News

Airport decision - out of our hands.....

MP Michael Howard has come down in favour of the Lydd airport expansion, but he insists that compensation must be paid to those whose lives would be disrupted by the proposed huge expansion of the small airport at Lydd. 

The peace and tranquility which many people wanted when they moved to the area would inevitably be lost as soon as the first jetliners fly into the expanded airport. 

Much needed local jobs

It's only fair that compensation should be paid but the airport would bring much needed local jobs to the Romney Marsh. 

The threats to the oldest reserve under the management of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is a more difficult argument to understand.

Nearby Dungeness sits on flat marshland and shingle banks in the shadow of the nuclear power stations at Dungeness. The internationally renowned and ecologically unusual Dungeness nature reserve hosts about 60 species of birds such as goldeneye, smew and bittern in the winter.

Fails to deter the birdlife

Adjacent to the 1,000-hectare site are two military firing ranges, but the noise of small-arms fire fails to deter the birdlife and the thousands of birds still return each winter. Are they oblivious to the sound of gun-fire? Would the sound of aircraft make them react differently?

The fact is that birds can be a danger to planes and many airports now need to use bird-scarers to protect their aircraft. A UK company Safeskys is the world's largest provider of Bird Control Services and operates at 22 airports. 

Businessman, Sheikh Fahad al-Athel wants to extend the runway and build a new terminal to increase the number of passengers using the aerodrome from fewer than 5,000 a year to half a million. Eventually he hopes two million passengers will use the airport.

The single landing strip with its small buildings has already changed its name from Lydd airport to "London Ashford" in anticipation of its proposed status as a regional airport. 

The airfield currently takes only light aircraft and small executive jets and is more than 70 miles from the capital with few transport links apart from a minor road.

The drive to increase capacity has accelerated as regional airports, which used to be mainly owned by councils, have been sold off to private consortiums with an interest in increased productivity and no direct accountability to local residents.

Strategic airport status

The bonanza has been enthusiastically supported by the government, which set out its vision for air transport in its 2003 aviation white paper. This predicted that commercial air traffic would continue rising for the foreseeable future, and it set in place the mechanism to allow airports to cope with it.

In the last two years several very small airports with ambitious expansion plans, including Lydd, have been granted "strategic airport status" , meaning they can plan for millions of new passengers with the government's blessing.

It's not going to be an easy choice, but it may be a decision which is already out of our hands.

Would you like to contribute to my page of tit bits?

Email titbits@localrags.co.uk