MINUTES
OF THANET DISTRICT COUNCIL PLANNING MEETING 31st May 2000
Thanet District Council Planning Committee, tonight decided to give the go
ahead to a 20 acre expansion of apron capacity at Manston Airport. They
received 185 written objections to their intent to pass this application. One
major objection was that a restriction should be imposed banning night flights
from the newly created area.
The Councillors present decided not to impose any such restriction.
Consequently, once this apron space has been constructed, it can be used to
conduct any number of night flights of any description.
All aircraft which are currently prevented from taking-off and landing at
other airports will be able to do so with total impunity at Manston. There is
no limit to the number of such flights which can be conducted in any given
night, and there is no restriction on the types of aircraft which can take-off
or land.
Councillor Poole, who represents the Nethercourt constituency, is not a
member of the planning committee, but had asked to speak on this issue. He
read out one of the 185 letters of objection which had been received. It
stated that the proposal would greatly increase the capacity of Manston, and
that it would be prudent for the Council to first seek a Master Plan for
development of the airfield, and to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment
on this plan. The letter further suggested that the Council should use the
application as leverage to negotiate a stricter Section 106 agreement,
including a total ban on night flights.
After reading out the letter of objection, Councillor Poole suggested that
it would be prudent to impose a ban on night flights between the hours of
23:00 and 07:00. He pointed out that the application breached SPG8 and SPG17
in the local plan, and suggested that a decision on the application should be
deferred pending the publication and outcome of the following items :
- The publication of the full Section 106 Agreement;
- the Publication of a Master Plan for development of the airfield
with an accompanying Environmental Impact Assessment;
- the outcome of the Judicial Review.
- Finally he suggested that this decision should be made by the full
Council due to its controversial nature.
Dr. Cohen, a member of the Planning Committee, made the following comments.
He stated that Manston was one of the airports in Wiggins' intended Plane
Stations network and revealed that Wiggins have negotiated a lease for another
such airfield in Smyrna, Tennessee.
At this point Councillor Ford attempted to raise a point of order, saying
that Dr. Cohen should not be commenting on Smyrna since it had nothing to do
with the application before the Committee.
Councillor Dickinson, who was chairing the meeting, disallowed Councillor
Ford's objection as Councillor Ford could not specify which rule Dr. Cohen was
supposed to be breaking.
Cohen went on to claim that the lease at Smyrna prohibits night flying and
asked the Committee to consider why Thanet was being asked to accept night
flying, when the residents of Smyrna would be spared such worries. Dr. Cohen
agreed with Councillor Poole in calling for an Environmental Impact Assessment
to be performed before this application was granted, and stated that it was
important for Councillors to have information about what the environmental
effects would be, before they made their decision.
Dr. Cohen then moved on to a report by Brian Lear, Thanet District
Council's Director of Community Services, which had been submitted in response
to this planning application.
This report states that the application should only be authorised if the
council was confident that it would result in no intensification of aviation
over and above previous usage.
Dr. Cohen asked Trevor Herron, Thanet District Council's Director of
Planning, to give the figures for previous usage so that Councillors could
assess whether intensification was likely to occur.
Mr. Herron said that he did not have any figures but could describe
previous usage, although it might take him half an hour or so to do this. He
said that in the 1960's and 1970's Manston had seen 250,000 passengers per
year and 20,000 flights per year. Clearly these could not all have been
passenger flights since there would have been an average of just 12.5 people
on each plane. However, Mr. Herron then went on to say that movements by
military aircraft could be used to justify subsequent civilian usage.
Dr. Cohen responded to Mr. Herron by stating that he had asked Mr. Herron
for figures in advance of the Planning Meeting, and that Mr. Herron had told
him that there were no figures, and that the accounts of previous usage were
anecdotal.
Dr. Cohen challenged this statement by pointing out that the CAA have
records for Manston dating back to 1970, and that the most recent figures are
freely available on the internet.
He concluded by calling for the development to be subject to an
Environmental Impact Assessment and for a decision on the application to be
deferred until such an assessment had been done.
Trevor Herron then asked the Committee Chairman if he could speak again. He
insisted that Dr. Cohen was wrong, and that military aircraft movements COULD
be used to justify subsequent equivalent amounts of civil aviation. he pointed
out to the Planning Committee that they had already decided that an
Environmental Impact Assessment would not be required, when they discussed the
matter six weeks ago.
He then claimed that an EIA could only be done on the 20 acre development
and would not be able to take account of aviation associated with the rest of
the development. He concluded by saying that although there were no figures
there was a "very large amount of history from the past about previous
levels of aviation" and so he did not think the development proposed
would lead to a significant increase over and above those levels.
We then moved in to the quality section of the debate.
Councillor Ford then raised his hand to speak. Many people groaned. He said
:
"I regret to have to say this, but some of our colleagues on the
Planning Committee are falling into the trap of listening to objectors. "
He then went on to say :
"If we stuck half of the concrete, that has ever been laid in the
history of the world, at Manston it wouldn't make much noise apart from the
lorries which were tipping it."
He said that the Council's sole aim was to create jobs at Manston, and that
this application would do this.
Councillor Coppock, then took his turn to speak on this application. He
began by saying :
"I am looking to see which way the opposition Councillors will
vote tonight."
This remark brought howls of protest from the Conservative members of the
Committee, in particular Bill Hayton, as the Planning Committee is supposed to
be "whip-free" and decisions are supposed to be made on their
merits. However, it was obvious to those in the public gallery that Councillor
Coppock had no concerns about the direction his Labour colleagues would take
when it came to the vote.
Councillor Coppock then went on to berate Councillor Poole for having read
out one of the letters of objection. He said that he could have brought along
letters of support, and that there were probably at least an equal number of
people who supported the application. No letters of support were listed among
the submissions for this application and so it is presumed that Councillor
Coppock meant that he could have got some people to write letters of support
if he had known that a letter of objection was going to be read out.
Councillor Coppock, who lives in Broadstairs, then said that he had been in
Ramsgate the previous evening when an aircraft had passed overhead. He
conceded that it had been rather loud but said that it had only been for a few
seconds. He did not comment on how long it takes to wake someone up.
Councillor Coppock finished by saying :
"If you're living close to an airport, these are the sorts of things
you have to put up with."
He did not specify the other "sorts of things" but perhaps they
include fuel and de-icing chemicals in your garden and uranium panels buried
in your fishpond.
Councillor Wynne Gore then decided to add her comments to the high quality
debate, which was developing. She said that as far as she understood it the
airport operator simply wanted to replace under-strength aprons and taxiways.
She said that if this was not done the anti-airport groups would soon complain
if the taxiways collapsed causing planes to be damaged. She then said :
"I'm a little tired of groups who failed to notice there was an
airport there when they moved into the area."
Councillor Hayton, then spoke. He said that the application would provide
sufficient room to accommodate 2 additional larger planes or 4 smaller ones.
(20 acres equates to 16 football pitches and so there is clearly a little more
room that Councillor Hayton thinks). He commented that the aircraft would be
sitting on these aprons and might not even have their engines running. He then
stated that this was a planning committee and so it did not need to
discuss environmental matters. It is not clear where Councillor
Hayton thinks that environmental matters should be discussed since the
Committee for doing just that has been disbanded for more than a year now.
Councillor Waddilove then spoke. He said that the argument that this
development should be considered purely as a piece of concrete was fallacious.
He pointed out that the Council would not dream of considering a motorway as
if it were merely a stretch of tarmac. They would of course consider the noise
and pollution from traffic using that tarmac, as they should with
application.
He reminded the Committee that he had spoken to the Planning Director
several months ago about the danger of creeping development of the airport and
that it seemed to him that piecemeal development via applications of this sort
was exactly what he had been concerned about.
He pointed out to Trevor Herron, that whilst the Committee had decided not
to do an EIA several weeks ago, they were perfectly entitled to change their
minds, if they now considered it appropriate. He said that he saw no reason
why an EIA should take longer than two months to complete and that it would
be, by far, the best route for progressing this application.
Finally, Dr. Cohen was invited to wrap up the debate. He held up a letter
from Lord Whitty confirming that military aircraft movements could not
be used to justify subsequent civil air movements. He then questioned
Councillor Ford's assertion that this development would create jobs.
He pointed out that Wiggins' had stated in the text of the application,
that the extra apron space would enable them to be more efficient. He said
that if capacity were not in fact to increase, this meant that jobs would be
lost. He suggested that the Council had not done its homework and that an
application of this magnitude required that they do so. He concluded by
calling on the members to defer a decision until a Master Plan for development
and EIA had been submitted.
3 Councillors voted in favour of deferring the decision. They were
Councillors Waddilove, Chater and Cohen.
11 Councillors voted in favour of passing the application. They were
Councillors Ford, Barry Coppock, Jaqueline Coppock, Elizabeth Poole, Gore,
Thomas, Hayton, Sullivan, Dickinson, Archard and Buckley.