Manston freight

With the setting up of a dedicated UK team "Riveroak Strategic Partners" Freudmann has finally cut all links with his US funders Riveroak Investments LLC based in Connecticut. Where the funding is to come from to supply the stated £300M is unknown at present but like everything Freudmann does these are "commercially sensitive" or to put another way "I ain't telling you".

Riveroak (sic) Strategic Partners

To date no business plan has been disclosed but it is sure to be the most Bigly Business plan ever seen and it needs to be absolutely stupendous as the economics are against most normal business plans.

Taken from observer's that attended the Public Enquiry is this little snippet

The following information comes in small digestible facts easily acquired if you scan the Department for Transport reports, The Airports Commission and the CAA website. None of the figures are made up and there is no reinterpretation (spin) just facts pure and simple.

Firstly total Airfreight at a stagnant 2,300,000 tonnes is a paltry 0.5% of the total freight shipped into the UK, the rest 99.5% is shipped via lorry or Shipping. It has been stagnant for more than a decade with little prospect of increasing for the foreseeable future. However within this figure 70% is shipped in the belly of passenger planes and as the demand for passenger flights is increasing that % is likely to increase.

The target freight that Freudmann has indicated he wants to take on is in the dedicated cargo plane market of the remaining  tonnage which based on CAA figures are carried on 52000 air traffic movements (avg 13 tonnes per movement).

To be a Nationally Significant Project justifying taking the land from Stone Hill Park Freudmann will have to prove at least 10000 air freight movements which would need to haul 130,000 tonnes at the above average significantly less than their boast of between 500000 - 600000 tonnes, however that is still taking 20% of the dedicated freight market from the two biggest airports outside of Heathrow. (East Midlands and Stanstead who between them have a quarter of the total freight market and have significant capacity to take more).

A simple comparison of East Midlands and Stanstead show that Manston is at a distinct disadvantage and I list them below

Does Manston have a 24 hour operation like EMA? NO because they say they don't need Night Flights.

Does Manston have a central UK location with fast motorway access to all parts of the UK? Er No it's stuck in NE Kent with an hour to get to the M25.

Does it have frequent flights to other UK airfields to avoid the road network? Well no and it has never been suggested.

Can it build an extensive network of Freight forwarding companies? Doubtful

In fact most cargo travels in the belly of passenger planes and would prefer their planes not returning empty something that didn't happen at Manston.

Freudmann has already said they will be putting in £300M to build the infrastructure however he has yet to say where this money is coming from and how it will be repaid.

Let's take a look at that situation. No bank will lend him the money as it would be too risky so he will have to look at the Investment Market such as the Riveroak Investments LLC would have been however they have walked away (He has some new directors which may be his bankers). Investment banks take a view they want a return that matches the risk. In today's climate that is likely to be in the region of 9-10% and even then they will want to secure this against the land.

£300M at 10% would mean a return of £30M a year or an eye watering £2.5 Million a month something that would put them at a major disadvantage in the cut throat world of Airfreight. (and that's without repaying the capital borrowed which over 25 years would be £1M per month).

To summarise Manston is and will continue to be at a considerable disadvantage in the Airfreight market so unless Freudmann is completely stupid why is he chasing this non starter maybe that is more to do with the 800 acres of building land which he is fully aware of since his 1st approach to TDC in December 2013 when as MD of Annax Aviation he asked TDC whether he could build 1000 houses on the grass runway to the north. (my take on the reasons)

Further there seems to be some doubt in former supporters minds as to the intentions of Freudmann

Viability

Following on from the last post the decision as to which option to choose still remains on whether there is evidence that an airport is viable at Manston up to the end of this Local Plan period which is 2031. The choice that Members at TDC have is option 1

This is the safer option according to officers but would still mean farmland being given over to land for housing. 1000 at Birchington, 1000 at Westgate and various other sites in Thanet along with 2500 on the brownfield site of the former Kent International Airport. Then there is Option 2

This option retains Manston as a brownfield site as currently there isn't a DCO in progress as it was withdrawn as failing to meet the requirements for a NSIP, but moves the housing to Birchington 1600, Westgate 2000, WX/Haine Road 1200 more ad other village sites.

TDC officers believe that there are risks in choosing this option primarily because there is no report on Manston written since 2014 that shows aviation being viable.

Since 2014 there have been 2 TDC reports about aviation and one TDC report about the finances of Riveroak. There has been a KCC report on viability, and 2 viability reports commissioned by Stone Hill Park the owners of the land. Here is a summary of them

For those with the perseverance here are the reports summarised in more detail

The first is the HM Government report into choosing increased capacity in the South of England and in which (despite the previous owners Infratil submitting a report) Manston effectively gets kicked into the long grass. The red is NNF's comments.

Then comes the Falcon report which said in summary that Manston would not be viable under any circumstance during the period 2014-2031 and during the period of consultation the airport closed with the loss of 144 jobs.

Next Riveroak tried to convince the administration (under Labour) to let them become a CPO partner and despite much handwringing TDC refused, The MP for North Thanet demanded Price Waterhouse Cooper conduct an examination of the process and despite some criticism of TDC found Riveroak to be unsuitable as a CPO partner

Kent County Council, who had paid out much tax revenue during the period 1998-2010 final washed their hands of Manston in March 2015 with this summary

In May of 2015 the local elections were dominated by the support for Manston with various parties saying "vote for me and we will reopen the airport" however many of the electorate being sceptical of politicians promises decided to give Chris Wells and the UKIP party and they duly swept to power.

Once hit by the reality of governing they realised that Riveroak were very poor and proving they were actually viable so Chris took the plunge and started the whole process again including a TDC sponsored report from Avia on the viability of aviation at Manston.

Because of the sensitive nature of the report from Avia the UKIP administration decided to ask for public responses and when these were received Avia were asked to produce a final assessment which was published in 2017

Riveroak had by this time decided to forego the CPO route and to use the more demanding DCO route and to argue that reopening Manston would be a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) and had commissioned Dr Sally Dixon to "prove" Manston was viable. This was done in a series of consultation exercises and reports however TDC can only use reports they themselves have commissioned. This means Sally Dixon's work cannot be used and neither can the following reports 2x SHP and one by No Night Flights as posted below.

Conclusion 

Bob Bayford and the Tory party should by rights only be making decisions on Land Use based on evidence however it appears that "But Airport" votes seem to be the deciding factor as on the 2nd July 2018 Cabinet endorsed Option 2. This will probably lead to the Ministry at examination finding the Local plan as unsafe.

York Aviation

Altitude Aviation's critique of Azimuth

And last but not least from the executive summary "No Room for Late Arrivals"

Myth buster

Many myths / propaganda have sprung up about Manston airport. To ensure the real facts are out there here are some of the most common myths and why they are not actually true.

There was an airport supporter that did say to National planning that Manston had been around for 2000 years and then there was this picture taken over Manston coming into land.....but seriously