Friday, July 06, 2007

No. 10 Dream

Hurrah! My petition to Our Gordon Master to instruct The Uranians to enter into a proper agreement with Infartil, the owners of RAF London Kent Ramsgate Manston International Airport, has been approved by No. 10!

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not against the airport as such. If people want to maintain aircraft, fly to Benidorm, park their Lear Jets, or just chug around all day in teeny-tiny planes tugging banners, that's fine by me.

But when it comes to knackered old jumbo jets flying round and round in circles every Saturday and Sunday, blasting the roof tiles off my cliff top mansion, enough is enough. The latest corporate plan from Thanet District Council makes developing the airport a key priority. Great. But without a formal agreement in place to regulate its use, and impose penalties for taking the proverbial? Not great.

Of course, the usual response by the Blue Rinsers who run our island whenever someone with a few bob comes along is to roll on their backs and purr. Let's hope this petition gives them the prod they need to get amongst the pigeons!

Just click on this link and it'll take you to the petition on the Downing Street website.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

How do we sign it?

Richard Eastcliff said...

Just click on the link and it'll take you to the petition on the Downing Street website. Just follow the instructions from there.

Anonymous said...

If you dont like it move somewhere else

Anonymous said...

5-25pm....It won't help, you'll get Lord Simes & his part time pilots? buzzing overhead, in their tiny-teeny -planes, causing all sorts of noise pollution etc & then throwing their toys out of their prams if anyone complains.

Tony Flaig said...

have you considered relocating to a town that does not have an airport on its doorstep

Anonymous said...

Blimey, if we don't like something we have to move to another town. That's a bit harsh isn't it?

If you don't like planning blight, dereliction, unemployment, excess noise, undeveloped building sites, abandoned pleasure parks - well tough, that's what Thanet is so like it or leave?

You've an uphill struggle here ECR, apparently trying to improve your locality is a mortal sin...

(too scared to sign in case the mob comes with burning torches and a large wicker effigy)

Lucy Mail said...

Only if you're a virgin, anonymous.

Richard Eastcliff said...

So, Tony old chum, you're all for rampant, unrestricted development at Manston are you? Night flights, training flights every ten minutes, bring it on?

What is it about the airport that you're so attached to? Is it a nostalgia thing? Is it because you somehow imagine it's the future?

Why should I have to move because the council haven't got the guts to enforce some common sense restrictions, restrictions that apply to just about every other commercial airport I can think of, including Heathrow?

Richard Eastcliff said...

Oh, hello Lucy! You're here too!

Anonymous said...

Can the last one to leave put out the lights?

Anonymous said...

Only 8 at the moment have signed, I think you are losing ECR

Richard Eastcliff said...

It's open to sign for the next six months Tony, and I haven't even begun to get my publicity machine into gear yet!

Out of a town of 40,000 people, of whom, say, 30,000 are eligible to vote, I'd say even a few hundred would be significant. After all, it only takes a few hundred to elect a councillor, and it only took a few thousand to get our own teeny-tiny council.

So, early days, but the campaign war chest is already filling up. Most of it is loose foreign change, but it's definitely filling up!

Anonymous said...

A few hundred out of 30,000 significant - er- I don't think so!

Richard Eastcliff said...

It's not an election Tony, it's a petition. But if you want to talk elections, let's do that.

In the local election in May, 27,296 people in Thanet voted for the Tories out of an electorate of 97,723.

That's around 28%. Which means, by my reckoning, 72% of the people around here are being dictated to by a minority.

In the wards directly affected by these training flights, the percentage of the electorate voting Tory was even less, around 20%.

So only 1 in 5 of the people whose lives are being blighted by the council's roll-over-and-die policy towards the airport have actually voted for it.

Now that's what I call significant.

Anonymous said...

And surprise surprise now the powerboat weekend is over the bloody training flights are back.