleep deprivation caused drivers to be equivalent to a drunk driver, our reactions would be 4 seconds slower than a normal person, so I think Gerry O'Donell ought to think twice about what he was saying @ a recent meeting with the airport. It's ok for him as he can walk to work as his work place is only a few hundred yards from where he lives.
To finish off I recently stayed @ a hotel in Old Shepperton a few miles away from Heathrow on the flight path, nothing flew during the night.

[Frutus Kiwius]

But surely Gerry O'Donell's straw poll is right, or was he taken in by CB when he met him?

[Maurice Byford]

The only way this is going to get approval is through the back door and I suspect the increase in pro-manston and anti-nimby attacks that are being orchestrated by MIA's PR machine are a sign of increased momentum.

I personally have written to the newspapers and radio over the last two weeks highlighting the massive discrepencies in Manston's forecasts and the glaring errors in their business plan and not a single word has been published or reported, despite the evidence I have submitted.

I am not saying that the local press has been got at, but I suspect that certain influential individuals and advertisers have made it clear that the message has to be pro-Manston.

I find it infuriating that people are still being misled by this total idiot who has been left in charge at Manston. Even if it were a viable business I wouldn't want to leave it in his hands.

Good luck on Friday I wish I could be there.