As I hope you can imagine, the decision by the owners of the site to sell the land to the applicants at the eleventh hour is causing some consternation in the areas which are likely to be most seriously affected. Member of the organised group which has been campaigning for the airport to be reopened have been partying and using social media to imply that the Development Consent Order is now a "slam-dunk." One particular area causing confusion is the decision by the owners of the site to withdraw their objections to the plans. Throughout the process, the owners of the site had been adamant that they had no intention of selling and were committed to the redevelopment plans which they had submitted to Thanet District Council. Therefore, it came as something of a shock when they sold. In the course of the acceptance and examination process, the owners of the site raised numerous objections to the proposal. Where they had accurately and concisely set out an objection, many other interested parties did not bother to make the same point. I don't think anybody foresaw that they would sell and certainly did not foresee that they would be allowed to withdraw all of the evidence they had submitted at the last minute, thereby preventing anyone else from making the same objection. In addition, there is a further area of concern. Being professional developers, the owners of the site had access to funds which they were able to use to employ professional advisors. For example, they commissioned some detailed work about the viability of the proposed airport from York Aviation. Needless to say, although many local people shared their concerns about viability, they did not have the resources to commission a piece of work like this. In any event, they saw no need to commission another study when the York Aviation study had already been submitted. When the owners of the site withdrew all of their objections to the DCO, does this mean that all of the evidence they submitted will also be deleted? Many individuals used data from the York Aviation study in submitting their own objections. Will all of those objections now be ignored? In light of the decision by the owners of the site to withdraw their own objections to the DCO, will PINS be producing a summary to show which pieces of evidence will now be ignored? Will PINS be writing to all of those who have raised objections to clarify which of their objections will be taken into account and which ones will now be ignored?

The request by Stone Hill Park Ltd (SHP) to withdraw its representations was made less than five hours before the Examination closed at 23:59 on 9 July 2019. On that basis it was received too late in the Examination for the Examining Authority (ExA) to properly consider the request or the implications for other Interested Parties. SHP’s representations therefore remain part of the Examination Library. The ExA will explain how it considered the SHP representations in its Recommendation Report which will be published on the National Infrastructure Planning website at the same time as the Secretary of State’s decision.