The list below is a record of advice the Planning Inspectorate has provided in respect of the Planning Act 2008 process.
There is a statutory duty under section 51 of the Planning Act 2008 to record the advice that is given in relation to an application or a potential application and to make this publicly available. Advice we have provided is recorded below together with the name of the person or organisation who asked for the advice and the project it relates to. The privacy of any other personal information will be protected in accordance with our Information Charter which you should view before sending information to the Planning Inspectorate.
Note that after a project page has been created for a particular application, any advice provided that relates to it will also be published under the ‘s51 advice’ tab on the relevant project page.
Advice given between between 1 October 2009 and 14 April 2015 has been archived. View the archived advice.
Enquiry
I note from recent correspondence on your website, and documents published by RiverOak, that the US part of RiverOak is apparently no longer connected to the application for a DCO for the former Manston airport.
However, RiverOak's online presence directs people to the website of their US operation, including a US phone number (See attachment 1).
In addition, the PINS webpage for the project also indicates that the applicant is River Investment Corporation LLC although the address links to BDB-Law. The developer website (shown as attachment 1) clearly indicates that the developer is the US operation.
There is no longer any reference to either aviation projects, or any of the RiverOak personnel involved in the Manston project, on the US website (though historically there has been content regarding aviation, and bio material on Tony Freudmann, Niall Lawlor and George Yerrall), indicating that the US entity has washed it's hands of the project.
As the US entity is apparently no longer involved in the application I have concerns that as RiverOak approach their formal consultations their online presence is misleading, as it presents a formal business link to an established investment firm, when this appears not to be the case.
I would appreciate it if you could contact the developer and ask them to resolve this issue. I would contact them directly, however they do not respond to email correspondence, and it is no longer clear who should be contacted.
Could you also clarify whether the apparent change in legal entity has any impact on the work carried out on the DCO application so far, or whether the limited progress made to date remain a valid in the overall project.
Advice given
The Planning Inspectorate has not been notified about any change to the Applicant's name.
In the period before an Applicant formally notifies the Secretary of State of a proposed application (s46 of the Planning Act 2008), any change to an Applicant's name or the legal entity associated with it would not have implications for any Pre-application work predating that change.
In the case of the proposed Manston Airport, the Applicant has undertaken non-statutory consultation under the name RiverOak Investment Corp LLC. An Applicant may choose to report on elements of any non-statutory consultation that it undertook in the Consultation Report submitted with its application, although the PA2008 is not binding in this respect. If the Applicant for Manston Airport chooses to report on its non-statutory consultation in the CR submitted with an application, it would be reasonable to expect any change in name to be explained and for the steps the Applicant took to clarify the change to consultees to be summarised.
