SMAa and their continual propaganda

Well, well, well more propaganda from the pro support laced with xenophobia and libel. Personally it was so easy to rip this tirade apart based on RiverOak's own DCO papers but then this is par for the course when it comes to the stalwarts from Save Manston Airport Association.

Taking the comment "RSP scoped in their documents for many things, including Night Flights, because they had to" This is simply untrue. This was disproved in their s51 advice as follows:

Thank you for your email. I apologise for the short delay in providing this response.

Beyond the acceptance tests applied to a submitted application for airport-related development (as set out in s23 of the Planning Act 2008), the Planning Inspectorate does not dictate the operational characteristics of airport-related applications made to it. It is for an applicant alone to decide whether or not its airport-related development needs to allow for night flights to be operated.

If an airport applicant intends to operate night flights, its Environmental Impact Assessment will need to include an assessment to identify the likely significant effects arising from those night flights, along with a description of the measures envisaged in order to avoid, prevent, reduce or offset them. If an airport applicant does not intend to operate night flights, or have the option to operate night flights, there will be no need to assess the impact of night flights as part of its Environmental Impact Assessment.

An applicant must submit a draft Development Consent Order (DCO) with its application and the draft DCO must set out the authorised development that the Applicant is seeking consent for. If an applicant chose to do so it could include within a draft DCO for airport-related development provisions which set out, for example, the parameters associated with any night flights that an applicant wishes to operate (eg their frequency, the circumstances under which they may operate etc).

The draft provisions provided in the draft DCO submitted with the application will be subject to examination by the appointed Examining Authority (ExA). Anybody who registers to become an Interested Party at the appropriate time in the Pre-examination period (as advertised by the Applicant) will be able to make representations to the ExA about any of the provisions in the draft DCO. The ExA will make a recommendation to the Secretary of State about whether development consent should be granted, and if so, what provisions are to be included in the DCO, including any provisions relating to night flights if the applicant requested these in its application. The Secretary of State will make the final decision on these matters. The authorised development will be prescribed in a Schedule to the DCO, if development consent is granted.

If you have any further questions about the process, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Kind regards

Richard Price | National Infrastructure Case Manager
Major Applications & Plans

Taking the comment "It is very expensive to run an airport at night" however their DCO papers state clearly they intend to run 24/7/365.

Obviously if the airport is shut then shifts wouldn't have been set up to keep personnel on the premises 24 hours.
Taking the point about Night Flights that is so easy to counter:

Link to above document

 It is important to understand that most freighter cargo is on chartered aircraft and flights aren't scheduled.
Clearly the business plan put forward by RSP is defined by their increased number of stands proposed,

 however it is also clear that just building more stands doesn't bring the cargo planes to fill them. East Midlands and Stanstead both have spare capacity for cargo yet just providing that capacity hasn't meant aircraft are queuing up to fill the spaces.
Heathrow is approaching capacity hence the need for another runway but their cargo is bellyhold NOT freighter only aircraft.
Gatwick has increased their cargo tonnage but this has grown because of bellyhold cargo.

Bellyhold has specifically been ruled out by RSP.