Thanet the Movie: Welcome to the Casting Couch

The Hollywood moguls are salivating and the sets are being built - "Thanet the Movie" is underway. All that's left is the casting.

We already have a number of front runners, as you can see below, but we would like your help with some more suggestions. You can find more pictures of TDC counsellors here, Kent councillors here and here, you can add suggestions in the comments below, and you can send us pictures (jpegs) of your suggested lookalikes here.

Please don't restrict yourselves to Councillors - every notable character in Thanet and East Kent will have a role in this blockbuster!

Cllr Clive Hart: George Clooney

Cllr Bob Bayford: Timothy Spall

Cllr Chris Wells: Brian Blessed

Cllr Sandy Ezekiel: Bob Hoskins

Cllr Jack Cohen: David Niven

Charles Buchanan: Michael York, Jonathon Meades, Jerry Springer

Manston to stop fuelling Iran Air: pure coincidence?

A controversial deal allowing Iran Air to refuel at Manston airport will come to an end, the Isle of Thanet Gazette can reveal. Airport boss Charles Buchanan said the company would not be using the airport any more, but said this had nothing to do with recent publicity over the arrangement.

It was claimed Iran Air planes were using the airport to dodge US sanctions. Mr Buchanan said:

"By accepting Iran Air flights for refuelling there is nothing wrong being done. What we are doing is in conjunction and in liaison with the Department of Transport and is not offending any relations."

Iranian planes are banned from refuelling in countries that have economic ties with America. but can avoid sanctions by filling up at privately owned airports such as Manston. The Iran Air flights are allowed to land at Heathrow however they are not able to refuel for the journey home at any airport that has trade links with the US. Mr Buchanan said:

"The arrangement is coming to an end. It has been going on for around eight months and they have now decided to make other arrangements."

Mr Buchanan said he did not know where Iran Air will refuel from now on.

thisiskent 2nd Dec 2011

Manston's Hall of Shame

Here's a brand new service from the nice people at NoNightFlights... As well as the easy to use Complain! page, you now have another outlet for your screams of rage, whimpers of frustration, table-thumping, etc, etc. Pop over to the Hall of Shame page and let rip...

Being hung might be the best outcome

"May you live in interesting times" ran the old Chinese curse, and it appears that Thanet may be about to overdose on political "interest".

The local election in May left Thanet with a more-or-less hung council: 27 Conservative, 26 Labour and 3 Independents. In exchange for chairmanship of their preferred committees, the Indies backed Cllr Bayford's bid for leadership - oh well, at least it was naked self-interest, rather than anything underhand...

However, it didn't change the maths of the situation, so when John Worrow resigned the Conservative party whip (apparently disgusted by "his" party's treatment of animal export protesters, and their disregard for the plight of Birchington businessmen), the main parties were back at level pegging, and the door was opened to tonight's confidence vote and subsequent leadership vote.

Bob Bayford lost the confidence vote. Inexplicably, the Conservatives then presented him as the candidate for Leader. He lost again. Cllr Clive Hart is now Leader.

So what?

Theoretically, this game of musical chair could be played out at every full Council meeting, with the outcome being decided by the level of attendance, and the whim of the Independents. Clearly, this would be a totally ineffective way to run the Council. Personally, I'm rather taken with Michael Child's assessment:

Essentially the problems revolve around there being no councillor charismatic enough to be a leader who would take all of the councillors with them and sort out some of the serious problems that Thanet has.

I don’t think either the Labour or the Conservative group have grasped the fundamentals of working within a situation where they have no overall majority. I think most councillors see the resolutions in terms of personal gain, handing out posts to independents that carry a good allowance, rather than in terms of actually trying resolve Thanet’s problems.

I think what I would do, if I was in the position of leading either group, would be to start with a list of objectives for the term of the current administration, put those objectives in the public domain, with a challenge to the independents to support them.

Herein lies the key. With the democratic power being so finely balanced, the solution must be found beyond the narrow interests of the representatives. Attention must be focussed on the wider and over-arching purpose of the representatives - to represent and promote the wishes and best interests of those they represent.

If the TDC councillors fail to grasp what is so often irritatingly called the "bigger picture", we're in for a long and dispiriting round of political mud-wrestling, petty squabbling, tit-for-tat point-scoring and venal pork barrel politics.

On the other hand, they could step back and look afresh at their duty to their community. Wherever they stand on the political spectrum, it must be clear to each and every councillor that Thanet has a number of glaringly obvious problems. Typically these require long-term solutions that need to be started immediately (or soon) and then pursued tenaciously - get stuck in, and stick at it.

This is the time for the councillors to concentrate on what matters to the electorate rather then what matters to the elected. Instead of squabbling (or at the very least, before becoming completely engrossed in squabbling) they could easily identify a handful of key objectives, policies or solutions that they largely agree on, and get cracking.

It is widely accepted within the Council that the relationship with Manston (particularly the S106 agreement and its monitoring) has been poorly handled, with the people of Thanet getting the short end of the stick - "if we were starting again, we wouldn't start from here".

Grasp the nettle, Cllr Hart:

• Discard the pretence that Manston is an "airfield" and embrace the fact that is an "airport".
• Acknowledge the potential that a well-managed and thriving local airport would have.
• Accept that the central pillar of that good management must be proper planning consent for the airport and its operations as a whole, to rationalise and replace the piecemeal development of the last decade.
• Order an Environmental Impact Assessment to provide independent guidance for what is acceptable and sustainable.
• Put in place an S106 agreement that puts Kentish lives and quality of life before share-holder interests, and then monitor and enforce it.

Life under the flight path: 2

A reader writes:

I recently was speaking with a woman and we got on to the topic of the airport, not from a political anti-airport point of view, just mums chatting at a toddler group. She told me about her washing!

Funny little burn holes in her washing whilst it hangs on the line and she asked if we thought it could be aviation fuel?

The woman who runs the toddler group who lives in Cliffsend also said she gets tiny burn holes but only if the wind is in the direction of the airport. I wonder if this is a common phenomenon or coincidence?

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Any thoughts?

Thanet's favourite map

If you hurry, you might just be in time to be the 60,000th person to view our lovely little map that shows where the TDC councillors live in relation to Manston's flight path...

Life under the flight path

Hi,

I attended your meeting at Chatham House School on Friday 25.11.11 and I was impressed to see so many like minded people ready to stand against Manston Airports plans, great meeting, great job done by all the speakers, keep up the good work.

I brought along a copy of a photo which I was asked to send to you. I live on a Mobile home park known as Smugglers Leap which is situated in a large chalk pit next to the Minster roundabout Ramsgate, this park is directly situated next to the flight path of planes coming into land from the Canterbury direction, I am supplying a photo of a 747 coming into land, the roof apex in this photo is my mobile home.

Coming into land this way is not so bad but when large planes take off over our direction the noise is considerably more and the thrust of the engines can be felt, indeed our mobile homes shake, I have no problem with Manston expanding if it is helping our local economy but if regular night flying is to become the norm then living in my home will obviously become impossible.

And to those people who say "well you chose to live there" I can only reply that some of us have no choice but to live in places like this indeed some of us are not as fortunate as people who can afford to move into large well insulated houses. 

Manston out-performed by a small hole in the ground

Sad but true. The numbers are in on this summer's Open Golf Championship at Sandwich, and they make good reading for the county. The direct economic boost and indirect benefit of TV coverage are valued at £77 million.

Each Open venue hosts the tournament about every ten years, so the once-a-decade display of supreme skill at the stick-ball-hole game works out at some £7.7 million a year of identifiable benefit to Kent.

Manston's latest night flight proposal rather optimistically assesses the airport's current contribution to the local economy at £3.8 million a year - less than half the impact of the Open even when the Open isn't on!

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Open Golf Championship 'worth £77m to Kent economy'

The Open Golf Championship in Sandwich this year was worth about £77m to Kent, researchers have said. A study commissioned by R&A (Royal & Ancient Golf Club), which runs the Open, was carried out by researchers at Sheffield Hallam University.

R&A chief executive Peter Dawson said Kent had a direct economic boost of just under £25m, and the television exposure was worth more than £50m. He said TV coverage reached nearly 500 million homes worldwide.

"That television exposure for east Kent and the whole area is worth a fortune in terms of future for the tourist industry and hopefully for inward investment too."

Kent County Council leader Paul Carter said the Open was the largest sports event the county had hosted in recent years. He said:

"It boosted the profile of the area nationally and internationally, which should help in our efforts to secure inward investment, tourism and jobs."

Mr Dawson said there were some traffic difficulties caused by large numbers of people arriving by train and delays at level crossings. R&A officials and Kent authorities were planning transport improvements for a return of the Open, he said.

The championship is played at nine venues in England and Scotland and on average is hosted by each venue every 10 years. More than 180,000 spectators attended the four-day event in July.

BBC online 24th Nov 2011

Yanks for the memory

Ah yes, there are those who go misty-eyed at the memory of the USAF and their fantastically noisy jets at Manston. It appears that the memory is selective...

In the early 1950s America was even more racially broken than it is today, and this was evident amongst their armed forces, even when abroad. On arriving in beautiful Thanet, the white air force personnel made themselves at home in Margate, away from the noise of the flightpath.

Guess where the black guys ended up...

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Infratil selling Prestwick... Manston next?

This has been on the cards for a couple of months now. Infratil has been under increasing pressure from major share-holders in New Zealand to stop wasting time and money on the wrong side of the world.

Struggling Prestwick is almost completely dependent on a single commercially ruthless customer - a foolish and vulnerable position to have got into. When 98% of your business comes from one customer, that customer can call the shots - you've lost control of your business.

Barely struggling Manston has developed a pattern of attracting flakey customers, and has now stumbled, flat-footed, into the glare of international disapproval as a result of some particularly foolish greed.

It's not surprising that the Kiwis should want to crystallise their losses, and get home. TDC would then, of course, have to rifle through Brian White's old filing cabinets looking for a very slim folder labelled "Plan B".

The time and effort spent fussing over Manston's life support sysytem would be far better spent researching and launching a viable and sustainable "economic and social engine".

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Airport sale is in the balance

The head of Prestwick airport has refused to rule out its sale as no-frills airline Ryanair admitted passenger numbers are expected to flatline there next year.

Iain Cochrane, Prestwick's MD, said the announcement yesterday of four new routes next summer by Ryanair, which accounts for 98% of passenger flights at the Ayrshire airport, had put it on a stronger footing after three years in which passenger numbers have tumbled.

However, he said a decision on whether to sell up would be made by executives at New Zealand-based Infratil, which owns the airport, adding:

"I'm not in a position to rule a sale in or out."

It comes after Marko Bogoievski, chief executive of Infratil, claimed last month Prestwick was "not performing". He admitted:

"It's a difficult asset to see in the portfolio in the long term."

The no-frills airline announced flights to Barcelona, Bydgoszcz in Poland, Chania in Crete and the Greek island of Corfu yesterday, taking the total number of destinations at Prestwick to 25, up two compared to this summer's season. Flights to Stansted and Girona have been axed.

Ryanair has seen passenger numbers fall from a peak of 2.3 million in 2008 to just 1.3 million at Prestwick this year. The Dublin-based airline said it expected a similar number to fly next year.

Lesley Kane, Ryanair's head of sales and marketing, said the new routes confirmed the airline's continued commitment to the airport after a difficult three years which she said were caused by a collapse in domestic air travel and increases in Air Passenger Duty, the tax paid by passengers on all UK departing flights. However, she said the airline was working with the airport to reverse the trend.

"We're very committed to operating out of Prestwick, which is a fantastic airport in a fantastic location and is a substantial part of Ryanair's network. It's easy to focus on the negative, but the positive news is we continue to work with Prestwick to improve our schedule and improve our range of destinations."

Mr Cochrane admitted the airport had suffered through Ryanair's focus on developing routes from Edinburgh, but defended its decision to focus on sunshine destinations from Prestwick, putting it in head-to-head competition with Glasgow Airport, saying these routes had shown the highest level of growth.

"It's well documented that Glasgow Prestwick in recent years has suffered a drop in passenger numbers. We have had to undertake some business restructuring to ensure our resources met the demand. That has been a financially challenging process. I believe now with the continued commitment shown by Ryanair in these new routes we are in a far better place to return to growth in the future."

HeraldScotland.com 2nd Dec 2011 Damien Henderson