Relocation, relocation, relocation

The "8 Hours of Peace and Quiet" Campaign has returned to the welcoming arms of its original home at:

planesoverhernebay.blogspot.com

There you will find the latest news and developments in the continuing campaign against night flights at Manston (a.k.a. Kent International Airport), and the efforts to persuade Infratil (who own Manston) to be good neighbours. Pop over and have a look.

ONLINE PETITION: No Night Flights

It's New! It's Now! It's Online! For the greater good of everyone in East Kent and the wider world, I've set up an e-petition against night flights at Manston.

You can get to it at:

NoNightFlights.blogspot.com

which will be replacing '8 Hours' as the campaigning vehicle. Same blog, same message, same mission, just a snappier name. And the online petition you've been asking for.

Please adjust your bookmarks and links accordingly.

Thank you.
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Complain-o-matic

KIA may occasionally fall short of their own exacting standards, what with acts of God, forces being beyond control, and life generally unfair. All too often, the upshot of this is that planes end up in the wrong place at the wrong time; too low, too late and too loud. When this happens, you may feel the need to tell them what you're thinking.

Here are two easy ways of contacting Manston right now:

1) Click HERE and you will magically materialise in the secret corner of their catacomb of a website that harbours their complaints screen. Be warned: if you want to complain about noise, you will find that there is NO checkbox next to the Noise option. Cunning.


I told them about this teensy-weensy oversight on 9th April, but I guess they've been busy. I applaud the brilliance of this ruse ("...well, we've had no complaints about noise"), but I do feel the execution lacks subtlety.

2) Click HERE to produce a part-completed email, pre-addressed to the only email addresses I have found that work (if you know of any others, do let me know). Give it a go now - it's a hoot.

Email a link to this page to anyone you know who may find it useful. Please let me know if you think of any improvements.

Click HERE to be added to the 8 Hours mailing list

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Clarification

Let's not beat about the bush on this one, I'll make it as clear as I can: no night flights. Not scheduled flights. Not chartered flights. No night flights. Unplanned arrivals: diversions from other airports (due to emergencies, bad weather and so on), humanitarian missions or national crisis are fine. Obviously. But otherwise... no night flights.

I hope that's clear.

A plane coming in to land makes a LOT of noise. At night, when everything else is that much quieter, the sound stands out against the reduced background noise, so seems louder, and is more disruptive. This much is self-evident.

Even modern planes are noisy, and even when they're relatively high up. An enquiry at Stansted in 2007 took evidence of noise complaints that came from a roughly rectangular area 35 miles by 60 miles around the airport. The sound footprint of each aircraft is large; the combined impact of all an airport's traffic taken together is huge.

The noise itself is stressful, as is the loss of sleep - a 10 decibel increase of noise at night raises the risk of hypertension by 14%. On health grounds for all those within earshot, night flights are a non-starter. From the point of view of quality of life, ditto.

Economics: the aviation group of the Local Government Association reports that “no evidence has been produced by the Government or the aviation industry to justify claims that night flights have an overall economic benefit”. That sentence is worth re-reading out loud and thinking about carefully. The LGA, which covers the whole country, but concentrates on local interests and priorities has a 'Strategic Aviation Special Interest Group'. They've done their homework, they've done their sums, and they've come to the conclusion that night flights don't make economic sense.

Matt Clarke (Infratil's Chief Exec) has said that Manston is operating at a fraction of its capacity. Surely there can be no need for them to operate night flights. As there's plenty of available daytime capacity, that should be used up first.

Night flights: unhealthy, uneconomic, unwanted and unnecessary.

Click HERE to be added to the 8 Hours mailing list

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Councillors' replies to the petition

Emails, petitions and links to the blog sent to all KCC Councillors for Thanet and Canterbury Districts, and all CCC and TDC Councillors.

4 added their signatures:
Jean Law (KCC & CCC, Con, Herne Bay) "Add my name to the petition please as I do not agree with any of these night flights."
David Hirst (KCC, Con, Herne Bay) "I am pleased to hear of your initiative. Please add my name."
Alan Poole (KCC, Lab, Ramsgate) "I’m totally against night flights (flights between 23:00 and 07:00). I believe they are unnecessary and should not be allowed. 16 hours a day is quite enough."
Ann Taylor (CCC, Con, Reculver) supports, signed and will be promoting the petition at her grand-daughter's school. Excellent.

2 abstentions:
Ken Gregory (TDC, Con, St Peters) "Sorry, but as chair of planning it would be wrong of me , much as any other member of planning, to pre judge this issue."
Alasdair Bruce (TDC, Con, Birchington South) "Thank you for writting to me with your concerns. As you might know that I am one of four councillors who sit on the airport working group and are currently working towards the formation of a new 106 agreement. Let me assure you that full public consultation will be engaged in prior to any announcement and that this process will be happening soon. I am sure this will be published in the local media. It is vital that a full and balanced view is sought by the four of us before any new agrement is discussed with the airport owners. Let me personally assure you that we will endeavour to secure the best outcome for all concerned."

1 wonderer:
Michael Jarvis (TDC, Con, Dane Valley) "Thank you for your email. I have two questions: What is the current situation with Gatwick? and how would you handle delay flights from holiday destinations arriving in the UK during that night time period?"

No responses supporting night flights.

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Batty

They must be bats, wanting to fly in the dark. Not in the squeaky, blood-sucking sense. Just a bit nutso. Re-tune your ears and minds to human frequencies and I'll explain...

Quick bit of background for newcomers:

At the end of last year, Infratil published their draft MasterPlan, spelling out their hopes and dreams for the coming years. The projected growth in freight and passenger volumes is staggering. Both Thanet District Council and the CPRE were critical of the plan. The document will now rattle back and forth until an agreed final draft is produced, about September 2009.

In a separate but related development, Infratil (who were hoping to win a contract with BAWC) pushed TDC into changes to the Section 106 Agreement at very short notice. These changes would have allowed them a number of night flights to support the BAWC contract. This had the effect of drawing attention to the consequences of increased traffic through Manston. The BAWC deal fell through, and Thanet Council are now starting to draw up a pre-emptive night flying policy that will see them through until 2018.

With me so far? OK. But...

A lot of keen and clever people have spent a lot of time studying planes and airports. Much head-banging, hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing, midnight oil-burning... you get the picture. All this hard work has been condensed down into reports, analyses and presentations which we can all get hold of - we don't have to re-do all that slog.

The aviation group of the Local Government Association reports that “no evidence has been produced by the Government or the aviation industry to justify claims that night flights have an overall economic benefit”. That sentence is worth re-reading and thinking about. The LGA, which covers the whole country, but is focussed on local interests and priorities has a 'Strategic Aviation Special Interest Group'. They've done their homework, they've done their sums, and they've come to the conclusion that night flights don't make economic sense.

The World Health Organisation has found that people's health is damaged if their sleep is reduced or disrupted by noise. This wouldn't just affect those under the loudest part of the aircrafts' noise footprint - it would affect everyone within earshot.

In earlier applications for night flying, promises have been made that flights would be going in and out to the west of Manston, thus avoiding the more densely populated parts of east Kent. The key phrase in all those promises is "weather permitting".

Fact: most of the time the wind in Britain is westerly or south-westerly. Fact: for safety reasons, pilots prefer to land into the wind. So the most sincere of promises, made with the best of intentions, will come to nought if the wind's blowing in the wrong direction. The night flights would be coming in low over Ramsgate and Thanet to land at Manston. Lots of voters, waking up grumpy, needlessly.

Matt Clarke has said that Manston is operating at a fraction of its capacity, so there can be no need for them to operate night flights. There's plenty of available runway time throughout the daylight hours: surely it would make sense to use that up first.

No economic benefit; proven health cost; vote-loser; unnecessary. The Airport Working Group's recommendations on the proposed night-time flying operations from 2010-2018 should be pretty straightforward: don't.

Click HERE to be added to the 8 Hours mailing list

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New readers start here

Here's a chance to make your voice heard. If you don't want night flights, sign the petition. If you really don't want night flights, get other people to sign it too.

Some background...

• Manston Airport is owned by a New Zealand-based company called Infratil.
• Infratil have signed a 'Section 106 Agreement' (S106) with Thanet District Council (TDC) which regulates how Infratil can use Manston - they can't suddenly decide to turn it into a spaceport and launch satellites, for example.
• The S106 states that Infratil isn't allowed to schedule any night flights, although a scheduled flight that arrives late can actually land.
• A night flight is any take-off or landing in the 8 hours between 11pm and 7am.
• Infratil have said they want more night flights.
• If you think we should keep our 8 hours of peace and quiet please sign the petition, which will be presented at the public meeting on June 26th.

Click HERE to find out more about the petition.

Pass it on to your family and friends, colleagues and neighbours. Persuade your local shop, club, pub, church and school to display a copy. Petitions really do make a difference - they make politicians and councillors sit up and take notice.

There will be a public meeting to discuss night flights at Manston Airport (Passenger Departure Lounge) on Friday 26th June 2009 at 7pm.

Please return the petition before 26th June to:
Phil Rose
56 Beacon Hill
Herne Bay
Kent CT6 6JN

Thank you for your time and trouble.

P.S. I will be adding useful stuff to this site more or less daily, so do check back regularly.
P.P.S. Click on the little envelope icon just below to email this to anyone you know who might be interested. If you have a blog or website, please include a link to this blog: you can use tinyurl.com/8hours. Thank you.

Click HERE to be added to the 8 Hours mailing list

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Get the Petition

Click on the picture below to see the petition.

Click HERE to download a PDF version ready for printing.*

Pass it on to your family and friends, colleagues and neighbours. Persuade your local shop, club, pub, church and school to display a copy. Petitions really do make a difference - they make politicians and councillors sit up and take notice.

You should print this in landscape mode. If you run into any problems, email me.

* If you don't have a PDF reader, click here to get Acrobat, or better still click here to get Foxit.

Click HERE to be added to the 8 Hours mailing list

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