Saturday, July 21, 2007

Manston In A Spin

I see this week's Isle of Thanet Gazunder carries a full page puff for RAF London Kent Ramsgate Manston International Airport in the form of an interview with the airport manager, 28 year old Matt Clarke. Mr Clarke's clearly rattled by my petition to No. 10 Downing Street to improve the regulation of the airport, as his first para reads:

My role covers a wide variety of aspects including responsibility for the airport and staff safety. This involves compliance with all aviation rules, council regulations and noise abatement laws.

Yeah, right. Elsewhere the paper reports that in June this year there were 100 heavy training circuits over the course of five days. Anyway, I'm sure that supporters (Tony) of the non-stop, oozalum style training flights will chime in here with the usual pro-noise and pro-air pollution arguments.

And speaking of puffs, I've just nipped back from Pride over in Margate, before, er, nipping back again. A word of warning though. The closure of Marine Drive appears to have had quite a knock-on effect on the Ile's roads, which are more bunged up than Melvyn Bragg with a bad head cold, especially around Westworld Chaos. I think I'm going to have to jump in my millionaire chum's Sunseeker for the trip back!

10 comments:

ZumiWeb said...

Careful, you'll get a "if you don't like then leave your home" post next. Wanting to improve your environment is not acceptable to some . . . you should have know the local environment had issues when you moved here / were born / evolved. Apparently.

Anonymous said...

100 circuits at a reported £400 a time, £40,000, can't be bad.
I cannot recall saying I'm pro-noise and pro-pollution, just that the noise you mention does not bother me, and the pollution you claim does not register on the air quality sites.
Still only 16 at this time.

Richard Eastcliff said...

You're not wrong, Zoomster. Of course I knew there was an airport here when I moved to the old CTM, what wasn't explicit at that point was the catastrophic and unprecedented increase in heavy training flights.

All the support for these flights comes from those in the north of the island who are unaffected. Apart from Tony, that is!

Speak of the devil!

Anonymous said...

Woo-hoo! £40,000! Thanet's boat really has come in!

Anonymous said...

anon 4:06 not really, but it does pay someone's wages instead taking your taxes on the dole.

Anonymous said...

I remember a previous comment, saying they improved safety
for the travelling public.
so why can't we have an anti-aircraft gun on the east cliff
just in case there’s another war, then we could practice at the
same time.
Thus killing to birds with one stone

Anonymous said...

Least the noisy flights almost drowns out the two guys that regulaly play their very loud repetative Sing a long Karokee music at Broadstairs Bandstand on week day afternoons...

Anonymous said...

Never mind anonymous - the Broadstairs Folk Week will soon be here! Free entertainment every afternoon at the bandstand for a whole week and usually of a very good standard

Tony Flaig said...

(not the earlier tony although I have to agree.)

It looks as if you have started an avalanche of indifference Mr. Eastcliff Richard and furthermore I would imagine that Gordon Brown is being briefed on an hourly basis.
One can only imagine what the tension is like, inside downing street, as the numbers begin to grow almost on a weekly basis. Right now I believe in the numbers of signatories has climbed to the dizzy heights of 16.

It is frightening to realise just how many, Thanetonians have been oblivious to the presence of Manston over the years.

Richard Eastcliff said...

Sigh. Yet another north sider who couldn't care less about the Ile's premier town.

Funny that. The only two people who have commented in support of Manston so far are both called Tony, and both come from the north side. Well, er, one of them does. Not sure about the 'mystery' Tony. Probably a Westgater!