Surfbirds News

« 90 Day Comment Period on Cerulean Warbler | Main | NO CASE FOR A NEW AIRPORT AT CLIFFE »

October 06, 2002

NO AIRPORT AT CLIFFE NEWS UPDATE

Greetings all,

'Countryfile,' to be broadcast at 11am on BBC1 Sunday the 24th/11th includes a feature highlighting NA@C campaign issues - it's presented by John Craven, who kindly visited the peninsula and RSPB reserves there, earlier this week.

Please note that due to so much wet weather the 23rd/11th NA@C march location changed from Bromhey Farm to Rochester - Meet at the Castle Grounds, Rochester at 10.00 am for a march through Rochester starting at 11am.

Please do write to the Department of Transport and your MP, register your concerns now, before the consultation period closes on 30th/11th, information is available to assist, on the dedicated NA@C pages of the RSPB website at: www.rspb.org.uk - if you've already written -THANK YOU!

Here follows the RSPB press release response to the SASIG report:

AVIATION REPORT IS COMEDY OF ERRORS AT WHICH NO-ONE IS LAUGHING

The RSPB has slammed yesterday's report by SASIG (Strategic Aviation Special Interest Group) as worthless. The SASIG claim that an airport at Cliffe is the 'visionary solution' is strewn with errors and omissions, and is not the official voice of local government as it has been portrayed.

Chris Corrigan, RSPB Regional Director, said:"There is so much wrong with the SASIG document, it is difficult to know where to start. It is all the more worrying given that SASIG are not the true voice of Local Government. They are but a small part of the Local Government Association, which won't decide its position until 12th December"

The following are just examples of how wayward their thinking is:

With regard to the wildlife implications of an airport at Cliffe, the SASIG report glaringly omits the key designation, the Special Protection Areas (SPAs), and clearly does not understand how this legislation protects the area.

On the economic front, SASIG claim that an airport at Cliffe 'could result in London having twin hubs, with Heathrow's two runways continuing to provide the home base for one of the airline alliances and Cliffe providing for the other'. RSPB research clearly shows that a dual hub is an unworkable option in the UK. Were another hub to be constructed, it is likely that airlines would either remain at Heathrow, especially if expanded, or possibly move to another the new hub, but not both.

SASIG claim that a 'relatively small number of properties' would be affected and that 'this must be one of the very few locations in the South East where adequate land is available with relatively low impact on people.' This is clearly myth when the 1,100 properties that would have to be 'taken' in the Cliffe option is considerably higher than any of the other options.

Chris continues, "SASIG own mission statement is to 'seek a national aviation strategy for the UK that reconciles economic, social and environmental issues in a sustainable way'. In recommending the Cliffe option, they seem to be failing that in every way."

Last but not least, an article from yesterdays Telegraph:

Wildlife may save Cliffe from ravages of airport

By Charles Clover, Environment Editor

(Filed: 19/11/2002)

'It doesn't look that big on the Government's map but when you visit the site of the proposed Cliffe airport, on the north Kent marshes, it takes your breath away.

If you stand at Cliffe Pools, a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserve on a bend in the Thames east of Gravesend, you can see the villages of St Mary's Hoo and Allhallows which would be destroyed to make the runway. The furthest point is five miles away.

Some 26 square miles would be developed, including also part of High Halstow, Lower Stoke and part of Cooling, a total of 1,100 homes would be destroyed and a huge projecting wall of the Thames escarpment would be folded on to the marsh below to raise the four runways and prevent them flooding.

The village of Cliffe, ironically, would be the only one unscathed by the bulldozer. The others would simply disappear off the map.

Jools Holland, the genial musician, lives in a house within the ruins of the former castle at Cooling, and is understandably unimpressed. He said: "I fear no corner of England is safe."

Cooling churchyard reputedly provided the inspiration for the first meeting of Pip and Magwitch in Dickens's Great Expectations. But it is the wildlife of the Hoo peninsula which its residents are hoping will prevent its destruction.

The marshes and pools of the Hoo peninsula attract some 200,000 waders and wildfowl in winter, mostly ducks and geese. The grazing marshes also support a variety of breeding waders including avocet, little egret, redshank and lapwing.

There are other scarce breeding birds such as marsh harriers, tern and Mediterranean gulls. The marshes are also regarded as important for their population of water voles, scarce emerald damselflies and the recently rediscovered Maid of Kent rove beetle.

All this enjoys the highest level of legal protection European law can bring. The airport would either destroy or damage four areas of marsh protected by the EU as a Special Protection Area for Birds and as a wetland under the Ramsar Convention.

The terms of the EU Habitats directive specifically say that developments can be justified only in terms of national economic necessity and there must be alternative provision made, on a similar scale, for wildlife.

The RSPB, which humiliated the Government over a development on Lappel Bank, also in north Kent, sounds confident of its ground. The RSPB has five significant nature reserves in the area, including Cliffe Pools, where 112 species were counted in 24 hours including, on the day I visited, shoveler and pochard, and Northward Hill, a large area of ancient woodland and the largest heronry in the country with 160 pairs.

But the human impact of the airport, and the blight that the Cliffe has brought to people's lives, should not be overlooked. Robert Maclean's family has farmed 2,000 acres of freshwater marsh and hill since 1936 as tenants of the Church Commissioners.

Mr Maclean, as a tenant, is being offered only six year's rent and three year's profit - not much in bad times for farming - as compensation for losing his livelihood and the roof over his head.

George Crozer, leader of the liaison group for local parishes, lives in High Halstow, close to one of the RSPB reserves and has a fabulous view over the Thames estuary. The area would be destroyed to build the runways.

He points out that the development would not stop at the boundaries of the airport but flow across north Kent. A report for Kent county council by the respected consultants Mott Macdonald estimates the number of houses needed for airport workers at 109,000.

On the other hand, Cliffe does have environmental and regeneration advantages - shifting London airport there would put most air movements, and hence noise, out over the Thames estuary instead of over London.

It would also help to regenerate east London and run-down towns of the Thames estuary and is closest to the Channel Tunnel. It looks attractive to some, particularly if they happen to live anywhere near Stansted in Essex'.

Cheers,

Perry Haines

RSPB No Airport At Clifffe campaign co-ordinator.

Posted by Surfbirds at October 6, 2002 11:18 PM

Comments

Post a comment