Manston Airport DCO application from RSP Ltd: Personal Submission I am a resident of Ramsgate, living directly under RSP’s proposed flight path, a Town Councillor and a member of several community groups. I object in the strongest terms to the granting of a Development Consent Order to RSP Ltd to run a 24-hour cargo hub at Manston Airport. My principal reasons are: 1) No evidence of need: I understand that a DCO successful application must show an overriding national need, and that this is particularly the case when an application is made concerning property belonging to a third party. I have attended an RSP consultation event, read their documentation and consulted other evidence. From this it is clear to me that RSP’s plans rely substantially on taking business from other airports - so the air cargo capacity on which RSP intend to build their business is already in place, but located elsewhere in the country. Furthermore, Stansted Airport’s Sustainability Plan (#A attached) shows that it is operating effectively on very high volumes but retains considerable spare capacity. From this I conclude that that a DCO will not meet an overwhelming national need as the UK’s needs are already being met/ are capable of being met elsewhere. 2) No evidence of capacity: RSP Ltd is effectively a start-up company seeking to achieve levels of delivery appropriate to a huge corporate. RSP’s website lists the members of its ‘Professional Team’ and ‘Strategic Team’ – but on even cursory examination these simply prove to be either consultancies with whom RSP work or delivery agents such as their lawyers and PR company. If any of the groups I am involved in were to list all their partners, their accountants and their stationery suppliers as members of their ‘team’, not only would the list run to many webpages, but also community members and funders would have a right to assume they all had direct roles in delivering our work, though this would not be so. Of RSP’s six listed Directors, only one has any airport experience. Reports such as that completed by Avia Solutions in 2016 for Thanet District Council (#B attached) spell out the long lead-in time and huge financial resources that would be required to get Manston up and running again. RSP have not provided details of their financial backing or their business plan, and their Companies House accounts filings are not up to date, so we have no evidence that they have in place the levels of funding and detailed business and financial strategy that success would require. 1 3) ‘Severe adverse effects on quality of life’: RSP’s own PEIR documentation highlights the negative effects on quality of life that they cheerfully admit their proposals would have on residents in several areas, including Ramsgate. They allude to the effects of noise, recognising its negative impact on physical and mental health. Many national and international reports document the many and varied negative effects of living near an airport on residents’ health. A summary of these from The Independent in 2013 (‘Why living near an airport could be bad for your health’, #C attached) illustrates the damaging effects of noise on public health. Other adverse effects on health not mentioned by RSP would occur through air pollution (from large, heavy cargo planes, from the many HGVs that would be needed to shift goods away from the airport, and from the traffic jams that would inevitably result on Thanet’s inadequate roads), light pollution from night-time operations and the knock-on effects on health of disturbed sleep. Thanet is an area where health is already poor. Public Health England’s Local Authority Profile for Thanet, 2018 (#D attached) shows Thanet as one of the 20% most deprived authorities in England, with nearly a quarter of children living in low- income families. Life expectancy varies by economic status but overall is lower than the national average. Two of the most deprived wards in England lie directly under the proposed flight path. RSP’s plans, if approved, would have devastating effects on the health of my community, widening inequalities and reducing overall wellbeing. 4) Impact on young people: As a former teacher, College lecturer and head of a national lifelong learning charity, I am particularly concerned about the potential impact of a DCO on young people in Thanet – on their health, on their learning, on their job prospects and on their quality of life. We have seen that health and quality of life for all residents in Ramsgate and surrounding areas would be adversely affected if these proposals were to be realised – but the potential impact of a DCO on young people’s education and employment prospects would be just as grim. There are five schools directly under the proposed flight path. I was one of two teachers who attended the hearings at the Winter Gardens in Margate last month to speak about my experience of teaching near Heathrow. Every ten minutes we had to pause our lessons for several minutes while a plane went over. Over the course of a year, the children I taught missed out on up to one day a week’s teaching and learning. Unsurprisingly, their educational outcomes were often disappointing. In Thanet, educational outcomes are already poor. Strenuous efforts are being made in our schools to improve standards and inspire young people, and tiny improvements are starting to be seen. It would be deeply ironic if these were curtailed by noise pollution from a new cargo hub at Manston. 2 Some of those few residents who are inclined to support a DCO are doing so because they believe the airport will generate employment for our young people – but this is unlikely to be the case. Brendon Sewill in his 2009 report uncompromisingly entitled ‘Airport jobs – false hopes, cruel hoax’ (#E attached) argues that airports and their backers have a vested interest in persuading the public that airport expansion will bring jobs, but that their estimates are often wildly over-optimistic: “With the current recession, when thousands are losing their jobs, and millions fear that they may do so, any promise of more jobs is welcome. Thus the suggestion that a new or expanded airport will create more jobs is a sure way to attract support from the public and a fair wind from the planners. Naturally airport companies and airlines make the most of this. Yet because they have a commercial interest in magnifying the number of new jobs, their figures need careful examination. False hopes can prove a cruel hoax.” (p. 5) In cargo airports in particular, numbers of jobs are severely limited as many operations are automated. Meanwhile, Thanet’s expanding tourist industry is generating increasing numbers of jobs in the visitor economy. Visit Kent’s press release in January 2019 (#F attached) shows Thanet achieved the largest increase in day visitors in Kent in 2017, and that tourism now accounts for some 19% of total employment in the District. But these successes and the jobs that come with them are under threat from the DCO, as few tourists will wish to visit an area where quality of life is so severely compromised as even RSP accept it will be if their proposals come to fruition. A final irony is that RSP’s DCO application has prevented the legal owners of Manston airport site, Stone Hill Park Ltd, from implementing their proposals to set up a business park offering training, links with local Colleges, apprenticeships and high quality jobs – exactly the thing our young people need. If the DCO succeeds, this encouraging prospect will be gone for good; if it does not, it will have suffered at least a severe delay. For all these reasons I urge the Examining Authority to reject RSP Ltd’s application for a Development Consent Order. Tricia Austin Hartley CT11 8ED 3 Commercial Viability of Manston Airport AviaSolutions FINAL Report for Thanet District Council September 2016 Disclaimer of Liability This publication provides general information and should not be used or taken as business, financial, tax, accounting, legal or other advice, or relied upon in substitution for the exercise of your independent judgment. For your specific situation or where otherwise required, expert advice should be sought. Although Avia Solutions Limited or any of its affiliates (together, “Avia”) believes that the information contained in this publication has been obtained from and is based upon sources Avia believes to be reliable, Avia does not guarantee its accuracy and it may be incomplete or condensed. Avia makes no representation or warranties of any kind whatsoever in respect of such information. Avia accepts no liability of any kind for loss arising from the use of the material presented in this publication. Copyright Copyright © 2016 the General Electric Company. All rights reserved. “GE,” “General Electric Company,” “General Electric,” GECAS”, “GE Capital Aviation Services Limited”, “AviaSolutions,” the GE Logo, and various other marks and logos used in this publication are registered trademarks, trade vice marks of the General Electric Company. No part of this publication or any trademark or trade name may be used without the written permission of the General Electric Company. September 2016 3 Table of Contents Glossary of Terms 6 1.1. Context 8 1.2. Scope and Limitations 8 1.3. Our Approach 9 1.4. Report Structure 9 1.5. AviaSolutions’ Qualifications 9 2.1. Summary 10 2.2. Background 10 2.3. Historic Performance of Manston Airport 10 2.4. Manston as an Overflow Airport for London 10 2.5. Conclusions 11 3.1. Introduction 12 3.2.