Member of Parliament

Craig Mackinlay elected member of Parliament for Thanet South seems to have a tenuous grasp of the facts surrounding Manston and has recently (21/9/2018) responded to a letter from a Thanet South resident. (copy of letter at the bottom)


"You ask why I support the reopening of Manston Airport. I believe Manston Airport has a strong future as a freight hub, with passenger and high value engineering services, but was previously plagued by poor decision making and inadequate investment"


Oddly Craig seems to have misunderstood the ownership of Manston as it was a current director of Wiggins, then Planestation, who between 1998 and 2005 oversaw the expansion of Manston and these business decisions ultimately led to the banks "pulling the plug" causing Manston to fail. Craig, as an accountant, will know that if you borrow Mezzanine finance at an excessive rate (up to 48%) and fail to cover the repayments that the failure is entirely your fault.
Craig has intimated that the investment (various figures £200-£300M and the latest £467M) will be great for Thanet however what he is ignoring is that this will have to be repaid back to any investor buying into this project. An amount that dwarfs that which Freudmann borrowed in 2003 which ultimately sank Manston the 1st time it was tried.
As to "inadequate investment" I would hardly call £100M invested in Manston by Wiggins, Infratil etc inadequate.
What causes Manston to fail time and time again is the catchment area (3/4M people) and its geographical location 50 miles from the M25.

Craig you need to look again at the numbers because the height of stupidity is keep doing what you have done in the past with the same management team. Infratil and Freudmann failed time and time again because catchment and geography have conspired to sink Manston for 24 years.


"The re-opening of Manston will generate a substantial number of jobs in a relatively short period of time"


Says who? oh that's right RSP who would say that wouldn't they but at the height of airfreight tonnage only around 150 people were employed at Manston and to generate profits more and more of the moving of freight will be automated meaning less not more employment.
Also what Craig is ignoring is the plans of the current owners which I will deal with further down, however I'd like to remind Craig he has a duty to give both sides a fair hearing which this letter simply doesn't achieve.


"East Kent stands out as an area of high unemployment compared to South East Norms; we have an asset in Manston that can play a key role in improving the economic strength of our area."
Manston has been a civil enclave (1959-1998), an International airport (1989-2014) and a civilian airport (1998-2014) and during the entire time it was open it has never achieved anything that could have alleviated the "high level of unemployment". So for Craig to state that it "we have an asset in Manston that can play a key role in improving the economic strength of our area." is disingenuous in the extreme.


"This is far more beneficial than the proposed housing alternative, which will simply grow as time progresses.  Few permanent jobs come with such development "


Anyone reading this statement from Craig would believe that he has NEVER read the current plans from the legal owners of the site because this statement is a bare faced lie.
Here for Craig is the proposal in 3 phases.

As you see there is indeed housing included however it is manipulation to only mention the housing especially as there is much more to the site than housing.


There is a business park adjacent to Manston Business Park, there are sports facilities, there is parkland, an aviation quarter, there are two schools, shops etc all of which Craig ignores. Anyone might believe a vested interest perhaps?







"and I have concerns that London boroughs, as we have seen in parts of Thanet, will use such development to alleviate their own housing shortages with little benefit to local residents."


Project Fear is alive and kicking. All I will say about this comment is "where is your evidence?" let the public see whether you actually have any proof of this directly funded by London boroughs.
I'd also like it recorded that to obtain a social housing dwelling you have to show residency in Thanet of 3 years, and further Craig this is the sate of play on the Thanet housing list.



"East Kent Housing (EKH) was formed in 2011, and manages the Council’s landlord service on behalf of Thanet District Council. EKH is jointly owned by the four East Kent councils of Canterbury, Dover, Shepway and Thanet. It is run by an independent management board, made up of tenants, independent members and councillors representing the four districts. EKH remains accountable to the Councils through contractual agreements setting out the services to be provided. EKH currently manages 3,007 homes in Thanet. Right To Buy (RTB) sales have reduced the number of homes owned by the Council overtime, since 2009 the number of RTB sales has increased by over 114%.
As at March 2018, there were 2447 households on the housing register, broken down as follows;
● 1203 households require one bed
● 594 households require two beds
● 458 households require three beds
● 157 households require four beds
● 35 households require five bedrooms or more"
Further to this the current owners have already engage a Social Housing developers to build 400 Council houses on the site.

"In respect of night flights, I have been reassured by RSP that they are not engaged in dialogue with carriers that want to operate at night and they plan to create more than enough infrastructure on the ground to accommodate all demand during daylight hours"


Bar the obvious posturing by Craig RSP hardly inspire confidence as they have yet to produce a coherent business plan. Nowhere in the 11000 pages have they stated what cargo hauliers they are talking to or even how they will prise carriers away from the main airfreight airfields. They have dismissed Heathrow as a competitor, despite 2/3rds of airfreight using Heathrow, because 95% of all their airfreight are "bellyhold" freight. Leaving their competition as Stanstead (expanding), East Midlands (expanding) and Manchester who between them handle 75% of the dedicated aircargo market. It matters little how much infrastructure RSP propose when the total market they are declaring an interest in only amounts to 211K tonnes. (that is managed by every other single airport in the UK bar Heathrow, Stanstead, East Midlands and Manchester).

"This threat of night flights has been widely used as part of the campaign against the airport"


The threat of night flights has been an ongoing threat to the lives of Ramsgate residents since 2009 Craig and is not a recent phenomenon. The campaign started because Charles Buchanan (Infratil) decided that they couldn't capture enough business to make Manston profitable, so in 2009 he applied for a change to the written agreement with TDC for night flights with an upper limit of 1995 QCA. 
A reminder from those days if required " they couldn't capture enough business to make Manston profitable, so in 2009 he applied for a change to the written agreement with TDC for night flights" In other words night flights were absolutely necessary to capture business. So what did Infratil do when they were refused? That's right they tried to sell Manston using Price, Waterhouse Coopers and for 22 months NO OTHER AVIATION INTEREST was forthcoming.


"I have seen no evidence or desire by RSP for night flights to be a feature of their plans"


Well in a way I can forgive a busy man not making time to actually read and digest the !!000 pages of their application so I will just precis a few bits for him. Hopefully he then researches the subject that he writes about with little knowledge or understanding

As you can see above on the 13th February 2017 RSP applied for an aerodrome licence (not that it was their property)

As you can also now see their application included Night Flights for Cargo planes. Just a reminder Craig you said "I have seen no evidence or desire by RSP for night flights "


So what else do we have?

Now for an airport to not need night flights it does seem rather odd that the plans include staffing for a 24hour operation.

"During the night time" because there, of course is no need to evaluate (up to 8 flights a night) if no night flights are planned and why apply for a night flight licence if you don't intend to fly at night nor is it necessary to have a 24 hour rota system if night flights aren't planned or needed. Nor indeed do you need to apply for a QCA of 3028.


Now just for completeness here is Craig Mackinlay's original letter