A pre-action letter from RiverOak lawyers Bircham Dyson Bell challenging Thanet Council’s recommendation to withhold its report and planned discussion in relation to “Change of Use appeals – Manston Airport” from the press and general public has been rebutted by the council.

RiverOak has made numerous attempts to contact Thanet Council officers on at least four separate topics relating to RiverOak’s plans for Manston Airport and proposed DCO application. All of which have, to date, gone unanswered.

On Friday 28 October, planning consultants RPS issued a letter, on behalf of RiverOak, to Kent County Council highlighting a number of points in relation to KCC’s consultation on their draft Local Transport Plan, particularly on the issue of maximising the use of existing regional airport capacity.

Bircham Dyson Bell, solicitors for RiverOak, have today sent a letter to Madeline Homer, Chief Executive of Thanet Council, highlighting the RiverOak professional team’s concerns both with the methodology and findings of Avia Solutions report and the manner in which it is being considered by the council in connection with the Local Plan process.

RiverOak is working on a comprehensive rebuttal of the Avia Solutions report, which it plans to release early next week, highlighting how basic factual errors and questionable methodology, together with a decision to ignore six respected and publicly available air freight studies, has led to a set of conclusions about Manston Airport that are unsafe for Thanet Council to rely on and therefore render the report unusable.

RiverOak will be continuing to develop its exciting plans for Manston Airport given that Avia Solutions “does not offer any opinion about the reasonableness or otherwise of RiverOak’s commercial plans for the airport” making their report irrelevant.

RiverOak Investments is disappointed by the inaccurate and misleading comments made yesterday (21 September) by a Stone Hill Park spokesperson on our exciting plans for Manston airport project. We felt we had no option but to respond to their deliberate misinterpretation of our approach to community engagement, which is one of the largest and most comprehensive seen in this part of the country.

90% of local people who took part in the recent informal consultation by RiverOak Investments support proposals for reviving Manston Airport as an airfreight hub with complementary passenger and engineering services. A further 8% of respondents said they opposed the plans and 2% are not yet sure.

The Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling, has confirmed ongoing support for Manston Airport.

RiverOak Investments has appointed Suzanne Ornsby QC to represent the firm at the forthcoming public inquiry relating to the Lothian Shelf planning appeal, in respect of four separate planning applications which propose a change in the use of four separate buildings at Manston Airport.

On Kent Online today (6 September 2016), the No Night Flights campaign suggests, among other allegations, that our plan is for: “the UK’s biggest dedicated cargo airport and a huge industrial estate on what is now undeveloped land” that will “do nothing for the heritage of the site, nothing for the environment and nothing for the future prosperity or quality of life of local residents.”

A detailed review, by specialist technical consultancy Osprey Consulting Services, of the Wind Business Report into the proposed communications masts by Vigilant Global UK Ltd and New Line Networks, highlights the potential of both masts to impact upon aircraft operations and the proposed Vigilant mast, in particular, to create “significant flight safety hazards” to operational aircraft at a revived Manston Airport.

Please click here to view the minutes of the meeting between the Planning Inspectorate and RiverOak held on 19 July 2016.

RiverOak Investments has highlighted inaccuracies in comments by Stone Hill Park spokesman Ray Mallon in the Kent Online business story “Manston: Stone Hill Park hits out at ‘vague’ RiverOak plans.

The Leader of Dover District Council, Councillor Paul Watkins, has submitted a response to the informal consultation on behalf of the council, confirming its support for RiverOak’s plans to pursue a Development Consent Order and outlining the reasons for its support of the retention of Manston as an operational airport.