I'm publishing this map for the benefit of the Blue Rinser for Norf Fannit, Sir Roger Wind, who yesterday told the House of Commons this:Fifty miles from where Boris wants to put his island is Manston. Manston has one of the longest runways in the country, and its take-offs and landings are currently, and will remain, over the sea.
Wrong Rodge! The runway is roughly where I've parked my Bentley Continental Flying Toss on the map above. Presumably you haven't noticed in the 78 years you've been the Horrible Member for Thanet North that there's quite an attractive Victorian seaside town, with reputedly more listed buildings than Bath, before you get to the sea, just to the right of my front bumper. It's called 'Ramsgate'. Or don't you venture down to the Millionaires' Playground that often? Really! First that ruddy-faced man from Kent Council, then the peroxide Mayor of London, and now one of the island's own MPs who should know better!
Sir Wind continued to bluster on in a similar vein:
You'd think that my colleague Mrs. Laura Sandys, who represents the Conservative interest in South Thanet and will, I trust, be its next Member of Parliament, and I oppose the creation of a hub airport—a London airport—at Manston... Yes Roger, I would. I really would! - Ed. However, we believe that as a regional airport Manston has a great deal to offer the south-east, via Gatwick to Heathrow, and to the wider United Kingdom. We see the potential within the next three years for creating London’s Olympic airport. We have the opportunity, if we choose to seize it now — and it must be now — to ring-fence Manston. It is potentially the most secure airfield in the country. It would offer a complete, secure package for the coming and going of all those taking part in the Olympics and those who wish to watch them, and it is on the right side of London.
Olympic Airport? Putting a large fence around it? Has Roger finally lost the plot as well as the map? And would that be the Laura Sandys who goes around telling everyone the island 'has natural beauty, unique architecture and great historical significance. Combine our grand history with our green environment and we can play to our strengths instead of our weaknesses'?
If want to read more of this tosh, click here to go to Hansard
55 comments:
What, you approve of lies Peter?
I don't think Gale's constituents in herne bay will be very pleased. Manston flights annoy them as well.
Does he still think Thanet is an island, is that where the confusion come from?
'For the benefit of the area'?. he doesn't actually say how it will benefit the area. Only a load of tosh that he hopes will get him a bit of publicity now the whole 'third runway/estuary airport/regional airport thing is topical.
Is this the same Laura Sandys who puts out how green she is and always has been but then says how wonderful it is to expand the airport that would be, if she's elected, leading to planes flying over what she currently refers to as 'my constituency' day and night. This is the candidate who puts out leaflets so full of out-of-date information that I wonder she wastes her party's money. She is the candidate who tried to get selected for a goodly number of seats before she landed this one. Were they blinded by her connections to the establishment?
The biggest problem with Manston airport is it’s right in the middle of the underground water reservoir that we just can’t do without and if we get a fuel spillage, caused by an air accident, on the green part of the airfield, the contaminated soil has to be dug out before it soaks down and permanently damages the aquifer.
The Airport has a digger standing by for this purpose, without prompt action it’s no agriculture in Thanet and no Thanet Earth, lots of hosepipe bans in the summer and increased water bills.
The digger contingency plan isn’t adequate for larger planes, in fact I doubt it is adequate for the current traffic. In the case of an air accident, which is though to be caused by criminal or terrorist activity, or where people are killed it seems very unlikely that the police or air accident authority would allow them to dig up the evidence on the site. With out an answer to this one I can’t see how there can be any airport expansion.
Can I just make it clear that I think the kind of expansion Boris, Roger, Laura, Sandy, Laura and Sandy, Laura Sandys, Paul and the entire cohort of Tory (and Labour for that matter) duffers seem to be espousing for Manston is based on the utterly false premise that there is nothing under the flight path.
If they have to lie make their case, then it must be a pretty poor case mustn't it?
BTW I have never said I was against C'n'D International and the current level of flights. Even a bit of an increase wouldn't affect me too much. However, the kind of expansion they are talking about would bring the number of flights to the kind of level that we were experiencing here in the Millionaires' Playground when that knackered old MK jumbo was going round and round on its training flights for hours on end. That really was unbearable. A 400 tonne lump of aluminium roraring 500 feet over your head every eight minutes? You would have to be completely off your chump NOT to object to that!
I think it's time that politicians focussed on the things they can do and the things they know about, rather than trying to involve themselves in things that are beyond their capacity to understand. It really doesn't matter what Roger Gale says about Manston, it is a commercial failure and will continue to be so. If Roger and his mates think the airport is a great idea they should put their own money into it. What they shouldn't be doing is misusing their political position to try to get public (our) money poured into this white elephant.
As Roger Gale lives out at Preston, the one near Stourmouth not the Lancashire one or any of the other Prestons around, he's unlikely to be disturbed by planes going over his head all day or night. Perhaps we could try to get the flight path changed then he might feel differently.
When I taught in a school in Ramsgate I had to stop talking whenever a plane went over as my voice was completely drowned out by the low-flying aircraft. If it ends up like Heathrow or Gatwick the schools will have to be re-located along with the residents of Ramsgate, Broadstairs (they do fly over here occasionally) and the rest of Thanet.
Teach the junior Chavs to lip read and stop whinging.
I am on the airport working party and would welcome views. I will write a piece at some stage. Thanks for the info. At the moment I'm roughly with your 4.38 posting ER.
Its never going to happen.
Lets concentrate on something else.
Heathrow is the only viable choice because it is a HUB. Nobody flies from Manston now. What makes anybody think people will fly from here in the future? Just chill out and think about something else.
The flights that fly over head are a nightmare now. But they will decrease as there is over capacity in airports in the South east now (both in passenger and freight terms). Manston is not an option in the future because IT IS MILES AWAY FROM ANYWHERE. It may be big news for Thanet residents but everybody involved in air travel already knows Manston is there and are ignoring it because IT IS MILES AWAY FROM ANYWHERE. Now go and enjoy your tea and lets concentrate on things that will lift the area like making Ramsgate a fantastic place to live.
Roger Gale in being an idiotic, embarassing, ignorant spacker, shocker
Sir Roger Fartarse lost the plot on virtually everything years ago. Apart from how to keep his bank account overflowing with milk and honey by employing his wife as his parliamentary director. Nice work if you can get it...
Anyway, it'll be much easier for the old pair - Sir and Lady FA, not Lady's... - to get to their home in France if they can have flights from Thanet South's doorstep.
Peter, not wishing to resort to name calling, but you really are a fool
Cllr Nottingham, we are firmly against ANY flights at Manston for any heavy aircraft. The airport cannot work with restrictions. It is not sustainable at its current operational levels.
If you are on the airport committee, email us please and let us know what your ideas are.
Can someone tell me if Smeg is a troll / satirical pseudo pressure group?
Why would anyone who has any grasp of post-1980 english choose a name that means dried semen?
Have none of your Smeg heads not heard of Red Dwarf?
If not, do you have a real claim to to have your smeggy fingers on the pulse of Thanet?
Only in a region in which a mentalist with a history of strange employment practices gets voted in as an MP and a nauseating, inarticulate thug of a punchy old shit carpet seller could some nut nuts sit around and decide to name their pressure group after stale cum.
Well I guess you must be from somewhere even more backward 'Rebecca', 'cos the joke certainly seems to have been lost on you.
Still, nice of you to drop in at such a late hour when my Moores-o-tron® Trail of Breadcrumbs Detector is at its most effective!
Manston is NOT MILES AWAY FROM ANYWHERE - at least not if you live in Thanet, Dover or Canterbury.It is certainly as close to London as an airport out in the sea would be and probably more accessible. I think few locals would object if we had a similar service to EUjet with those lovely quiet aeroplanes but it is the heavy late night freighters and the training flights which are unbearable.
Like I say. It is MILES AWAY FROM ANYWHERE.
Can we all REFRAIN FROM SHOUTING please? My deaf aid's blown a fuse!
Rebecca, I am not originally from round these parts, so my mentalism must be from the water elsewhere. I have watched red dwarf. I run our orgainisation, so i am referred to as the 'Smeg head'.
Pete, I have a real job as well as writing my blog. A fool is someone who is deficient in judgement, sense or understanding. Naked ladies or not, that describes you perfectly when it comes to what manston means to the people of ramsgate.
Millicent. The danger that some shit-pot airline like eu jet comes along, gives the local council a hard-on, and has to give away flights before it folds is a distinct possibility. We should not waste time, money, energy on such folly.
Airport operators cannot work with restrictions. They want it all- 24hr ops, no plane type or cargo restrictions, and they want you and I to pay for the transport links to it. Anything else is a compromise for them
What do we get? We save a couple of hours getting to gatwick once a year and planes at all hours.
There is a very obvious downside to supporting any development at manston
I am going to say this only once because he doesn't merit the mindspace. Anybody who thinks that taking photographs of naked women elevates him in society is lower than a fool.
Airport operators do work with restrictions, they exist at all airports so to say so otherwise is incorrect. With regard to 24hr ops this is how it goes at Gatwick, or did during my 14 years of service there (I left in 2004). Times are approximate - early morning from around 05:00 to 08:30 most long haul flights arrive. Between 08:30 and 16:00 most shorthaul EU flights arrive as well as domestic, from 16:00 to 19:00 long haul flights depart. 19:00 to 23:00 occasional short haul EU arrivals/departures. Rest of the time, i.e. 23:00 to 05:00 nothing bar the post flight to the Channel Islands. Regarding cargo, this was always a sideline the airport authority didn't seem that interested in. Transport links, airport workers used to have subsidised rail travel paid for by the airport operator.
"when it comes to what manston means to the people of ramsgate."
S.M.E.G. (or Steve), so once again you claim to know what the people of Ramsgate think, and the proof is?
Mr. Nottingham says he is on the airport working party. Isn't this a bit of a contradiction in terms? The airport hasn't worked for years (and neither has our Council).
P.S. What is this Checksfield guy going on about photographing young women for? Doesn't he know that ,these days, they lock dirty old men up for less? Does anyone (outside Planet Thanet) actually boast about such activities any more?
If bringing more aircraft to Manston brings better ground transport links to Thanet and east Kent, then I'm in favour.
Allegedly, there will be faster trains from Ramsgate to London by the year's end - long overdue I hasten to add - but where I live in Whitstable is unlikely to benefit. It will still take about 80 minutes to get to Victoria and vice versa on the slower rattlers.
If rail infrastructure is the key thing to bring more flights to Manston, then surely it's a relatively easy slice of cake to build a new station somewhere on the existing railway line between Minster and Cliffsend?
If you don't believe me, take a look at a decent road or OS map - the line isn't more than short airport bus ride from the runway and terminal building. About the same distance you might have to endure at Gatwick or Thiefrow. A Javelin train can do the distance, non stop in about an hour to central London?
The point of Manston is as one person has already said, loudly, it is already there. Some tarting up and additional rail connections will go a long way to making this dream/nightmare a reality.
Tony, you are correct. I am not in a position to talk for all in Ramsgate, as I have not asked them all.
But neither has the council, so we are in good company.
However, we very much intend to get more opinion than they ever have by leafleting every house in Ramsgate, followed by some petition-gathering in affected towns.
You can look at our inbox if you want Tony. Full of objections to the airport. I take it that everyone in Ramsgate is against the airport. Its how Paul Carter works, why shouldn't we?
Pete, we are firmly in the camp that if you support expansion you either do not realise what is coming, or are barking mad. Its just you who is the fool.
5.21, thank you for pointing out that Gatwick has restrictions which are monitored, enforced etc. Manston has no such luxury, otherwise night flights would not have increased 518% (source:Infratil) since the current owners came on board.
Peter you are a loser.
Anybody with any O levels is against Manston expansion.
S.M.E.G. if you do do a poll I hope all those that dis-agree with you will not be labelled, by yourself, as 'fools' or 'barking mad', as directed at Peter (not Pete). After all everybody is entitled to their own opinion, correct?
S.M.E.G.
"Manston has no such luxury, otherwise night flights would not have increased 518% (source:Infratil)"
Percentages mean nothing, ie: one night flight one year, then six night flights the following year equals 600%. Very few over the year. Now can you tell us in figures how many night flights took place in 2007 or 2008?
Night flights. 11 in 2005. 57 in 2008.
And they are your own figures.
The only poll we are after is an official one. You set your own blog up if you want one.
Pete, only one of us is alone mate, and we know who that is.
Tony - you been away anywhere? Not heard from you for a while.
Hello S.M.E.G. (Rather call you Steve, smeg sounds like an insult), no I have not been anywhere, it's just when bloggers like yourself claim to speak for me (as in Ramsgatonian) that compels me to make a comment. I don't know why you claim they are my figures because I have no idea how many night flights took place, and I must agree with Peter, 57 seems very few to get upset about.
As for doing my own blog I have not got the incentive to do one, at the moment, but if I did I hope I would not put people down as you do with Peter (not Pete).
I can see the arguments for and against a fully commercial use of Manston Airport. These sorts of developments are sensitive and need careful consideration and debate. At the moment, that is not happening - both "sides" are doing no more than sling mud at each other.
As the "new kid on the block", SMEG, I would strongly suggest you concentrate on setting out the arguments against with as much fact and informed background as you can, so as to persuade and influence the undecideds. You need to find a way to challenge and respond to those opposing you without antagonising and insulting them. Just now, I fear you might tilt more undecideds across to the pro camp. That does democracy and community interest no good at all.
Typing slip. Their own figures.
One nights disturbed sleep a week for families, who have members away for work for 14 hours a day does not make for a pleasant lifestyle. Children being awoken after 10pm on a school night. These are the stories we are getting from east Kent residents.
This growth is unstainable and a major concern - overall flights have only grown 19% in the same time.
Tony, pete is quite happy to encourage the lies about manston our local politicos spout, and contradict himself with his green credentials. If he gets sensitive about getting negative comments, he needs to give up or thicken his skin. Either way, I am sure he would be happy you are sticking up for him.
8.58, plenty of facts on our postings, nothing but. Same on our blog. The mud slinging is only in response to outrageous continual comment from pete and don, who both seem to have sniffed too much kerosene during their love affair with all things aviation. Serious issues call for serious debate and these two are not serious. We take what you say onboard, and won't be engaging them again.
I ask other, anti- airport posters to counter their nonsense though please.
Gods sake thickos, 57 a year now before expansion! Don't you think it will increase if it becomes a major commercial airport? The point that has gone whizzing over your heads is that the restrictions are non existent!
If you all got jobs and spent less time festering in your slummy bedsits bleating on like the unempoyled Fannit slack jaws that you are, this place would not be the backwards hole it is today.
The voices made me say that.
S.M.E.G. "forgot" to mention something here. A "night flight" is simply a flight in the dark, so it could easily be at 6 PM at this time of the year.
Blimey don't people go on! Bear in mind that the runway at Manston is 10 and 28, i.e. pretty much east to west. With the prevailing westerly winds, they use 28 more than 10 (i.e. landing over Ramsgate rather than taking off). They also do this if there is a crosswind (i.e. they could choose either end of the runway). The reason - to reduce noice over Ramsgate.
Landing is normally a lot less noisy than taking off. Much of the reason we experience noise on landing over Ramsgate is because training flights are precisely that. Half the time the pilots get too low and have to put their engines on (and half the time they are too high so you don't notice). They are training and get it wrong! We all have to learn. It wouldn't be half as bad with commercial pilots who are flying in there regularly. And the number of flights is seriously not worth getting worked up about, compared to the economic benefits and connectivity to the area. Clearly people have nothing better to do in Thanet than moan.
There used to be a railway station at Newington on that line, didn,t there?
"Much of the reason we experience noise on landing over Ramsgate is because training flights are precisely that. Half the time the pilots get too low"
HOw reassuring for those of us who live under them, Mr Pilot.
Do people not remember that the proposed airport at Cliffe wasnt adopted because it was too far from London. None of the airlines would consider using it.
I am more disturbed by the thought of inexperienced pilots having to throttle up because they are coming in too low actually Peter.
Peter, the post about Cliffe was from me. I have recently bought a house in Ramsgate. I have already spent 40,000 in the local economy on doing the place up. If the airport expands I will leave. People like me are the great hope of getting rid of the losers who drag Ramsgate down.
Taking photographs of naked women and being proud of it definitely puts you into that category.
Well done SMEG keep it up. Ramsgate will soon be great again. Peter, please move elsewhere there is no place for people like you round here.
Peter, the post about Cliffe was from me. I have recently bought a house in Ramsgate. I have already spent 40,000 in the local economy on doing the place up. If the airport expands I will leave. People like me are the great hope of getting rid of the losers who drag Ramsgate down.
Taking photographs of naked women and being proud of it definitely puts you into that category.
Well done SMEG keep it up. Ramsgate will soon be great again. Peter, please move elsewhere there is no place for people like you round here.
Well hare are Laura’s views on the airport http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/02/laura-sandys-on-manston-airport.html
Oops done it again Richard warned me about posting after a glass or two should read here
Actually I'm Mrs Local Pilot. Assumptions! Kuh! (sorry ECR but seems appropriate here). Don't worry, you are quite safe. Trainees, or those doing renewals/type conversions, are accompanied by instructors. You are in no danger. It is a highly skilled exercise to fly into an airfield on instruments, which is what they are doing. You get too high so you decrease rpm. You get too low so you have to power up, and so it goes on. It's a decreasing sine wave. With practice you come in one the right line so there are fewer needs for adjustment. To get the line right is a very exacting task, believe me. Personally, I would rather they did the practice over Ramsgate than when I'm going for a relaxing holiday somewhere!
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