The owener of Lydd Airport on tranquil Romney Marsh, Kent are to lauch a series of high-profile public meetings to 'explain' their expansion plans. They want to extend the runway and have twin engine jets on short haul flights & up to 2 mill pax per year... All right next door to 2 nuke stations !!
List of places and dates for the meetings. Support against the expansionist from 'whoever' will of course be most welcome in adition to the two camapign groups already fighting this. (KTMSA- the Keep the Marsh Special Alliance.. of Lydd Airport-No Expnasion, Shepway Friends of the Earth, Shepway Lib dems and Shepway Green Party) and (LAAG Lydd Airport Action Group).
The owner of the airport is a Saudi sheikh oil interests and arms trade apparently (and not surprisingly)...
The full timetable of meetings is in the KM Express newspaper (Folkestone) - 5 April New Romney;
12 April - Lydd Community Hall;
19 April - Lydd Airport;
26 April - Hythe, Town Hall;
27 April - Lydd Airport again;
10 May Folkestone. S Kent College;
17 May - Lydd Airport again;
24 May - Ashford venue TBA;
31 May - Rye,(East Sussex) Town Hall.
All should be 7pm.
Lots of opportunities, but we shall need to divide our resources!
Briuef comment from of of the opposing groups reps...(not sure about the 'well-mannered' version of a poss demo below...!!)
>The Airport are starting the propaganda ball rolling with a public presentation of their expansion plans for 2 mppa by 2014.
There will be several of these, over the coming weeks, starting in New Romney, this coming week, at
the Assembly Rooms, Wednesday April 5th, 7pm to 8.30pm.
All of our favourite characters will be there, Zaher Deir, Jonathan Gordon and his brother Robin, etc and they will stage manage the evening.
Effective counter arguements from the floor and even a nice colourful well mannered demonstration outside the Assembly Rooms will help our cause.
Local press will attend,....., most likely will represent the Romney Marsh Herald.
We might, with a bit of luck, even get a bit of telly on this one.
You should note also that the Airport lobbied the Labour Party Conference and are now fully awake to the situation
facing them on the planning front. They must surely have realized that the decline of their star in the regional and county planning templates is the fruit of their own complacency. There was a very great deal that they could have doneto reverse all of our efforts and they simply failed to act. They are well awake now however...
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Indeed, an insider in the Expansion camp reckons that SEERA leaving out the 2 mill pax limit were outside their remit Reckons he's seen exchanges of letters (Government??) pointing to that. However, we think this is smoke and mirrors (hopefully)
See also the reports in The Observer April 2 concerning air travel and climate change...
Pollution threat as flights hit 500m a year
Environmental campaigners say that plans to expand airports show that the government's forecasts underplay the rise in passengers
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1745068,00.html http://observer.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1744975,00.html (Editorial Leader...Scarcely audible amid the storm of financial scandal last week was the sound of Labour overshooting its target on greenhouse gas emissions. The Climate Change review, a report on progress towards greener government, evaporated over Westminster like a vapour trail behind a jumbo jet.)
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