Thanet Council’s vision for the Island has some good parts and some bad. Its focus on employment is positive but how does that square with the Council’s intention to allow 600 houses to be built on what was intended to be the Eurokent Business Park?

I can also back their support for Manston Airport, I have consistently supported the Airport for the nearly 15 years that I have been in public office in Thanet and I’m not going to change now. We need proper controls on night flights and a clear focus on protecting Ramsgate from over flight when weather conditions would allow aircraft movements away from the Town but, nevertheless, it could be a powerful tool in our efforts to create jobs and boost the local economy. 

That said, I simply cannot understand the Council’s passion for a so called ‘Manston Parkway Rail Station.

A Manston Parkway Station cannot be built close to the Airport because the land there is at a different height to the existing railway line and the cost of incorporating a grade change into a new spur line would be massive. When I asked Railtrack to cost such a project over ten years ago they estimated it at a minimum of £60m. In any case, why, when three quarters of us can walk to one of the existing Thanet stations, would we want to build a new station that we would all need to drive to when we want a fast train to London?

That means the new station would almost certainly be between Lord of the Manor roundabout and the Nethercourt Estate. This would be more affordable since it would be on the existing line but on the other hand it would be on the wrong side of the Haine Road from the airport and barely any closer to the airport than Ramsgate Station is at present.

In any event, until the Airport has built up sufficient passenger traffic to justify the investment in a new rail station it is simply not going to happen. It would be much more sensible instead to focus our immediate efforts on improving Ramsgate Station so it can better service airport passengers as well as local commuters.

Furthermore, the best and cheapest way in the medium term to cut the journey time of rail passengers who want to travel from London to the Airport would be to win the support of Network Rail for further investment on the line between Ramsgate and Ashford. Cutting another 15 minutes off the high speed service between St Pancras and Ramsgate would have substantially more benefit for airport passengers than a new station next to Lord of the Manor and would deliver a substantial benefit for the rest of Thanet too.