Manston Airport CPO - Labour's Deceitful Smoke and Mirrors

So Thanet Council’s Labour Leader, Iris Johnston, and her cabinet colleagues David and Elizabeth Green, Richard Nicholson, Mike Harrison and Rick Everitt claim they are trying to save Manston Airport and secure a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) on the site.

On the face of it this appears to be true.

 

They have commissioned legal advice, added to officers workloads producing reports,

 advertised for CPO venture partners, all at great public expense, and made positive comments to the media and posted lots of encouraging comments on the several pro-Manston Airport Facebook pages. TDC even hosted on its web-site the pro-Manston petition, they couldn’t have been more helpful.  But look more closely and the cracks are now clear to see.

 

Let’s begin with Cabinet member David Green who is on record as saying, “TDC will not agree to any solution to the airport that is detrimental to Ramsgate's environment”, and “in my opinion an airport CPO is not economically viable”. His Cabinet colleague, and deputy leader of the council, Richard Nicholson was hardly an effusive supporter of potential Airport champion RiverOak saying, “we are not going to do business with people like this”. Worse still Labour dominated Ramsgate Town Council, which includes all of Iris Johnston’s cabinet colleagues, recently voted to support  a motion which condemned “proposals for the development of Manston Airport into a major freight hub” and resolved to “defend the environment against harmful development, in particular to oppose night time flying”. And just yesterday Labour Councillor, and party whip, Steve Alexandrou in a letter published in Friday 12 Sept., Thanet Gazette said, “I cannot and will not vote for a CPO”.

 

So TDCs Labour Cabinet and councillors, who were supposedly committed to saving
the airport by securing a CPO, are, through their comments and actions, openly undermining their own position. In fact a senior TDC officer, who wishes to remain anonymous, recently told me that Cabinet members are openly saying that the CPO is a charade aimed at securing votes for Labour in 2015.  This is borne out by ex-Labour Councillor and former Mayor of Ramsgate, Kim Gibson, who has said that  Iris Johnston told her that it was politically expedient for Labour to appear to be trying to get the CPO, even though they didn’t really want it. It was all about ‘politics and votes’. I don’t doubt Kim. She is an honest person who speaks her mind without fear or favour.

 

Political Deceit and Dishonesty

But just in case you have any vestiges of faith remaining in Iris Johnston and her Labour colleagues, consider her latest Facebook post about how she is trying to save Manston.  She reproaches Sir Roger Gale MP for not reconvening the Manston Taskforce “without which we are going to have problems”.  She criticises Sir Howard Davis for his “disappointing” failure to mention Manston in his latest Airport Commission report. I suspect that these comments are designed to set up fall guys and villains whom Johnston and her Labour colleagues can blame and use as a smokescreen to justify a U-turn on their support for the CPO, which I am sure will be happening soon.

 

I can see it now - with a superficial air of concern, deep sadness and perhaps a few tears, Iris Johnston announces that the CPO is dead in the water. It’s failure will have nothing to do with the Council Labour Group which of course tried its very best to get the CPO, but others - people in government and at the Airport Commission who failed to support the (lost) cause. It’s the oldest political trick in the book! Courting electoral popularity by pretending you are trying to do something, which in reality you oppose and then blaming others for the failure of your half-hearted less than genuine efforts..

 

Cynical political manoeuvres like this demonstrate that Cllr Johnston and her

Hypocrisy in Action

colleagues harbour an arrogant contempt for Thanet residents. They show that the Labour Party in Thanet is callously manipulative and deceitful, putting party interest and votes before the concerns of local people. This is probably why decent and honourable politicians like Steve Alexendrou, who are uneasy about Thanet Labour’s dishonesty and game-playing, are now beginning to speak out.  Indeed some of my friends in the Labour Group tell me that discontent  about support for the CPO is growing.

 

For my part I have been arguing for a while that the possibility of securing a CPO and the feasibility of the airport being resurrected is unrealistic and that we should now be discussing Plan B. 

 

I believe this to be the case because  it has already been made clear that the Parkway station is going to be for people and businesses and not the airport. Also in the next few weeks we shall   see important developments which will mark the end of any hopes for an airport revival. These will  include an announcement about the extension of the Discovery Park Enterprise Zone to Thanet, the approval of the Manston Green and EKO planning applications to build housing close to the airport site and of course from Anne Gloag OBE, her much anticipated announcement about transforming the airport site probably into a housing and employment zone. Labour will of course not wish to be seen opposing these opportunities and will use every excuse in the book to re-align itself behind these new proposals.

 

Thanet Green Party opposes the building of houses on rural open space. There wis already sufficient housing development land within Thanet's urban boundaries. If we are unable to stop the rural development we will be fighting to ensure that housing and employment proposals  at Manston and the surrounding are sustainable, that they support  gainful employment, have  little environmental impact and are  carbon neutral. We will strive to ensure that proper democratic protocols are followed by TDC to enable public involvement in deciding what developments take at the former Manston Airport site.