BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.!

I have heard it so many times in Thanet politics “You couldn’t make it up could you”.

No sooner than Roger Latchford OBE has donned his purple rosette on behalf of UKIP, he is on telly spouting off about his pet subject, Manston Aerodrome.  I seem to remember two years ago, the good people of Ramsgate gave a resounding NO to night flying at said aerodrome and voted in a Labour Ramsgate Town Council, tipping the balance at Thanet District Council in favour of Labour.

Well ol’ Rog OBE is now in charge of a group of virgin councillors without an email amongst them. Let us consider our Roger’s pedigree, he was the “brains” behind the Ezekiel Conservative administration. Well at least he was Deputy Leader. No problem there then.

When Rog was in power last time he was in charge of such successful schemes as EKO and Chinagate(way) which we all are  appreciating to this day.  Just a small reminder, in case you have forgotten, these schemes were joint KCC / TDC initiatives in the time of the Ezekiel administration. Excuse me for being a cynic but has Paul Carter just received SEVEN more votes.

Next we will be hearing that Pleasurama is starting again.

LDC’s

No, this is not a new type of TV or computer screen. Many of you may have happened upon this abbreviation whilst reading the planning section of the consultants report commissioned by Thanet District Council about night flying proposals at Manston airport. The abbreviation stands for Lawful Development Certificate and is issued by a local authority when an applicant requests such a certificate based on a use which has been  established for at least 10 years and is subsisting on a site. The local authority is obliged to issue such a certificate if the necessary conditions are met.

This goes a long way to explaining the current unsatisfactory planning situation at Kent International Airport. Faced with a declining military use for Manston airport the Ministry of Defence applied for LDCs to support the changeover to civilian use, which had been happening in some parts of the airport in parallel with the military use. Faced with such an influential applicant, I think TDC conceded their position and relied on a loosely drafted 106 agreement in an attempt to control the situation.

Under normal circumstances an established use LDC and a 106 agreement would be sufficient to control any future development proposals. However in the case of night flights this is only an increase in traffic movements, not really a planning matter, as “intensification” can only be controlled if a material change of use can be proved. The 106 agreement does not even require approval of a night flying policy only that one is submitted prior to commencement. It therefore follows that Manston can commence night flying tomorrow, having submitted a policy, hence night flying for the Olympics and maybe after.

Infratil is not advertising this loophole however, because airport expansion inevitably requires new buildings.(see picture above). Any new building on the airfield will require full planning permission, which is best wrapped up in glossy expansion plans with a promise of many jobs to mask the transition from their established use on LDC, to expansion requiring planning permission.


For those of you interested in this subject you may like to read a previous post of mine on the same subject here, it would appear now that I was not in possession of the full facts at the time and the title should have read "Night Flying Consultation UNNECESSARY!"