“A station too far?”

The train now standing at platform 1 is the 8.01am calling at Birchington- on-Sea, Westgate-on-Sea, Margate, Broadstairs, Dumpton Park, Ramsgate, Parkway and Minster. If there is any time left over it may even go to London St Pancras but if not the whole process with be repeated tomorrow.

Just what we don’t need is a new station on the horizon, which we can drive to, instead of the other seven to which we can already walk. Still a footpath from the new station to the airport terminal will be quite convenient and exciting for airline passengers, putting your foot onto the zebra crossing to cross the runway could be quite tricky but the volume of planes hardly makes for a health and safety hazard.

If the airport really needs a station, why not build it at the KIA terminal.

If a commuter car park is really required why not build it at Ramsgate station.

Thanet must have one of the densest concentrations of stations in the UK outside the National city centres, utilise these rather than constructing a new one. Building a new station and bypassing the existing under-used stations will do the same for Thanet stations that Westwood Cross did for the Old Town Centres.

This is definitely a “station too far”, too far to drive to, too far from the airport terminal, too expensive and too devastating on the existing infrastructure to contemplate.

WRONG place - WRONG time

Tarmac Thanet News

COMING TO A GREENFIELD SITE NEAR YOU?

£10 million government grant applied for, to tarmac two more green fields in Thanet. To be topped up with £500.000 from Infratil. As the heading says WRONG place – WRONG time, remember that other planning blunder called Westwood Cross which succeeded in decimating the old town centres. Well now we have the next one, Parkway Station, one green field for the station and a second for a commuter car park !

Air passengers arriving or departing at KIA and travelling by train have no need for a car park.

Wrong Place

If  Manston airport desperately needs a high speed rail service to facilitate expansion then a KIA terminal station should be built on a  branch line into the airport, adjacent to the massive empty car parks already there. The branch line could then be used for freight services off-peak. This would reduce the need for China Gateway and the flood of lorries known as logistics. If the airport does not have sufficient passengers to support its own station then airport coaches can just as easily go to Minster or Ramsgate Stations, there would be little difference in the journey time

WHAT PARKWAY STATION MEANS FOR YOU ?

Two more green fields lost to tarmac.

Another large car park in the countryside

Ramsgate and Minster stations redundant, HS1 will stop at Margate and Parkway.

Coaches will circle Manston Airport day and night, if the airport expands

Constant pressure for new residential development around the new station

Cliffsend to Minster will become one sprawling suburb by 2050.

Wrong Time.

In these current austere economic times, to spend £10.5 million on another “status” white elephant is foolhardy, just think how far £10.5 million pounds would go to the regeneration of Thanet, if targeted at the existing infrastructure and amenities.

This reminds me of a true story from when my wife was a teacher. The school where she taught received a designated grant to build a new cycle path to the school, although only a few pupils cycled to school. The grant was received and the path constructed, but there was NO money available in the school to replace 20 year old text books, which the children used for their learning.   Fund allocation gone mad!

Let’s have some “joined up thinking”. on this project, the existing Ramsgate swimming pool is being made redundant and the fear is that it will be replaced by housing development, so spend less than £10 million on a superb new sports facility on the site, which can have an integral car park used for sporting events at weekends and a commuter car park during the week, which is just alongside Ramsgate station and parking income can pay for the sports ground upkeep.