Manston NO SHOW

Phew what a weekend, though for me the weekend was a bit of a disappointment, since most of it was spent at work, however as a treat on Friday, I thought I would go hear what Conservative county councillor leader Paul Carter had to say about Manston, at the Kent International Airport consultative committee meeting.

Arriving a tad late for the meeting I managed to bag a seat in range of the world's noisiest air conditioning, fortunately I was able to catch the only bit of excitement of the evening which came at the start proceedings.

The chairman's preamble to the meeting, indicated from the outset, that this meeting would be nowhere near as stimulating as the last one, as the chairman started to speak, the audience predominantly made up of what Americans would call seniors, started to complain about the inability to hear the chairman which pretty much set the tone for the gathering (and later made me suspicious of their complaints re aircraft noise)

Any how to those that could hear, there was a certain amount of indignation, on the news that Paul Carter would not be in attendance, due to some family arrangement or something to that effect, I understand that it was put up to a vote, whether Mr. Carter should be reported to the standards board, and despite cllr Roger Latchford loyally speaking in defence of his fellow Tory I believe that motion was carried. (Lets just hope that it wasn’t just a case of your dinner will be ready at 7pm )

Second on the bill was Matt Clarke, Infratil's man in Manston, who I frankly feel sorry for, when faced with a bunch of belligerent elderly residents, anyway he gave a reasonable and honest assessment of the way things are, details of the massive investments they had made, and then faced questions.

As you can imagine since the room was full of people who have little more to concern themselves with other than the Manston flight path and why planes shouldn't just tiptoe around towns and villages etc then question were of a boring repetitive nature.

To be honest I felt my life forces draining, particularly listening to the well rehearsed questions from one local blogger, with the accompanying and looks round the room presumably seeking approval, which as mostly this crowd were passed working age was readily available.

I was formulating a question to ask Matt Clarke, which would have been, “are you ever tempted at meetings to say, stuff this!, instead we'll apply for planning permission for a housing estate”, however I never got to ask my question, as I was a overwhelmed with the urge to live, and decided to escape early.

It strikes me that pretty much everyone at meeting including myself was a self opinionated busy body to varying degrees, I just wonder if many have considered Manston without the Airport, what are we left with, a lost chance of economic stimulus to the area, and just a massive grisly housing estate in its place.

Coming back to Paul Carter, not attending the meeting might well be one of the smartest things he's ever done, and I for one can't blame him, basically you have a small committee, which seems to thrive on the minutest detail, latching onto any opportunity to moan about the airport's existence an audience who appear to have nothing else to worry about in life other than the occasional aircraft a few thousand feet above their heads.