(MAG) In this paragraph Dr. Ladyman is making it clear that the Section 106 Agreement is nothing to do with him and that it is the District Council who are responsible for signing it.

(MAG) Members of MAG's committee attended the meeting of the Policy committee where this agreement was discussed. Much of the so-called debate which took place focussed on the potential economic benefits of the airport and not on the document under discussion. No Councillor of any political colour spoke against the agreement or any facet of the agreement. Therefore, there was no debate. A number of Councillors made untruthful statements about the agreement. Democracy is not defined simply by the act of being elected, and the failure of any elected Councillor to properly represent the objections to this agreement was undoubtedly anti-democratic.

(MAG) Dr. Ladyman makes a number of unsupported claims about ways in which the Airport operator could have evaded the restriction provided by the Section 52 agreement. Most of these suggestions are impractical. The aprons and taxiways elsewhere on the airfield are not wide or strong enough to load and unload planes. The idea that an aircraft operator would be prepared to land at 5:00 a.m. and wait at the edge of the civil enclave until 07:30 a.m. is laughable. The mere suggestion that this is a realistic means of evading the Section 52 agreement reveals how effective this agreement was.

The Section 52 agreement prohibited movements of civil jet aircraft within the 37 acre area formerly known as the civil enclave. This area includes the terminal and the concrete standing outside the terminal. Anyone who has visited the airport in the last year will have seen that the freight planes load and unload their cargo in this area. It is also the area where passengers embark on and disembark from passenger planes.

The concrete standing outside the passenger terminal is the only area where it is currently practical to conduct such activities. This view is confirmed by Wiggins themselves, in a recent a press release dated 25/11/99 (Appendix 1 & Appendix 2) This press release clearly states that the airport is operating to capacity. If it were practical to load and unload freight planes elsewhere on the airfield then it would not be operating to capacity until those areas were being used. Since other areas are not being used, and Wiggins consistently claim that they are operating to capacity, we can safely conclude that the concrete area outside the terminal is currently the key area for both freight and passengers. Since this area was the area covered by the Section 52 agreement it would seem that the agreement was pretty effective in preventing night-time activity.

(MAG) Dr. Ladyman claims that the Section 52 was unenforceable, because it was to be adjudicated by the RAF who are no longer in control. This isn't true. The Section 52 agreement was a legal agreement between Thanet District Council and the owners of Kent International Airport. At the time when it was signed the owners were Seabourne aviation.

However, the agreement included a provision that it would apply to whoever bought the airport. The RAF were not signatories to the agreement and there was no requirement for them to enforce it. That was the responsibility of Thanet District Council. The RAF were only required to arbitrate in the event of a dispute.

Dr. Ladyman claims that the departure of the RAF in some way rendered the agreement unenforceable. Look at the copy of the Section 52 which Dr. Ladyman has kindly provided. Point 3 on page 2 of the agreement reads as follows :

"The Owners covenant that if required to do so by the Council they will together with the freeholder and/or mortgagee and/or any other person having a material interest enter into and execute a further planning agreement in like terms to and in substitution for this agreement."

In other words, the Section 52 Agreement contained a clause, allowing Thanet District Council to redraft it in like terms at any time. They could and should have redrafted it to take account of the departure of the RAF. The fact that they did not do so is simply wilful negligence, and reflects their real desire, which was to see the agreement lapse.

Wiggins breached the Section 52 agreement three times this Summer by bringing MD11 aircraft carrying American cruise-ship passengers into the terminal area before 7:30a.m. This negligent approach to the interests of their constituents does not suggest that Thanet Council are "determined to ensure proper controls on the airport."

In the recent Judicial Review into the issuing of Certificates of Lawfulness for the airfield, the judge opined that a Council was under no legal obligation to issue unlimited certificates for the airfield. The fact that Thanet Council did so does not suggest that they are "determined to ensure proper controls on the airport."

Wiggins Group PLC recently approached Thanet District Council for planning permission to extend various aprons and taxiways by 20 acres (an area equivalent to 16 full-size football pitches). The Council could have used this application to request an Environmental Impact Assessment for the entire development. They could also have applied restrictions on the use of this area. They did neither of these things. This does not suggest that they are "determined to ensure proper controls on the airport."

In brief, where is the evidence that Thanet District Council are "determined to ensure proper controls on the airport ?" Their actions to date suggest precisely the opposite.

(MAG) Wiggins have been promising to produce a so-called master-plan for the airport for some time. The following are extracts from the minutes of the airport Consultative Committee : (click on date to go to the MACC minute text)

September 11th  2000

4.3.13 Tony Freudmann replied that the Masterplan would be an Agenda item for the next MACC meeting. Assuming that the meeting would be in about three months' time, he expected the Masterplan to be well towards completion. Wiggins would like to make swifter progress than provided for in the 106 Agreement. A lot of the work had already been carried out.

June 6th 2000

4.3.2 David Tyson asked when the Masterplan might be published.....Tony Freudmann said the Masterplan on which the EIA would be commissioned would undoubtedly be ready by September. One function of the Masterplan was to set terms of reference for Environmental Impact work.

27th September 1999

4 vii Consultants had been appointed to develop a Master Plan. It was anticipated that a scoping plan would be completed by end 1999, and the full Plan by around March 2000. Wiggins would expect to enter into a Section 106 agreement with Thanet District Council six months thereafter .

29th June 1999

The minutes from which these extracts are taken are available in public libraries.

(MAG) Dr. Ladyman claims that the Council has had no powers to insist on an Environmental Impact Assessment before now. This isn't true. Wiggins recently applied to the Council for planning permission to construct an additional 20 acres of aprons and taxiways. Under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 1999 the Council were obliged to decide whether they required such an assessment to be done. Councillors decided against an Environmental Impact Assessment. They had both the power and the opportunity to order one and they did not.

(MAG) Dr. Ladyman claims that the 106 requires the developer to put in place a plan to compensate people living within a certain noise contour. This is not true. The Section 106 agreement contains no provision for compensating local residents. The agreement does specify the conditions for triggering a noise insulation scheme, but the details of this scheme are to be left entirely up to the developer

The second exemption applies to flights to European destinations departing between 06:00a.m. and 07:00a.m. No reason is given as to why such flights could not depart an hour later.

It is disingenuous to claim that the developer has not expressed a wish to conduct night flights. Wiggins have already commenced night flights, and in so doing have set a legal precedent. Specific opt-outs to permit night flying have also been included in the agreement at Wiggins' request.

Dr. Ladyman claims that the Section 106 agreement requires the developer to give six months notice, and to consult with the Council should he wish to introduce night flying. This is not true. The requirement for six months notice and consultation only applies to the introduction of regular night flights. "Regular Night Flying Operations" are defined at the front of the agreement as flight movements which are scheduled or programmed and which occur frequently or regularly to the same or similar patterns for the same operator during night-time. There are two main categories of passenger flights. Scheduled flights, most of which are conducted from and to the London airports; and charter flights, which make up nearly 50% of all flights at regional airports. The description of "regular" included in the Section 106 would not include charter flights and so these can now commence at night without consultation. None of the freight movements currently being conducted from Manston are "scheduled." They are called ad hoc or charter movements. These can also commence at night without notice or consultation. i.e. virtually all of the activity currently taking place at Manston, or likely to take place in the next few years, can now take place at night, with the full written blessing of Thanet District Council.

(MAG) This paragraph is most peculiar. Firstly, Dr. Ladyman claims that Thanet District Council wants to apply restrictions to the airport. As stated previously, all of the evidence points to the contrary. In particular, the Council has already granted planning permission for an additional 20 acres of aprons and taxiways and did not apply any restrictions on the use of these areas when they were perfectly entitled to do so. Secondly, Dr. Ladyman seems to believe that it would cause problems for Wiggins if the Council were to refuse to enter into a new Section 106 agreement at a later date. Nothing could be further from the truth. The existing Section 106 contains little to hinder Wiggins and there is no reason to suppose that they would not be happy for it to remain in place.

(MAG) It is, perhaps, worth mentioning that the Council initially claimed that it had no such powers. The Director of Planning, Trevor Herron, sent a briefing note to Councillors informing them that the airport benefited from Permitted Development Rights. This meant that planning permission would not be required for a wide range of construction projects on the airfield. Mr. Herron told Councillors that they would be consulted over such development proposals but would not have the same powers that they have over planning applications. The Manston Airport Group challenged this assertion and were subsequently proved correct in the High Court. This is the only reason that Thanet District Council are now in a position to exert development control as Dr. Ladyman describes. Neither Dr. Ladyman nor any member of the Council has thanked the Manston Airport Group for winning this important concession.

(MAG) Wiggins did not inherit planning rights from any previous owners of the airfield. As described above, Thanet District Council believed that Wiggins had inherited planning rights but they were wrong. The sentence about not wishing to place barriers in the way of investment reveals the real reason why the Council have not used the powers available to them.

(MAG) The Council has recently granted planning permission for an additional 20 acres of taxiways and apron space. They did not apply any restriction on the hours of use, nor did Dr. Ladyman encourage them to do so.

The Section 52 agreement was a restriction on the hours of use of the civilian enclave. Dr. Ladyman claimed that it was useless and unenforceable, and supported its removal. He now suggests that exactly this type of restriction should be applied to new areas of the airfield.

(MAG) Once again, Dr. Ladyman is making statements which are not true. The legislation he refers to dictates that all aircraft must meet the noise requirements of Chapter 3. However, old noisy aircraft which are currently in service can meet these requirements by fitting engine mufflers known as hush-kits. Whilst hush-kits allow the aircraft to meet the requirements of Chapter 3 they do not make the aircraft any more modern and they do not make it quieter in all phases of flight.

In particular, fitting hush-kits makes little difference to the noise made by an aircraft on landing. Aircraft which have been hush-kitted can be twice as noisy as aircraft which have been specifically built to meet the requirements of Chapter 3. Indeed the European Union is so concerned about the lack of effectiveness of hush-kits and the added pollution they generate, it has been attempting to introduce legislation preventing more hush-kitted aircraft from entering Europe. Sadly so far, the USA, the major manufacturer of hush-kits, has thwarted its attempts. Following a postponement of the legislation, Philippe Hamon, Director General of ACI Europe - the trade body that represents Europe's airports said: "European citizens living near airports will have to suffer unnecessarily another year of unlimited growth in the number of noisy hushkitted aircraft". (The legislation to ban the use of hush-kits has been further delayed since then and is now looking doubtful altogether).

The airport operators are unable to specify any aircraft which is currently using Manston and will no longer be able to do so after April 2002. This means that there is no evidence to support Dr. Ladyman's claim that this legislation will significantly reduce noise at the airport. In fact, the increased flight numbers that have been outlined by Wiggins will result in a massive increase in noise levels from Manston regardless of the types of aircraft used.

(MAG) New legislation to enforce noise control on airports is long overdue and is to be welcomed. Unfortunately, the legisaltion that Dr. Ladyman is referring to has not even been drafted yet. When, and if, it ever becomes law we will all have a chance to judge its efficacy. Until then, it remains a promise of jam tomorrow. The real downside of the legislation as described by Dr. Ladyman is that the local Council is required to use it. Given their irresponsible record to date, it is doubtful that any amount of new legislation could make a difference.

(MAG) Dr. Ladyman concedes that it is possible that the developer could introduce night flights against local wishes. He then says that the Council could insist on new controls being introduced. The Council can no more insist on new controls in three years time than they can now. The way in which you force a developer to agree to controls is to refuse him planning permission until he signs. The Council have recently granted planning permissions for an additional 20 acres of aprons and taxiways. They did not use this application as leverage to prohibit night flights. As stated previously, any new law is to be welcomed, but it would be a mistake to assume that parliamentary time will automatically be granted to allow this bill to find its way onto the statute books.

(MAG) These two paragraphs sound very plausible. But you should not be fooled by the simplistic arguments of a politician. You should also not be fooled into believing that Dr. Ladyman has looked beyond the end of his nose in pursuit of the facts. There is no "rule of thumb" relating to jobs and passengers. This is easily demonstrated by putting Dr. Ladyman's allegedly researched figure alongside that provided by other people.

At a meeting of Thanet District Council on 8th December 1999, Mr. Binding, Secretary of MAG, asked Councillor Nicholson to confirm how many jobs would be created at Manston in each of the next five years. Here is the reply :

"The number of jobs created depend on the type and speed of development achieved at the airport and on the surrounding business parks. However, as a rough guide to potential employment the recent Regional Planning Inquiry used a rule of thumb of 500 jobs of all types (professional and manual) for every 1 million passengers carried through an airport. This rule of thumb appeared to find general acceptance by those in the industry as a useable guide of potential employment."

In March 1999 a public meeting was held at the Winter Gardens in Margate. At that meeting members of the public were invited to submit questions to the Council and to Wiggins. Mr. Binding asked Wiggins how they justified their claims that the airport would create large numbers of jobs, when Cardiff airport moves 1.5 million passengers per year and employs just 140 staff. Mr. Freudmann of Wiggins gave the following written reply :

"We have taken a close interest in the fortunes of Cardiff Airport because it is operated by a respected competitor, TBI PLC and the figure that I reported at the Winter Gardens meeting is an accurate one. Indeed, the accepted industry norm is that a million passengers equates to roughly 2000 jobs."

So we have Councillor Nicholson claiming 500 jobs per million passengers, Dr. Ladyman claiming 1,000 jobs per million passengers and Wiggins claiming 2,000 jobs per million passengers. All claim their figure to be the industry norm. One thing is certain. They can't all be right.

(MAG) These two paragraphs provide perhaps the best possible illustration of how poorly Dr. Ladyman has researched this matter and how his figures simply don't add up. In the paragraph above, Dr. Ladyman says "I think that Manston Airport will generate 2,000 to 3,000 local jobs from about 30-40 aeroplane movements per day." There is no airport in the UK where the average number of passengers carried on a plane exceeds 100. Supposing Manston were to break the mould and were able to carry 100 passengers per flight. 40 flights per day would equate to 4000 passengers. In one year this would equate to just 1.46 million passengers.

In the paragraph prior to this one he says that he has never based his estimates on 1,000 jobs per million passengers preferring to be more conservative. So, how on earth does he arrive at a figure of 2,000 to 3,000 jobs from 40 flights per day, when a generous estimate of the number of passengers carried would be less than 1.5 million. Dr. Ladyman's figures don't add up, and to cap it all he claims that many of the 30-40 movements each day would be light aircraft.

Dr. Ladyman states that Wiggins projection of 20 million passengers per year in 10-20 years time is nonsense. It is important to bear in mind that Dr. Ladyman does not run the airport. He is no longer a formal member of Thanet District Council and so he does not control planning of the development. Wiggins press releases make it very clear that they are planning a huge airport with the connivance of the Council (Appendix 2). If Dr. Ladyman thinks these plans might be problematic he should oppose them. At the moment he appears to be trying to have his cake and eat it, by passively supporting the concept of a massive international airport, but ignoring the environmental consequences for his constituents.

(MAG) This is one of Dr. Ladyman's favourite lines and one which we should not allow him to get away with. When the current local plan was drawn up the MoD had not announced their intention to vacate the airfield. Consequently, the current local plan contains no plans for the airport. It merely expresses a vague wish to see the airport developed commercially should the MoD decide to depart. When the MoD announced their intent to vacate the airfield a supplement to the local plan, known as the EDAW report was prepared. This supplement was not subjected to any form of public enquiry. It was not even subjected to the same range of consultation enjoyed by the local plan. In fact it was shown to just two Parish Councils.

In any event, neither the local plan nor the supplement outlined the scale of the airport operation that was envisaged. When the current terminal building was constructed it was given planning permission subject to a maximum of 1 million passengers a year. At no stage in the preparation of the local plan or its supplement was it indicated that there might be a need to go above this figure. It is simply disingenuous of Dr. Ladyman to try to mislead people into believing that plans for the airport have been publicised and subject to public consultation and debate.

(MAG) The Council has never debated the issue of the airport. Various sub-committees of the Council have been asked to make decisions about various aspects of the development, but at no stage has the development per se been debated. Without even debating it, the Councillors of Thanet District Council have closed their minds on the subject of the airport. The leader of the Council, Mr. Nicholson has consistently refused to discuss the issue with the Manston Airport Group. It is simply no good for Dr. Ladyman to try to convince people that the Council is open when their minds are closed.

(MAG) We have already outlined the instances when the Council could have imposed a ban on night flights. It is simply untrue to claim that the Council is doing everything it can and it is untrue to claim that the Council has done everything that it could.

What Dr. Ladyman fails to mention is that Councillors are whipped into line on this and many other issues. They are simply told by their parties what they are, and are not, allowed to say. Whilst this conduct is conducive to running a well-disciplined party it is thoroughly anti-democratic. It is right and proper that a development of the magnitude of Manston should have been debated and all points of view aired. Thanet District Council (all parties) has failed its electorate by allowing pathetic party politics to prevent this debate from taking place.

(MAG) If somebody came along tomorrow and promised to build a holiday park at Manston creating 4,000 jobs, it is entirely possible that the majority of Thanet would back this scheme. At the moment, the only option they have been given is development of a civilian airport. It is, therefore, quite wrong to claim that the Council has some sort of democratic mandate to insist on an airport development. They could equally pursue other options for the land, and may well have to do so if the airport is, once again, a commercial failure.

(MAG) The members of our committee were all elected by the members of the group. The group could not and would not operate if it did not have a groundswell of popular support. Whilst Councils (and elected representatives) have to respond to the wishes of the majority, this does not mean that they are entitled to ride roughshod over any individual or section of the community. The new human rights legislation is an important step forward in preventing those with power from wielding it unfairly. If Dr. Ladyman really believes that those who are elected must respond to the wishes of the majority, we can expect him to vote for the death sentence next time it is debated in the House of Commons.