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Monday 2 November 2015

Manston Airport: Politicians F**k Up Thanet's Recovery

I’m becoming more and more frustrated and angry at having to write  bad news stories about Thanet. Virtually every week I’m posting articles about the grinding  poverty and deprivation faced by many people  in Thanet,  or the fucked-up third rate  health,  education, council and housing services most people in the area have to depend on. But there’s no need for any of this. Thanet is a beautiful place in a beautiful county, with excellent transport links to London which, economically and socially, should be doing one hell of a lot better than it is right now.

So why are things so crap for so many people? Well, I believe  that one of the reasons is that  the unresolved future of Manston Airport has become  a major blockage to  the regeneration of Thanet. Or more precisely,  the way in which the Labour Party, UKIP and the Tories, have manged the Manston Airport  issue is blighting the  regeneration of the district. To be brutally  frank these self-serving so-called politicians have, through their cynical manipulation of the  Manston Airport saga,  seriously fucked up opportunities for  thousands of  local people to have a better life, and they should be ashamed of what they have done.

The subject of Manston Airport has dominated Thanet for over 2 years. In this time The Labour Party, the Tories and UKIP have all tried to exploit this issue for their political advantage.  I have previously exposed how the parties tried to hijack  the Save Manston campaign with hypocritical  promises of a CPO, when they were  (and still are) supporting strategic regeneration plans based on a future without an airport. I explained how, despite their promises, Thanet’s political establishment  knew damn well that there were no compelling legal grounds to successfully secure a CPO. And now with  the recent collapse of the RiverOak deal you would have thought that Labour, UKIP and the  Tories would have stopped playing games, been honest with local  people and said that it’s game over for Manston Airport.

But no. Instead of telling the truth  the manipulative bunch of wankers who  pass themselves off as Thanet’s political leaders  are continuing their campaign of lies and deceit about Manston. Soon after the collapse  of the RiverOak deal a new Save Manston political coalition headed by the Tories, and perhaps soon to be supported by the Labour Party and the Democratic Independent Group,  was  announced. To avoid being politically outflanked by their rivals  UKIP have declared that there are other speculators lurking in the shadows and that it might still possible to save Manston. So scared are Thanet’s politicians of being exposed for their initial deceit and dishonesty over the  airport that, like naughty children, they are trying to disguise one lie with another in the hope that their  cynical abuse of  public trust remains undiscovered.

And what’s the result of this politically inspired  dishonesty about the  Manston Airport situation?  Simple the future of the site is now extremely uncertain with the threat of a potential  CPO hanging over it  possibly for several more  years to come.  Ask yourself the question who the fuck would want to invest money  in setting up a business on the former airport site when you may have to relocate, losing lots of money,  a couple of years down the line? Nobody in their right mind would want to take this risk. So my conclusion is that the Labour Party, UKIP and the Tories,  by playing cynical political games with Manston Airport in order to get votes,   have ended up blighting  a site with major economic regeneration potential. By doing so  Labour, UKIP and the Tories are directly   responsible for the growth of poverty and deprivation in Thanet.
Because make no mistake the 865 acre former-airport site is absolutely critical to the regeneration of Thanet. Had Labour, UKIP and the Tories been honest and truthful about the airport from the beginning  then  the CPO fiasco would have been dealt with months ago and we would now be  seeing new investment in business, leisure and residential use at the site and benefiting from  desperately needed jobs and training opportunities for local people. Instead the issue of the CPO has been deliberately played out and extended purely because  of the  self-interest of Thanet morally corrupt political establishment. And even after the recent RiverOak debacle  there's still  no end in sight to this pathetic political game playing.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Thanet’s  political establishment have, through their deceitful manipulation of the Manston Airport situation,  seriously  fucked -up the regeneration of the district  and cheated many residents out of a better future. This is why I am forced to write  so many bad new articles. 

Not that I am an expert in these matters, but if  I was Stone Hill Park I would be taking legal advice about suing Thanet Council for an abuse of process which is  improperly impacting upon their plans for site which they legally own.

12 comments:

  1. It's not just fucked-up, it's fucking fucked-up, fucked over and fuckerred, by fuckers who should just fuck off!
    Derek and Clive Fuckin Fannit innit.
    Apart from the prophanities you are absolutely on the money which is more than can be said for any other fucker.

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  2. Don't you mean Ann Gloag?

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  3. And it's not just the airport!!!

    There is also the Ferry Port and the Old Hover Port that have been wasted through political incompetence both at local and national level since the 3rd of May 1979, cos that's when all the miss management in Thanet and across large swathes of the UK first started...

    But if you ask me!!! With the possibility of new runways at both Gatwick and Heathrow being constructed, I think Manston should be developed into something that will benefit the whole community in Thanet rather than a small handful of airport workers who will more than likely come from outside the area due to a skills shortage around here!!!

    As I've mentioned to you before Ian. I think a "Renewable Benefits Centre" would be the best choice as it would help raise funds (through the generation of green energy) to take many folk in Thanet off Unemployment benefits without hurting the public purse

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  4. I have to agree with you Ian. The thing that most people fail to grasp is that the affair has been dragged out deliberately to try to manipulate the electorate. Before embarking on a CPO or even on the hunt for an indemnity partner, the council should have had the site valued. It's not difficult. There is a District Valuer who would have been able to do it. And the valuation which would run to hundreds of millions of pounds would have killed the CPO then and there. So, the council deliberately didn't get a valuation so that they could keep the charade running. The council has refused to release an estimate of the cost of officer time spent on the CPO over the last two years. They falsely claimed that they don't have this information. If they don't have this information the council isn't being properly managed because the CEO doesn't know what her officers have been doing with their time. The only question now remaining is why the Conservatives are still pretending that a CPO could go ahead. They are clearly using the issue to try to destabilise the council. I didn't vote for UKIP, but I accept that they have a mandate to run the council and, as long as they get on with it, I think they should be allowed to do it. It is disgusting that some individuals who stood on a UKIP ticket have left the party and are now classing themselves as independents. They should resign, trigger a by-election and put their names back in the ring. Then they would find out whether people really did vote for them or whether people were voting for the party.

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  5. So much misinformed nonsense. No wonder Thanet's in such a state.

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  6. We don't have 5 more years of idiots like Bayford and Wells do we?

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  7. it wont matter who is in the hot seat Paul Carter wants houses in
    Thanet so he dont get them in his area

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  8. Are u standing in the tdc or rtc munday seat? Was there even an rtc election in may?

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    1. I'm seriously thinking about it.

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    2. Don't hesitate Ian u are an excellent councillor and we need more like u taking on the civil servants and protecting the public

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  9. Carter doesn't decide Thanet housing that's TDC unless the Thanet Kcc councillors do as he tells them in TDC

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