Thanet to become London’s Third Airport, The Right Honourable Patrick McLoughlin, Sir Roger Gale and Craig MacKinlay will be at Manston today to announce the new plans.

After representations from Thanet’s MPs to reopen Thanet’s airport, while MPs from the rest of the UK are trying to get airports in their constituencies closed, The Secretary of State for Transport will be at Manston today to announce that the government is going for the four runway plan at Manston.

Here is the link to the four runway plan for Manston on the UK Parliament website http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/transport-committee/smaller-airports/written/17731.pdf

London International Airport Thanet the Four Runway Plan Covering Most of Thanet

I think the word has got out that here in Thanet the majority of people are very pro airport and as they would welcome a massive air cargo hub, when in most parts of the country the vast majority of residents would be against it and the associated air, noise pollution and road congestion.

Click on the map to enlarge it.

Anyway no nimbys in Thanet and so here is the plan submitted to the transport committee, this is the link to it on the UK Parliament website http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/transport-committee/smaller-airports/written/17731.pdf

I have also copied it below:

Written evidence from Coastal Airports (Holdings Limited) (SMA0071) LONDON KENT INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (“MANSTON”) EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM TO THE REVISED INITIAL OUTLINE PLAN

This Explanatory Memorandum is to be read with the information and boxes on the A3 drawing. The aviation, environmental and cost-effectiveness issues are all addressed in the Written Statement. This Manston Airport redevelopment plan has been prepared for:- (1) The House of Commons Transport Select Committee Hearings on 2 nd February 2015; (2) for Thanet District Council Local Plan Consultations; (3) to indicate possible government Safeguarding Directions and local temporary Planning Restrictions to cover much wider areas; and (4) potential Outline Planning Applications. Development Phases A to E are set out for main Runways 1 and 2 and future Runways 3 and 4.

Development Phase A:- Early reopening of the currently semi-disused London Manston Airport as Runway 1 (“Manston”) with direct access from the A299 Thanet Way and the new A256 Trunk Road and use of the small old Kent International Air Terminal, initially for single runway reopening, for proposed “River Oak” air freight services (whereby some 50 local jobs may result) and our client’s proposed Air Ferry services into Europe (with some 80 more local jobs generated). Neither of those air services require the nearby Minster Station or fast main line trains to London, nor new airport hotels, nor other satellite businesses generating employment. But budget passenger airlines and air charters at Manston could bring flight numbers up to some 20% of Gatwick’s single runway use and with Air Ferry and airfreight, some 300 jobs altogether could be at or near Manston Airport. For the passengers’ airport bus relays, Minster Station has eight coach platforms, but it needs step-free access and other minor improvements, for approval by South East trains. Airport express services from St.Pancras International (initially say 1 tph) can be reversed on the adjoining Dover branch line.

A surrounding access roads corridor of an improved B2050/A28 forms a natural planning boundary; between airport areas as such and ample land areas to the North-East; suitable for hotels and business uses and residential commuter development of Margate’s hinterland.

Development Phase B:- A new full-length Runway 2 (“Minster”) and Terminal 2 (with building commencing if possible within a year of reopening Runway 1) can be sited on the Monkton Marsh flood plain, with the sensitive air terminal buildings on piled foundations and columns at podium level together with circulation and parking beneath and even protected against “300 year” floods. Runway 2, Terminal 2 and Minster Station need a new east-west highway circuit (“Richborough Road” on the plan) from a new roundabout on the A256 and along the south side of the railway and then connected to an improved A253 to Monkton Roundabout on the A299 Thanet Way. Minster Station can be extended, for full on-airport use of twelve coach trains (up to 3tph) with reversing either at additional island platforms (to allow express trains to pass) and/or at restored Richborough Sidings, with new signals for train stabling and with a reversing platform between and as a possible “Richborough Parkway” terminus, adjacent to industrial and parking land areas. An essential feature of Phase B will be twin fully-ventilated box tunnels, for “airside” traffic between Terminals 1 and 2 and for air personnel and passengers’ shuttle services (provisional indication only). The existing Kerosene Jet Fuel depot services, which are now sited near houses at Cliffs End, would be closed and moved to a new depot site nearer Runway 2.

Development Phase C:- Major enhancement of Runway 1 (“Manston”) could be completed within four years of its initial restricted reopening; by building a new full-size modern Terminal 1 (soon after Runway 2 is up-and-running and with the old KIA air terminal kept for air staff use) again so as to equal the flight capacity of Gatwick’s single runway. The larger New Terminal 1 will require new road and rail access and a new twelve coach “Manston” on-airport station (up to 3tph) with crossplatform interchange to proposed new Thanet Orbital Metro services (3tphew). This requires a short strategic rail loop (partly on an old military railway route) linking-up the main railway lines to form a circuit around Thanet. All over the world, on-airport stations are profitable and these combined rail improvements should be self-financing, from the “fares box”. The Thanet Orbital Metro will be a bonus with a very short pay-back period.

Development Phase D:- Subject to demand, a shorter Runway 3 (“Monkton”) of say 1 km in length, would be for private planes and for RAF/FAA Reserve STOL use; with a nearby helipad and its own smaller Terminal 3; again with extended “airside” connections as before, to Terminals 1 and 2.

Development Phase E:- Subject to future demand, a potential full-length Runway 4 and Terminal 4 (“Reculver”) can be built on Wades Marsh if required, similarly to Runway 2 and Terminal 2 and over a culvert extension of the eastern branch of the River Wantsum. As before, any future new Terminal 4 can be built on piled foundations and at podium level on columns, well above the flood plain. Again, with extensions of twin airside connecting tunnels and with an adjoining future Reculver Station. The B2050 would branch-off, to extend further west to join the A299 Thanet Way.

January 2015    

I will add to this once I am sure the first bit has published OK

Ok I think I had better be as clear as I can on this one, most of main Thanet politicians are very supportive of having an airfreight hub at Manston, I hasten to add that this wouldn’t be what we had before which was a small regional airport that people could book flights from, go to business and holiday destinations.

The RiverOak plans are for an airfreight hub, the cpo would be for an airfreight hub and what most of the PPCs are supporting is an airfreight hub. I would say that at every level in the aviation business where normally building an airfreight hub the local residents are perceived as the main obstacle, here in Thanet the local residents are perceived as being in the vast majority for any sort of aviation activity at Manston.

Out of all the civil aviation activities it is the large freight planes (747 variants) that produce the most noise and air pollution and out of all the civil aviation activities it is a cargo hub that would produce the least amount of local employment per flight.  

Now frankly if you have a community where the vast majority of residents and the vast majority of local politicians are behind the most undesirable aspect of having an airport, then it must follow that those people would be very much in favour of the more desirable aspects of having an airport. Holiday destinations, light aircraft, air shows, flight training and much better business connections. 

Viewing these plans objectively the worst aspect is runway 1 where the intention is to fly large amounts of freight, with Ramsgate positioned at the incoming end at the runway and Herne Bay at the outward end.        

Sunday ramble, Manston Airport, Blind Faith and other closures

I guess before I get going on this one I had better state my position on Manston, there are several years of blog posts to back this one up, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manston%20Airport

My take is that the best option would have been a fairly small regional airport with a high emphasis on historic aircraft, in retrospect with running losses at the moment of around £10,000 per day I can see this wouldn’t really be viable.

My take on the night flights business has always been that any night time flying allowance would have to relate to the amount of daytime activity and handing the airport the same night flying allowance as a major hub airport was never on.

There is always business that no one else wants, live animal exports being a case in point at the moment, and if you produce a situation where you open the way for what no one else wants without insisting you also get attractive business, it is very easy to wind up exclusively serving unattractive business.

The recent KLM business seemed to be founded mostly on avoiding uk airport taxes, which isn’t necessarily the best way forward for Thanet.

So now we face the situation where Manston Airport is most likely to close within a month or so and I guess the way to go with this one is to do anything that will benefit the local area.

I don’t think there is anything much that government could do to stop an unprofitable business from closing down.

Now although Manston looks green, in terms of future development it counts as a brownfield site, this means that there will be considerable limitations on what government could do to prevent or control development there.

Another aspect is that Manston is on the water abstraction source protection zone, which makes it more expensive for business development there.

Another closure which happens today is AMF Bowling in Margate, something I find particularly concerting as This is a leisure business in a town where the councils are doing all they can to expand leisure.

I also gather Edinburgh Woollen Mill in Margate is closing. 

I am wondering if in terms of what local government can do the focus should be more on supporting what is viable and taking a more realistic approach to what is inherently doomed to failure.

The desire to be a transport hub, both with Manston airport and Port Ramsgate does seem to be related to a long term failure to accept the geography of the area.

One of my family injured their ankle recently so was on crutches for a while and when I asked how this was going, the answer I got was, no real problems apart from Ramsgate town centre where the pavements are dreadfully uneven and the incidence of dog poo very high.

This seems to be at odds with Ramsgate really being the last remaining market and shopping town in Thanet. Perhaps the owners of Westwood Cross have been lobbying the council. Perhaps this explains the town centre rubbish collection on market day and the pavements in the town centre being much worse than they are in the residential parts of the town.  

We are now one month on from the council’s decision to terminate the Pleasurama development agreement, which involved them going down the road of them presenting the developer with a definite schedule of works that the developer had to comply with or open the council’s position to terminate the agreement for non-compliance.

I don’t know how this is going, but there has been no activity on the site, so obviously the developer hasn’t done anything to show their intent to do anything with the site. 

A bit more research on drinking water in Ramsgate before Ramsgate had a waterworks possibly around 1880.

“TR 3764 NW Ramsgate SOUTHWOOD ROAD Water Tower of Ramsgate Water Works. Water tower Erected 1881, Stevenson + Valon, engineers. Red brick and terracotta with cast iron water tank 80 feet by 50, 60 feet high.”

The water is held in the Thanet aquifer (underground reservoir in the porous chalk) by the surrounding seawater, the water back about as far as St George’s church is brackish and not drinkable. So I guess before a piped water supply the drinking water was taken from wells and distributed by horse drawn water cart.  

I know I have read an article in Bygone Kent magazine on the water wells in King Street but it doesn't seem to appear in the index, the issue number would do as I have a full set. 

I will ramble on here.

     

Manston Airshow 2014 cancelled

Here is the link https://www.facebook.com/manstonairshow?fref=ts possibly not a good pr move from the new owners of the airport.  

The picture of the Vulcan XH483, at Manston taken on 4^th August 1967 is from the book that I publish Twilight of the Pistons, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/1997_twilight_of_pistons.htm

Manston Airport changes hands, first indicators of any new directions.

Yesterday Infratil sold Manston – Kent International Airport to Ann Gloag and intial indicators are that she is going down the road of trying to make the airport viable as an airport.

As far as I can see from the various news articles Ann Gloag has added Alastair Welch to the board on Manston Airport, I am fairly certain that it was Alastair Welch who ran Southend airport.

Here is the KM article http://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet_extra/news/shake-up-at-airport-9614

And here is the BBC one http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-25154220

And the KOS one http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/manston_airport_1_sale_confirmed_as_alastair_welch_appointed_to_turn_its_fortunes_around_1_3058114

And hear the IOTG report http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Ann-Gloag-completes-deal-new-Manston-Airport/story-20241365-detail/story.html

I guess for me the key issue with Manston Airport is their ongoing failures to become environmentally compliant, the main issue being the failure to the work necessary to obtain an environmental permit (EP) from the environment agency. I have posted about this one in the past and here is the link to one of my previous posts about it http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/kent-international-airport-at-manston_10.html

The history of Manston Airport as a commercial airport goes back to the 1960s and frankly it hasn’t been a good history from a commercial point of view, the first commercial operator there Air Ferries floundered in 1968, the picture above is of a DC 4 loading at Manston, Air Ferries operated several out of Manston and most of them left Manston and arrived on runways at other airports, apart from Oscar Golf that flew into some trees on the approach at Frankfurt killing everyone onboard, and Kilo Yankee that flew into a mountain killing everyone onboard.

One of the main snags with Manston is that most air accidents take place near the runway and with Manston the town of Ramsgate sits at the end of the main runway.

The other large snag with Manston in terms safety is that it sits on to of the underground drinking water reservoir.

The main commercial snag for the airport is that it is mostly surrounded by sea so it is a disadvantage in terms of catchment area  compared with rival airports in southeast England.

Obviously no one would build a commercial airport with the disadvantages that Manston has and I think in the past there have been cases where airport operators have bought Manston Airport without understanding these problems.

I think the main difference this time around is that the new airport buyer Ann Gloag has most likely bought the airport while being fully aware of its problems.  

I am inclined to look at this sort of deal along the lines of – if I wasn’t a shop assistant – whether I would consider doing the deal myself.

In this insistence I can’t see how it would be possible to lose money on the deal, in the first instance the southeastern UK is entering a period of major hub airport expansion, either this will involve expanding one of the existing airports or building a new hub airport. This is likely to lead to periods when the existing airports can’t cope with the traffic, so there is a fair chance that in the short to medium term of if not making a profit then at least minimising losses.    

And in the second instance if she can’t make it succeed, either selling it on or splitting the assets and selling must result in a profit. 

More to come on this one, basically dependent on how busy my bookshop is today. 

I guess the underlying question for us locals is would having a successful airport be beneficial to the area?

Obviously as the airport has never been a successful commercial airport, there is a sense that we don’t really know the answer.

Certainly one of the most difficult problems economically is having a large business in the area with one key aspect being total uncertainty about the direction it is going in.   

Manston Airport bought by Ann Gloag

Interesting one this, I believe Ann Gloag Scotland’s richest woman and by all accounts no fool.

My take on the recent commercial history of Manston is that Infratil who are now selling the airport, just didn’t understand the logistics of southern England and viewed Manston’s distance to London and the M25 as though it was in the antipodes, where distances and airport logistics are completely different.

Obviously while Manston was the ideal site for a first world war airbase due to it’s proximity to Europe and the limited range of early aircraft, it doesn’t make an obvious air transport hub.

Since Manson was opened up for civil operations in April 1959 it has a history of different firms failing to run it as a profitable concern. I think the key here has been the airport’s catchment are, mostly sea and there being two major hub airports too close.

So why an astute UK billionaire would buy Manston which is currently loss making to the tune of millions a year, begs some interesting questions.

Will the current boss stay?

Is this the first sage in an asset stripping strategy?

Will the airport now become much busier?

For me the main question though is: Now the airport is in the hands of someone who wants it rather than someone who is trying to get rid of it, will they do the work agreed with The Environment Agency to make it environmentally compliant?

Any one a bit lost on that front, here is the post I did when they pulled out of getting an EP (environmental permit) http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/kent-international-airport-at-manston_10.html

Whose £6.8m, does it include the parkway station at Manston and London to Ramsgate in an hour?

Having an end of the evening trawl of the web I discovered a recent, sometime today Isle of Thanet Gazette web article saying:

“Transport Minister Simon Burns MP will visit Manston Airport tomorrow (Wednesday) to hear Kent County Council's plans to reduce rail travel time between London and Ramsgate to less than one hour.”

It also says:

“Do you have a question you would like the Gazette to ask Simon Burns MP, Paul Carter or Charles Buchanan? If you do, leave a comment in the box below or visit our Facebook or Twitter pages with your suggestions.”

Well there aren’t any comments their on there website, perhaps no one has anything to say on the issue, perhaps no one discovered the article, here’s the link to it http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Transport-minister-visit-Manston-Airport/story-17495420-detail/story.html no comments on their FaceBook thingy either, although frankly I don’t understand FaceBook so perhaps I wasn’t friendly enough.

I can only assume the paper only discovered this today, there doesn’t seem to be anything on the KCC website, the airport website. Doesn’t say anywhere if this is a public meeting.

I don’t really know if this is some sort of oversight, or a done deal, “we invited and informed the local press” type of job.

Who knows, you may even be able to go and ask your own questions, like will they be keeping Ramsgate station?

No mention of our own MPs so I don’t know if they are involved, I don’t think our county councillors have any sort of internet presence, do they?

I am sure there is nothing to concern us locals about here, but I just though I would mention it. With such a huge result to the recent Manston KLM consultation one would have expected someone to say something.

Manston Airport not the end, but perhaps the beginning of the end.

 Looking at the various pro and anti airport, night flights and so on comments that always abound when I post about the airport, I wonder if the message the asking price for Manston, now in the £7m is now very close to the price of agricultural land is hitting home.

 Infratil the airports owners have now said they are considering funding alternative uses for Manston, see http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/121236/infratil-may-consider-investment-in-british-airports

 With the old Hoverport at Pegwell set to turn into a hovercraft museum, see http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Hoverport-Pegwell-Bay-museum/story-17381039-detail/story.html perhaps some sort aircraft museum is the way to go.

We certainly have plenty of aviation history in the area and it is increasingly looking as though Thanet’s economy is moving towards a day out and short break tourism based economy, particularly in the realms of art. 

The airport today covers about 700 acres this is about £70,000 per acre compared with the average price of farmland in the southeast of about £50,000 per acre, with Manston losing about £2,000,000 the sums are not that difficult. 

KLM Air France To Fly From Manston

I have just put up the press release about this see http://thanetpress.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/klm-royal-dutch-airlines-connects-kent.html and will do my best to explain the whys and wherefores.

I think the main reason for this is that KLM Royal Dutch Airlines which is also Air France at the top of the company, has no main airport hub in the UK.

I think they are unable to compete with British Airways for flight slots at Heathrow so have gone down the road of ferrying passengers from regional airports to their main hub airports in Amsterdam and Paris.

They are already using 17 departure points in the UK: Aberdeen, Bristol, Birmingham, Cardiff, Durham-Tees Valley, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Humberside, Inverness, Leeds-Bradford, London City, London Heathrow, Manchester, Manston, Newcastle, Norwich and Southampton.

So I don’t think this heralds the start of a huge expansion of Manston Airport by a major operator, on the other hand it does look as though it may finally be something viable and useful to the local economy from Manston Airport.

Manston operator Infratil has reported a loss of Aus$17 million for the six months to September, after it wrote down the value of its British Airports and other assets.

Last year the company posted a Aus$50m surplus for the same period.

So I would guess they have an even stronger imperative to get rid of Manston as soon as they reasonably can, as I have said before my main concern here is that they have decided not to get the Manston environmental standards up to the level thrashed out with the Environment Agency, presumably because they don’t want to make the investment in an airport they are trying to sell.

One thing about this issue that I find puzzling it is the online survey getting over 9,000 results. This is manly because I understand web presence and people’s reluctance to fill in online forms, I understand from my own webstats how many people would look at a post about Manston Airport, be likely to go to the airport’s website and fill in a form.

For myself I am hoping this will bring more customers to my bookshop in Ramsgate, this isn’t as far fetched as it sounds as I already have a considerable European customer base..

Incidentally I notice both Clive Hart and Laura Sandys are supporting this on FaceBook and Twitter. 

Trains, planes, boats and aeroplanes, the Thanet transport issues.

 Somewhere around 200 years ago, local history books differ on he exact date, the first paddle steamer arrived in Margate, this predated the railways and provided the first comfortable, economic and reliable means of transport for Londoners to the coast.

In terms of ordinary people this was the beginning of the holiday and modern travel i.e travel that was faster than a horse or subject to the whim of wind direction.

Recently with the coming of the new fast train service and the completion of the Ramsgate end of the duel carriageway to London, the local transport situation has changed.

 Essentially though, apart from some fairly short lived efforts travel beyond Thanet has been a bit sporadic, centred around Manston Airport and Ramsgate Harbour. Looking back over my association with Ramsgate that extends over about the last 45 years, I would say it has been the hovercraft and the Sally line that appeared to have the most positive economic impact on the area.

It is looking increasingly likely that KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, will be starting a service from Manston, as you see from this news article they are holding a dinner in Canterbury http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/could_klm_dinner_in_canterbury_reveal_decision_on_manston_1_1667532 I guess that Canterbury is the economic hub of this part of Kent.

 Apparently 9,066 people have filled out their online form, saying they want their air service from Manston. To me this seems like a very large number of people to fill out an online form.

On the ferry front Transeuropa Ferries who run the ferry service out of Ramsgate have put the following notification on their website:

Due to temporary changes in our fleet we apologise that we are unable to accommodate passengers in wheelchairs.  Customers with walking difficulties should be aware that there are approximately 25 stairs to the passenger facilities. Please note that on the Gardenia there are no separated areas for freight drivers and passengers. Due to the lack of a children’s play area, this ship is not really suitable for young children.
If we experience operational difficulties the schedule may be changed.

 Added to this information Larkspur their main ferry doesn’t seem to have crossed to Belgium recently, producing concerns that there may be problems with what is an increasingly aging fleet.

Obviously the real benefits to Thanet, is having passengers arrive here, passengers and freight that passes straight through only really benefits the people working within the transport industry and indirectly Thanet if they happen to live here. 

 I will try to add to this one.

More Blind Faith in Manston Airport.

Having just watched the bbc lunchtime news, with their interesting article about how many early deaths are caused by living near to airports, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19934804 I thought I had better do something about how this relates to Thanet and particularly to Ramsgate which is under the Manston flight path.

I guess as a local businessman and resident, the airport mostly falls into that bracket where I would like to see some sort decision on what exactly its future regulation will be.

News items like the one today and the airport saying that it wants less stringent water pollution regulation than the plans they thrashed out with the environment agency, are not good for local business. The uncertain and unregulated situation over night flights is unfortunate too.

Now I am not at all sure about the actual damage to local people’s health, either in terms of water pollution or air pollution.

With the water pollution my best guess is trust the environment agency and I don’t see the airport not wanting to pay for the drainage scheme as a good sign.

With this latest airport news story, it certainly isn’t sending out the message to companies; relocate your employees closer to an airport. 

My understanding of the situation with the airport at the moment is that they are trying to get council taxpayers, via KCC, to fund getting a new operator into Manston, which does raise the question of should local councils be funding airport expansion in their area.

I guess so much of this is down to the modern world, particularly with much more transparency form government and big business. A few years ago I would guess a report from Cambridge university http://lae.mit.edu/wordpress2/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/LAE-2012-010-R-v1.pdf saying that living near an airport can shorten your life expectancy, would have been covered up.

Now Londoners have to balance the air pollution caused by having an airport on their doorstep against the extra air pollution caused by people driving to an airport further away. 

Making an informed decision about the various aspects of airport expansion is difficult, one wonders where the balance for Thanet lies between on the one hand airport pollution reducing life expectancy and on the other increased life expectancy associated a higher standard of living caused by airport related prosperity.    

Manston aircraft noise last night

Did anyone get woken up by the 4.34 am landing at Manston last night? It had a noise rating of QC2.

Please note this isn't a pro or anti airport post, but just related to the fact that I seldom know the noise rating for a night flight that I have actually heard.

Here are the flight details
Date 26.09.12
Time 0434 Arr 0609 Dep
Operator/Aircraft
Cargolux B744

Not sure of the date of the picture of Concord at Manston, possibly 1988.      

Friday Ramble, starting with the Councillors Moores Scobie web hack, going on to Manston Airport and stuff.

I am feeling distinctly frail today, a victim of yesterday afternoon and evenings activities brought on by the very hot and humid weather and combined with the aging process.

Anyway before my day off there was a lot of excitement on Thanet Life, see http://birchington.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/facebook-fuddles.html the most controversial aspect of which Simon Moores has now changed with an image editing program.

It is this change that has caused me to mention the post here more than anything else. When Simon first put up the post it had only one image showing a screenshot from Will Scobie’s personal FaceBook wall, promoting his partner as an election candidate.

As Simon was saying that she was also being promoted by Will on the Mayor Margate FaceBook wall I commented:

Michael Child said...

Simon if it was part of a screenshot of http://www.facebook.com/mayor.margate it would say Mayor Margate next to the picture, this is the name of that facebook account.

Part of a screenshot of http://www.facebook.com/willscobie13 which is what you appear to be showing in the picture of will show William Scobie next to the photo.

Of course a full screenshot would show the url anyway.

It would be helpful all round if you could publish a full screenshot to clarify the issue.

2:20 PM   

After this Simon then published part of another screenshot from the Mayor Margate FaceBook wall, what was really unusual about this was it showed the page signed on by the FaceBook account holder.

Now I guess most of us have various internet accounts and know when we are signed on to them we see things that no one else is supposed to be able to see, this could be our bank balance, or it could be pictures of an erotic nature where the participants have moved from using the feather to using the whole chicken, well it could be any number of things, but the point here is that when you sign on to a website to view your private account, you should be the only person who can view the secure pages.

If you came across a screenshot of one of your signed on pages being publicly displayed on someone else’s website I guess you would call this cause for concern.

Accessing the private parts of other people’s websites, is generally called hacking and can occur in a number of different ways including totally by accident.

There are two sides to this coin, one where the hacker deliberately or accidentally hacks someone else’s secure page, whether they recognise that they have hacked the secure pages or not and what they do with the results.

The other side of the coin is the person being hacked, whether by accident or design they caused their private pages to be hacked and what they do with the results.

The simplest way that computers get hacked is that someone leaves a computer that is accessed by more than one person without signing out of their account. Following this, another person may come along and use this computer sometimes not even realising they are signed on to a different account than the one they are usually signed on to.

Another way this can happen is if, as sometimes happens the account holder sets the password and username the same, with something like FaceBook combined with a mobile device and a bit of sunlight it would be quite easy to sign onto someone’s account without even realising that you had. 

Continuing down this particular line of thought, having become signed on to FaceBook you see completely different things depending on who you are signed on as.

It is very difficult to explain this sort of complicated thing to people who either don’t understand sites like FaceBook or worse of all think they do but don’t.

I will try here by going back to my activities yesterday afternoon and evening, the youf of today decided that it would be interesting to take up dingy sailing and as I can sail a dingy, or at least could when I was a youf I tried to explain aspects of sailing an inexpensive dingy (old) in the sea without joining a club (expensive).

For those of you who haven’t taken this particular route in the game of life, the most prevalent disease in Graduate Lane is acute skintitus.

Anyway I managed to borrow a sailing dingy of 1970s vintage and took the youf out for a little sail off Ramsgate yesterday, until weary with the experience, hence my frailty today.

The difficulty with dingy sailing off Ramsgate is basically the current, you need to be certain that you have enough wind so you can sail fast enough to avoid going to Holland, Broadstairs or some other foreign place and the only other dingy I have sailed off of Ramsgate was a different design so with the wind increasing yesterday seemed like a good day.

As a rule of thumb here with the wind blowing sufficiently to cause waves about as high as the sides of the dingy it sails very well indeed.

Having taken all sorts of advice I decided that I did after all warrant the banana and donned my Velvet Underground T-shirt, sorry about the photo.

Anyway back to the hacking business, I think it fair to say that at some point around Wednesday Simon acquired a screenshot of Will’s signed on FaceBook page and published it on his blog.

Thinking of the last post where at least one anonymous commentator seems to be so virulently against Manston airport that he or she is generating more support for the airport than any of the normal pro airport commentators, I did wonder a bit about this hacked screenshot.

Obviously publishing it and the information suggesting that Will has broken rules that he doesn’t appear to have broken, isn’t doing Simon’s credibility much good. So I did wonder if the picture and the information had been sent to Simon with malicious intent towards Simon.   


More likely I think this is likely to have originated from someone ill intent towards Will, who rather like my anti airport anonymous commentator became a bit blinded towards reality by a fanatical approach that they went ott.   


Onto some airport reality, as an interested party in the purchase of the airport myself, I gather that there is now yet another interested purchaser, this time it’s London Oxford Airport Owners, The Reuben Brothers. 


With Balfour Beatty this makes two experienced UK airport operators in the frame.


Of course you will understand that these are just the wild rumours of an ageing shop assistant so you will presumably give them little credence.   

For me the main worry about the airport just now is that the airport operator has applied to The Environment Agency to reduce the environmental controls that were set out and the subject of a major consultation exercise.

These environmental controls were mainly designed to protect Thanet’s drinking water supply and Pegwell Bay with its international wildlife accreditation.

Any airport operator that wishes to make cuts to the safety issues relating to both these issues in order to make the airport more attractive to a potential purchaser, is to my mind hoping to attract the sort of potential purchaser that may be undesirable, so I am glad that these two operators that are already familiar with the stringent UK environmental controls are in the frame.  

I will ramble on here later if I get time and when I have solved certain technical problems that seem to preventing me from publishing pictures from this computer.        

Kent International Airport at Manston, safety issues.

Over on Thanet Life Blog local councillor and aviator Simon Moores is engaged in a dialogue about the chances of a plane crash landing in Ramsgate, see http://birchington.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/winging-it.html this seems to revolve around something like winning the lottery, a game of chance with very long odds.

I guess most of us who live in Ramsgate have seen an aeroplane very low over the town and not behaving completely conventionally, something that the untrained eye would construe an a near miss, but to the expert eye is probably well with in the bounds of safety.   

One way or another it is difficult to avoid some degree of awareness that Ramsgate is a town at the end of the runway and this does involve some element of risk, although quantifying that risk isn’t straightforward.

Obviously the risk of a plane crashing on part of Ramsgate varies dependent on a number of factors, the most obvious one being the number of flights, in the same way that the chances of winning the lottery relates to the number of tickets you buy.

Then there is the guidance equipment, radar and other gadgets, at Manston this has a sort of rather vague and rather bumpy recent history, what the standard of this equipment is at Manston now compared to the standards at the major airports that are being used for comparison, is something that I have lost track of.

There are of course the risks involved with various sorts of pollution, the most prominent recently being night time noise, how this would link to local educational achievement, what sort of amounts of sleep we would lose and how we would function with less sleep.      

My interest in the safety issues at Manston though stems from my concerns about our water supply, this is because the airport sits on top of the local underground drinking water reservoir.

In simple terms, the rain landing at Manston soaks into the ground, and not far under the surface this ground is chalk and this chalk acts like a great big sponge, which stores millions of gallons of water.

At this point Queen Victoria enters the story, history often pops up and often people wish it wouldn’t, in 1835 when the water in Ramsgate was pumped from under the town and most of the town’s sewage soaked into the ground, Victoria contracted a nasty disease here.

I suppose that that the greatest health improvements made by the Victorians related to drainage and drinking water, in simple terms moving the well away from the privy, and during the mid 1800s a sewer was put in here in Ramsgate also a water supply was dug under Manston, the pink bit on the map.

 What they did was to dig a well connected to a tunnel under the chalk which collected the water that was pumped into a large tank on top of a tower, pipes from this tank lead to the taps in people’s homes. 

As you can see from the map the tunnel follows the line of the main runway and is still one of the main sources of our water supply here in Thanet. A supply of water here in the southeast is a difficult thing to maintain and without vast expense we are likely to be reliant on this source for the foreseeable future.

Anyway for some time now I have been making a fuss about the protection of our water supply, funny bit next, some time ago I requested some documents about the local water supply form the council, and one of the ones they sent me had been copied from where I had published it on the internet previously, this made me chuckle and I wondered who else they had sent it to with all my links to the documents included, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/drink/id39.htm

Anyway the airport, council and environment agency behaved very responsibly about the drainage issues at the airport, held a public consultation, which I responded to, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/fish-chips-and-antifreeze-manston.html and http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/kent-international-airport-drainage.html well you know me there will be loads of it, mostly boring unless you drink the tap water here in Thanet, or worse than that pay the water bill. If you don’t fall into this bracket I would stop reading now.

The net result of all this was that the airport, environment agency, council and other interested parties thrashed out a plan to protect our drinking water supply, which unless there was some sort of unlikely aviation accident, resulting in a large fuel spillage on the green part of the airport, protected the local water supply quite well.

There was of course one big snag, isn’t there always, this was the airport had to pay for some fairly expensive pluming modifications, fortunately the owners Infratil are a very wealthy and very large company “down Under” so they said “no worries mate” “we won’t pee in your swimming pool if you don’t swim in our toilet” in fact all of the things one would expect and hope for.

Anyway now those nice people at Infratil have said that they don’t want to spend the money because they are selling the airport, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/kent-international-airport-at-manston.html so they will be providing a new plan, which won’t be so good, or so expensive. Something along the lines of we will only pee on your pool a little bit, but we don’t mind if you take the occasional dip in our toilet, I think.               

Kent International Airport at Manston to reduce environmental safeguards.

I think this is self explanatory.

As someone who either responded to our Environmental Permit (EP) application consultation or attended our public meeting in 2011, I thought it would be helpful to update you on our progress given that Infratil have recently put the airport up for sale.

The original EP application that we consulted on during 2010/11 was formally withdrawn by Infratil on 13 March 2012. However, Infratil have committed to providing us with a revised EP application which is more economically viable but still satisfies the key environmental risks posed at the airport from de-icers, etc that were covered in the original consultation.

Clearly, this is disappointing for us as a regulator, Infratil and the local community but I'm sure you will understand that global trading conditions for the aviation industry have changed dramatically since our original consultation period began.

In the interim, we are continuing to work with Infratil to offer advice and guidance on their revised EP application with a site meeting scheduled during April. We are also reviewing our regulatory enforcement options for the site given that the risks remain with or without a current EP in place.

Once the new application has been received we will go through a full public consultation and involve you and the local community.

Please feel free to share this information with your local community. If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Regards.
Alan

Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/EnvAgencySE
P Here at the Environment Agency we've used nearly a quarter less office paper compared to last year. The paper saved so far would build a stack as high as the Eiffel Tower. Please play your part - if you only need something once, avoid printing it

Manston Airport goes up for sale again.

No surprises here really, but I thought I would do a post about it as I guess people will want to have their say about it and the UK media doesn’t seem to have included the views of the Infratil who actually own the airport.

I suppose this has been a sort of open secret for about a month now when I asked Charles Buchanan if the airport was up for sale the other day, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2012/02/kent-international-airport-at-manston.html he didn’t deny it.

This is what Steve Fitzgerald of Infratil, the parent investment company has to say about why they are pulling out of Manston.

“• London/South-East growth forecasts revised down – putting back by several years the point where Manston capacity is required

• UK airlines are consolidating and trimming capacity

• Freight growth insufficient to support investment case alone

• More suited to private investors or players bringing property/logistics/airline synergies”

Infratil Investor CEO Marko Bogoievski says

“Confidence enables “no-regret” decisions to be executed… Sale of underperforming assets – e.g. Prestwick/Kent”

I would guess this makes a bit of a nonsense of the night flights issue as any negotiations would depend on the buyer, which could be anything from a passenger airline to a property investor.


Anyway I suppose the important thing here is that Infratil have made it very clear that they have no commitment to Manston, so we have a where do we go from here situation.


Of course the sad part of the story may be job losses at the airport and I would guess from their tone that if Infratil can’t sell it quickly as an operating airport, they won’t continue subsidising it as loss making one for very long.

There are problems peculiar to the Manston site that give it disadvantages both in terms development and as an airport.

The drinking water issue, which means that drainage regulations are fairly strict and as it acts as one of the main parts of the rainwater catchment, development options may be limited.

There is the surrounding catchment area for any business, the majority of which is sea, on the whole sea life haven’t yet evolved into good customers, perhaps if the kraken wakes there may be a short period where demand for fishing equipment increases before Armageddon, who knows.

There are the high population densities, with associated tourist dependant economies at each end of the main runway, making low employment and high air traffic operations hard to justify.    

Blind Faith in Manston Airport

It’s a wet Sunday afternoon, so I though I would inject a little frivolity into a serious issue. The picture may enlarge if you click on it and possibly enlarge again if you click on the enlarged image

Night Flights Consultation Response.

A busy day in a busy week for me and with the school day just finished I have submitted my response to the night flights consultation, all responses have to be submitted by the end of today which gives you about eight hours if you want to respond.

On this one I see the council as being in negotiation with the airport and what the airport is asking for I consider to be unreasonable. I have looked for and not seen any sensible argument supporting the airports position so I have responded against it.

I have considerable reservations that what the airport is asking for would actually be beneficial to airport employees, or those like me who are broadly supportive of the airport.

So below is my response, which I don’t suppose will please either the anti or pro night flights lobby that much.    

Night Flights Consultation Response

I should like to object to both to allowing night flights and the reduction of the length of the nighttime period as proposed by the airport.

My main grounds for this objection is that any increase in night flights has a cost in terms of the resultant disruption to sleep, which is likely to cause damage to other parts of the local economy, particularly tourism and housing and that what the airport are asking for has no related scale of offsetting any benefits. 

The terms of any night flying agreement must ensure a reasonable increase in the local economy due to having a prosperous airport. Aviation related jobs, tourism related to having a thriving airport.

It is therefore important that any future agreement between the council and the airport that increases the airports environmental impact ensures there is payback in terms of airport expansion and jobs.

The main weakness in what the airport is asking for is that there is no relationship between any of the extra nighttime activity and actual daytime activity and the resultant economic benefits.

Were the worst aspects of what the airport are asking for to be implemented in isolation this would result in about two disruptive flights per night, producing overtime for eight daytime employees, at the very best providing two or three extra jobs.

Obviously the council’s remit here should be both to protect the environment of local people and support the expansion of local businesses including the airport in a way that best improves the local economy, while striving to achieve the best possible environment, for local people and visitors.   

The airport base their nighttime flying requirements on Manston becoming a major airport and not a small regional airport and are therefore asking for an amount of noise disruption, that is either roughly similar to or in excess of that allowed by the other major airports in southern England, Gatwick and Heathrow. The difference however is that while Gatwick and Heathrow are major contributors to the economy of their surrounding areas Manston is not.

I would suggest that any increase in night movements of aircraft is related to the amount of actual day movements achieved by Manston Airport, with an added factor for expansion.

Perhaps if Manston were allowed approximately double the proportion of night to day flights that Gatwick and Heathrow are allowed, tapering down to an equal amount when and if the expansion the operator expects occurs, this would allow them a more favorable economic climate, while ensuring the environmental negatives were compensated for by economic benefits to the local community. 

Within the documentation there are differences between the consulted experts opinions about the actual noise levels, in layman’s terms this appears to equate the airport’s experts saying that the night flights they want would cause minimal disruption to sleep and the council’s experts saying the disruption would be considerable.

From the public consultation point of view it isn’t possible to form a proper opinion about this, because of the disagreement between experts.

People locally have very little actual experience of aircraft noise caused by a significant and regular volume of passenger and freight traffic, as this hasn’t occurred at the airport during the last 45 years, in fact since Air Ferry went into administration.

Operation at the airport has been sporadic making it very difficult to ascertain what the sound would actually be like at night, occasional aircraft movements late in the evening early in the morning, combined with the occasional night movement suggest that what the airport are asking for would be disruptive.

As it would seem likely that this issue will go to further public consultation, when the council has consolidated its legal advice and the issue either becomes a planning application or revised 106 agreement.

It would be helpful to the public to have access to information about planes actually flying, how the fit into the quota count and if particularly noisy if they would be allowed to fly at night. 

To expand on this, if a plane overflies Ramsgate landing or taking off from Manston, at the moment, people have no obvious way of telling what it is, although this is the only way they can tell how loud it is.

If the council or the airport were to publish the information about recent flights, on one of their websites then local people could make much more informed feedback.

There is also the added factor that Ramsgate is particularly unsuitable for high levels of night time aircraft noise due to the high concentration of listed buildings, my understanding that these would either be very expensive or impossible to effectively insulate against noise.

Were the council to consider allowing night flights I would hope that they would commission a report into how this problem could be solved.

Please send me a confirmation that you have received this email.    

Kent International Airport at Manston, Night Flights Consultation Ends This Week.

I still haven’t responded to this consultation, mainly because I am a bit uncertain about what it is that the airport are asking for, so this morning I had a long chat with Charles Buchanan who runs the airport.

I put a series of questions to him, which I will run through first and then try to give a general picture of what he had to say. I will do my best not to misquote him and try and convey a general and concise picture of what he had to say. 

1 Would you consider accepting a similar ratio of night flights today time flights as that enjoyed by Heathrow and Gatwick? Answer, no.

2 Would you consider running a test week where you have the maximum number of night flights you are asking for, so we can tell what we would actually get in terms of sleep disruption? Answer, not practical.

3 There has been some suggestion that the 106 agreement may not actually be a legal document and that some locals may be going to challenge its validity in the courts, do you have any views on this? Answer, I view it as a valid and legal agreement with the council.

4 Presumably if the 106 proved to be invalid then the previous section 52 would come into effect, any idea what the terms of this are? If you have a copy perhaps you could send it to me. Answer not applicable as I view the 106 as valid. 

5 My guess is that the only medium term viable expansion of the airport would be as a mixture of a historic aircraft centre and small regional airport, in other words if you continue to subsidise it at a six figure level you might just as well do something popular as unpopular, any thoughts on this? Answer, although the existing historic aircraft attractions at Manston are something the airport is happy to support I don’t consider this area could be significant in generating a profitable and viable airport.

6 I can only find the Manson monthly operational reports up to September on the Infratil website, are they being withheld for any reason? If not could you send me copies? Answer, These are provided as shareholder information by the investment company, which isn’t my remit, that said I will find out and supply them if possible.

7 Is it your intention to move to operating a freight only airport, or an airport based around freight? Answer, no the intention is to create a balanced passenger and freight airport, although I would expect there to be times during the expansion period when on or another aspect will expand faster. 

8 It says on your website that responses to the consultation may be sent to TDC, does this mean that the consultation on your website is different to the council’s? Answer. No this is the same consultation.

9 What proportion of responses are you sending to the council? Answer. All of the responses will be sent on to the council.

10 Are you only sending responses that are for night flights? Answer, no

Could you give a layman’s explanation of the maximum amount of night time flying you are asking for in terms of types and amounts of planes? I. E. how many 747s and when. Answer. It is important to understand that this is a quota system, where more nosier planes count the same as less quieter planes, so it isn’t possible to give a precise answer.

Could you give a layman’s explanation of what you would expect to be a noisy week based on what you would actually expect to be flying assuming the airport was running profitably? Answer (I think I have got this right but my notes are not as good as I hoped here) about two movements a night.

I have heard now from three different sources that you are engaged in trying to sell the airport to a Middle Eastern operator, is this true? Answer No

Are Infratil trying to sell the airport? Answer, this is not my remit but that of the investment company Infratil.

I have also heard that Flybee pulled out, not because they were unhappy with

Manson, but because Infratil wouldn’t make the investment in facilities there that they wanted, is there any truth in this? Answer No

That is the bones of the thing and in my defence if I have muddled the thing up I did send the questions to Charles by email and it was his idea to have a chat about them rather than just answer them by email.

I will now try to put across what we discussed as I get time so I hope to get all of this post finished by early evening.

In a general sense I would

say that Charles sees the airport as being beneficial to Thanet and being a

main driving force in getting visitors here and boosting the local tourist

economy. 

His big hope is to get

an airline to operate in a serious way from Manston.

You also have to appreciate

that I am not anti airport, in a general sense when I hear a plane come over,

my reaction is to grab my camera not complain about the noise, so this wasn’t a

hostile discussion.

With the night flights

issue, my problem is that we just don’t know what night flights would be like

in terms of sleep disruption, because we haven’t ever experienced them.

In a more general sense we have never experienced

having a busy operational airport here, but the consultation is about night

flights, so I will try to stick to the thread.  

I would say that his

main take on the night flights situation is that at the moment there is no real

regulation and that if night flights are not part of a regular time table, then

they are pretty much unregulated.

What he says he wants

in terms of night flights is a consistent allowance that would allow him to operate

a viable business in a predictable way.

I would view this as a

budget regulating how much inconvenience he is allowed to give local people and

in return for this the airport offers the possibility of some economic benefits.

Something I did find interesting was that Charles seemed surprised that people had moved here unaware that there was an airport operating close by. I have lived here on and off since about 1967 and I don’t recall aircraft operations being a major factor in local life apart from the recent training flights.

I guess since Air Ferry, the first airline to operate from Manston, failed in 1967, use of the airport has been sporadic and locals haven’t ever considered it that seriously.   

Some of this is about perception I may have got this wrong, but I but I got the impression that Charles had the impression that local people were in some way used to having a busy airport here and therefore knew what to expect.