It's all kicking off at Lydd...

Activists prepare for battle to save countryside from the developers

The fight over Lydd airport's proposed expansion in Kent highlights the conflict awaiting the government's new planning policy framework.

Down in the marshlands of Kent, battle lines are being drawn. In Lydd, a historic gateway town near the headland of Dungeness – a desolate moonscape of gravel dunes, bungalows and tundra – the people are angry. They are angry at proposals to build more homes on the edge of town at a time when younger inhabitants are moving away. They are angry at plans to develop a series of quarries that will have conveyor belts running all night. And they are angry about the airport.

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