Sir Roger Gale MP dismisses Planning Application by Stone Hill Park

Press release from Sir Roger Gale –
12 May, 2016.
North Thanet`s MP, Sir Roger Gale, has this morning dismissed with derision the announcement that at the end of the month a planning application for housing will be submitted in respect of Manston Airport.

Speaking from the House of Commons the MP said:
“It is a little-understood fact that anyone may lawfully submit a planning application for any piece of land whether they own it or not.

That does not mean, however, that such an application will be granted. A proposal to build housing on Manston Airport is in clear breach of the current Local Plan which designates Manston as an airport. Additionally, any grant of consent would be dependent upon a full environmental impact study and a full archaeological survey and both would almost certainly render the proposed developments inadmissible.

In the meantime RiverOak are quietly and responsibly pursuing their request, in the interests of national infrastructure, for a Development Consent Order and are already committing very considerable sums of money to the most comprehensive environmental impact study ever undertaken in Thanet.

Whatever my differences with Thanet Council – and they are many – the present administration was, as were Thanet`s two Members of Parliament, elected on the basis that the people of Thanet want, by an overwhelming majority, to see planes flying again from Manston Airport as soon as possible. That remains our commitment and our aim and I do not believe that any other proposal will stand a snowball-in-hell`s chance of getting past the inevitable public inquiry.” (ENDS)