RSP resubmit their DCO application for Manston Airport
The Planning Inspectorate (PINs) website yesterday, 18th July, shows that RSP have resubmitted their Development Consent Order application for Manston Airport. This comes after the previous submission was withdrawn at the beginning of May after advice from PINs that it fell short of requirements. The re-submission also comes just ahead of the Extraordinary Council meeting on Thursday 19th July where Councillors will vote on how to progress the Local Plan.
The note on the PINs website says:
“An application for the above project was received by the Planning Inspectorate from RiverOak Strategic Partners Ltd on 17 July 2018. The application documents for this application will be published on this website in due course.
From the day after receipt of the application, the Planning Inspectorate has 28 days to review the application and decide whether or not to accept it. The acceptance decision on this application should therefore be made by Tuesday 14 August 2018.”
The RSP website states that:-
RiverOak Strategic Partners (RSP) is today (16 July 2018) re-submitting its application for a Development Consent Order (DCO) in which it seeks development consent and compulsory acquisition powers over the Manston Airport site. RSP’s plan for Manston envisages the airport as a major international cargo hub, as well as offering passenger flights.
The DCO application was originally submitted to the government Planning Inspectorate (PINS) at the beginning of April. However, it was withdrawn in early May to satisfy PINS’ requests for further information about certain parts of the application. These related to funding, to the categorisation of the project as being of national significance, and to certain aspects of the supporting environmental statements.
George Yerrall, a director of RiverOak Strategic Partners, said: “The original DCO application, which was submitted in early April, and which ran to 11,000 pages, was the culmination of twenty-seven months of intensive work on the part of the RSP team and our professional consultants. This included three separate consultation exercises as well as a complex planning appeal. We were therefore naturally disappointed to be informed by PINS that, in their view, the application fell short in certain respects. Nevertheless, we have taken up all the points raised by PINS and, working with our full team, we have used the past nine weeks to provide full and comprehensive responses to those points. We have also taken the opportunity to clarify the situation in relation to the two museums. We are promising to safeguard their position, as before, but have now made it clear that any future development consent relating to either museum would be a matter for Thanet District Council, rather than PINS.
“The submission sent to PINS today incorporates all that additional work and we believe that the documentation as amended is sufficient to justify the DCO application being allowed to move to the next stage.”
• If accepted there follows a pre-examination stage lasting approximately 3 months.
• PINs then has 6 months to examine the application.
• Following this PINs have up to 3 months to prepare a report, including a recommendation, for the Secretary of State (SoS)
• The SoS then has a further 3 months to decide whether or not to grant or refuse development consent.
• Once a decision has been issued by the SoS, there is a six week period in which the decision may be challenged in the High Court.
We will of course share any updates as soon as they become available.
It is surely common sense to have Kent International Airport ( Manston) up and running. With the protracted talks ongoing in regard to Heathrow and Gatwick proposed new runways an international standard airport which is fairly close to London is a no brainer.
Freight flights into and out of Manston would take some pressure and slots from both Heathrow and Gatwick. The fast trains now operate to Ramsgate and Dover so the sensible thing to do would be to put a rail link into Manston for freight and perhaps eventually passengers.
The only problem I see is the ‘common sense’ is not very common these days.