Manston Airport's future hinges on DfT review

Thanet District Council is to reconsider plans for the airport site ahead of PwC report due at the end of the month.

Jackie Whitelaw
27 May 2015

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The row over the closure and sale of Manston Airport on the Isle of Thanet in the Thames Estuary in Kent, was revived last week with the decision by the new UKIP led Thanet District Council to reconsider pursuing a compulsory purchase order for the site.

The previous administration, which was then controlled by Labour, voted in December not to implement a compulsory purchase order after it claimed prospective indemnity partner RiverOak, which had wanted to keep the airport open, had not passed due diligence.

The decision had left the developer, regeneration specialists Trevor Carter and Chris Musgrave, who purchased the land last year from the previous airport operator, free to press ahead with a housing and business park development until the Department for Transport stepped in last March to order a review of the council's decision, led by PwC.

According to the Isle of Thanet Gazette, councillor Iris Johnston said at last week’s council meeting that at the time the CPO decision was made in December,  three years of accounts and records had not been made available to the Council. Since then, she said, this critical information had been made available.

“In the following months, RiverOak made available to the Minister of State for Transport John Hayes further financial information which led to an independent report tasked to auditor PwC - the results of the this are due this month,” the paper reported.

It continued: “Newly elected Council leader Chris Wells said: ‘I think it's fair to say that sufficient changes in circumstance has taken place for this council to recommend that Cabinet do perhaps look once again to the indemnity partner status and to do so as the first action of this newly elected council.”

The developers remain adamant however that talk of a CPO by the UKIP led council is a “red herring” and that development is the best option for benefiting the area.

Reopening and development of Manston Airport was included as a pledge in the UKIP 2015 Election manifesto which stated: “We firmly believe that part of the solution to address the lack of airport capacity in the South East is to re-open Manston Airport,” pointing out that it "is ideally placed to take low-cost airlines and freight-only aircraft."

The history of the site is well documented in the Commons Transport Committee’s Smaller Airports report, published in March.

It records that the airport had been sold last year to Trevor Carter and Chris Musgrave by Manston Skyport, which had itself purchased the facility in 2013 for £1. The plan was to keep the airport closed and redevelop the site for housing and business facilities.

However, airport operator RiverOak had also wanted to buy the airport for £7M and use it as a cargo facility.

Manston Skyport told the Commons Transport Committe that it decided to close Manston because Ryanair withdrew from discussions to operate from Manston, because British Airways decided not to relocate its cargo operation to Manston and because the Airports Commission concluded that hub capacity should be expanded in the south-east.

Options for a CPO to maintain Manston as an airport were rejected by Thanet District Council and Kent County Council.  But Department for Transport interceded in the Manston case following Thanet District Council’s decision not to proceed with a compulsory purchase order.

In December 2014, then DfT minister John Hayes chaired a meeting with interested parties and agreed to co-ordinate work across Government to explore all options to secure the airport's future.

On 5 March, the DfT announced that it will "appoint a consultant (PWC) to review the process so far on decisions about the future of Manston airport." That report is now due.

In the Infrastrucuture Intelligence/Deltek Pulse survey this month 20% of those surveyed thought a Thames Estuary airport was one option for solving the south east’s airport capacity crisis.

One respondent commented: “I would really like to know why Manston in Kent is not being considered: not much further out than the (Boris Island) estuary airport; a long enough runway; loads of space for development and an easy link to HS1.”