This mainly relates to the meeting between The Department for Transport and the DCO applicant RSP Riveroak Strategic Partners on 11th May 2018
Here is are the links to the documents on the pins website
Meeting Note
Detailed record of the Inspectorate’s observations and advice.
OK early days in trying to understand what these documents mean
I think the main issue in the whole thing is about what constitutes a NSIP Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project and this boils down not to the size of the new RSP project but to the increase in size from when Manston was running before to what it would be after RSP had increased the amount of aircraft it could handle.
So I think that the planning inspectorate have taken the number of flights (strictly movements takeoff or landing) per year permitted under the previous CAA license around the 23,000 ball park and asked RSP to show they will increase the number to 33,000. Not worked it out yet but this looks around 60 flights a day probably with about 6 flights per night.
I think RSP took the Manston capacity as 0 and I don 't think this will work.
I also think that anyone who attended the consultations realised that there was an issue with notifying people that the consultations were happening, I think something went wrong with their postal drop, when I last discussed it with one of the RSP reps they seemed to have accepted that there had been a serious problem, but not worked out how serious.
For me all the way along the line one of the biggest difficulties has been that I can't find a good sound argument from anyone supporting RSPs plans. So mountains of technical guff, but simple stuff like why people wanting to fly themselves or freight would drive past the major London airports to Manston.
I think the funding statement is also a big hurdle for RSP I think they would have to prove that they had sufficient legitimately sourced money to at the very least buy the Manston site based on an open market valuation.
I see this as a very significant Thanet news story that none of the local news sites seem to be able to report, hardly anything on social media either.
Is this the end of the RSP DCO I wonder?
this is a blog post in progress
I think it's fair to say that RSP's latest bid to take control of Manston is heading the way of their previous 2 attempts, with the 20 pages of issues PINS has raised.
ReplyDeleteThey have it would seem failed to understand the DCO process, the requirements, failed to make their case, failed for a 3rd time to prove they have the money or resources to complete or even begin the process and added yet a further rod with which the can be beaten, fail to disclose who owns or runs the company, as it's owners of course are hidden in the Beliezean registered company they are now using.
Not looking great for the airport supporters I must say.
You've missed the kernel in all of this .Why would any freight operator want to drive past the other major airports? Because, simply put, the cargo slots are being squeezed in favour of passenger aircraft.Hence a decrease in cargo slots with an increase in cargo plane movements.Manston would be ideal from that point of view.As a now disillusioned resident of Thanet for 20 years I've come to the conclusion that mediocrity rules here.All backward- looking and feeding on nostalgia ( Dreamonland > case in point).No ferries, no hovercraft , no airport, no links to the outside world.Incestuous Left-wing politics, inward-looking and reminiscent of the Morloks in H.G Wells 'The Time Machine', written in 1895 incidentally.How appropriate.
ReplyDeleteYou've missed the kernel in all of this .Why would any freight operator want to drive past the other major airports? Because, simply put, the cargo slots are being squeezed in favour of passenger aircraft.Hence a decrease in cargo slots with an increase in cargo plane movements.Manston would be ideal from that point of view.As a now disillusioned resident of Thanet for 20 years I've come to the conclusion that mediocrity rules here.All backward- looking and feeding on nostalgia ( Dreamonland > case in point).No ferries, no hovercraft , no airport, no links to the outside world.Incestuous Left-wing politics, inward-looking and reminiscent of the Morloks in H.G Wells 'The Time Machine', written in 1895 incidentally.How appropriate.
ReplyDeleteThe Planning Inspectorate is wriggling like a worm on a fishing hook. For the last couple of years it has been engaged in cosy chats with RSP, discussing their plans to reopen the airport. Yet at no point did the Planning Inspectorate seem to have looked at their own rules for using a Development Consent Order, which stipulate that the proposed development must be a significant expansion of capacity over and above anything which already exists. That's the only explanation I can think of for RSP spending a barely credible £7 million submitting an 11,000 page application, which spectacularly failed to clear the first, and most basic, of the hurdles it faced. When the shortcomings were so serious, it's funny how Sir Roger Gale thought it was a quick fix which required nothing more than the dotting of a few i's and the crossing of a few t's. Either he was seriously misled or he sought to mislead himself.
ReplyDelete