As a long time resident of the town of Ramsgate and having lived under the flight path of the previous commercial airport at Manston I would like to register my objection to any plan to reopen the airport as I believe it will affect both my health and my wealth. Health through lack of sleep and air pollution. My wealth through the damage it will do to the value of my home.
RSP who wish to reopen the airport have published a glossy 48 page brochure laying out all their plans for the future development. This brochure, which was made available only to those who knew of or could attend one of their consultation meeting, makes very interesting reading not for what it says but for what it does not say.
• The population of Ramsgate is 40,000.
• The flight path is directly over Ramsgate.
• The end of the runway is half a mile from the edge of Ramsgate.
• The RSP brochure mentions Ramsgate 5 times in 48 pages.
Now you may think there is nothing strange there but let me assure you that under any other planning application of this significance the town and population of Ramsgate by the simple fact of their location would be the only matter under discussion. It appears that RSP have decided that as they cannot explain away the problems that will befall Ramsgate once their airport is running, they are simply pretending that Ramsgate does not exist!
We have not been informed by door to door leafleting, we have not been consulted by holding a public meeting, as held by RSP in Westgate on Sea (a suburb of Margate, not under any flight path). There is in my mind a high degree of deceitfulness by RSP here and it should not be tolerated for a moment.

The Planning Inspectorate cannot consider objections to a proposal at the Pre-application stage of the Planning Act 2008 (PA2008) process. For information about when and how to register as an Interested Party in the Examination (if an application is submitted and the Secretary of State decides that it is of a satisfactory standard to be examined), please see Advice Note Eight here: attachment 1
There is also no mechanism through which the Planning Inspectorate can influence an Applicant’s consultation at the Pre-application stage of the PA2008 process.
Please provide your comments to the Applicant and to your local authority. Local authorities have a special role in the PA2008 process, which I explain in the content of this advice.
The PA2008 places a number of duties on Applicants in respect of Pre-application consultation and all applications for development consent must be accompanied by a ‘Consultation Report’. The Consultation Report is prepared under section 37 of the PA2008 and must give details of:
a) what has been done in compliance with sections 42, 47 and 48 of the PA2008 in relation to an application;
b) any relevant responses; and
c) the account taken of any relevant responses.
In the Acceptance period (ie the 28 days following the formal submission of an application) the Planning Inspectorate will scrutinise all of the application documents, including the evidence provided in the Consultation Report, applying the statutory tests set out in s55 of the PA2008. By the end of the Acceptance period the Planning Inspectorate (on behalf of the Secretary of State) must decide, in accordance with the tests in s55 of the PA2008, whether or not an application is of a satisfactory standard to be examined.
In reaching the above decision, s55(4) makes explicit that the Planning Inspectorate must have regard to the Consultation Report and any Adequacy of Consultation Representations made by local authority consultees. Adequacy of Consultation Representations are defined by s55(5) of the PA2008 as representations about whether the applicant complied with its duties under sections 42, 47 and 48. They are requested from all relevant local authorities on receipt of an application for development consent.
To that end, in providing your comments to your local authority they may be considered in the Council’s preparation of its Adequacy of Consultation Representation; if an application is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate.