Response from the office of Natalie Elphicke

Sarcasm demeans you ; just point me to what you quote me as saying was illegal and where I said it.

I'm happy to visit a small airfield. I just don't want one at the end of my garden. Neither do my neighbours!

Yup I'd be up for that. Why ruin more countryside and blight people's lives when there's a ready made strip 2 minutes away (by plane!!)

I really struggle to see the actual benefits here? We're looking at a lift and shift job of someone's scalextric set to another site because they were moved on. How does that benefit the local neighborhood?

Planes make noise, disturb the wildlife and pollute that's a fact. The solleys plane buzzes overhead and it's hardly silent, this will just add more of the same.

Perhaps the folk campaigning against this small airstrip would lend their weight (and balance) to have Manston re-opened to general aviation. Ready made runway of gargantuan proportions & established infrastructure, which would suit, I would have thought, any pilot, either based there or just visiting.

You underestimate the responsibility of private pilots who are constantly coming under fire when establishment of new airfields are attempted. Pilots flying to private airfields are obliged without exception to seek 'PPR' or 'prior permission required' from the airfield operator. The operator will supply a briefing regarding surrounding noise sensitive areas, complemented by maps on onboard GPS based satellite navigation equipment a dozen times more accurate than the average car 'Sat-Nav' showing precisely those areas to avoid and pilots will do so. Your notion that the skies will be full of light aircraft buzzing continuously around in large numbers like wasps round a dustbin is ill informed. One local farmstrip airfield I fly from uses these 'PPR' briefings and the operator has not had a single noise complaint in 30 years. By all accounts the traffic noise from a nearby 'A' road to the proposed airstrip is greatly more continuously obtrusive than the sporadic passage of a light aeroplane. A site visit by the planning committee would soon realise this.

But as has rightly been stated on your forum and several others, planners will not be influenced by emotive hot air on social media, rather will look at comments placed in the appropriate place on the DOC site against the planning request when it is opened for comment. It is to this place that I will submit my support.

There are a large number of homes and business owners close to the proposed site who are very concerned by the idea of small planes regularly buzzing around and who feel will be affected by it negatively. A lot of us feel that it would detract from the peace and tranquility we sought when we moved to the countryside.

You may see it as 'entrenched' many of us see it as fighting for the peace we sought and found when we moved here. We're fighting a small group of people wishing to break our peace and spoil the nature of the place for a pastime, a hobby.

There are sufficient airfields around. Why create a new one?

I don't understand how the people you spoke to saw the whites of their eyes , its open countryside on the approach and my sister lives in the nearest housing estate to that field (now to become a timber storage yard I understand) and I think your estimation of height is a little inaccurate as they start coming down at aprox 1000 feet to land and they glide in almost silently. As for Andy and Sally Hague - he liked aeroplanes and she liked horses, I think there was always a little interspousal rivalry, even in the pub.

Anyhow it seems pointless trying to have a reasoned debate as you are clearly in a very entrenched position and it would be interesting to know how close you actually live to the proposed new airstrip as my observation on Google earth show no houses at all near the proposed site's glide and takeoff paths.

Why do you have to object - I really don't get it. Is it just for the sake of objecting? Or have you been upset by aeroplanes in general or the general freedoms we should enjoy in a democracy and feel we should be able to dictate what someone else does with a piece of farmland that they own.

Whoops Sorry - didn't realise this was just a website for opposing this proposal.

Nevertheless, people should be able to present an alternative view, even if they are not involved in aeroplanes and the like.

My sister lives near the now closed Maypole airfield near Herne Bay and we used to love seeing the little planes buzzing around when visiting. I think the local pub there (opposite the airfield) used to do very well out of the visiting aircraft too.

The lady at the airfield there was a horse lover and she had horses right next to the landing strip and she was a well know country and wildlife lover - it all seemed to co-exist quite well.

I don't think it is right to just oppose everything that is new. But I guess its human nature for some, who perhaps have a little too much time on their hands.

I'm hoping once it is there that I can take my Grandchildren to watch and enjoy the wonder of human flight. It makes a nice day out to walk down to the beach and climb over the shingle, visit the towers and then we can take them to look at the flying.

All part of life's rich tapestry!

I do believe that 'pilotsarus' have been instructed to bombard our forum, FB, twitter and Instagram to harras and abuse regardless where they live in the country...let them rant, we won't stop fighting.

I don't understand why there is so much "anti-ism" for anything that propels "GREAT" Britain into the future technological age? Where would you rather live, India perhaps.

We must embraced change, not shy away from it. Where would our national transport infrastructure be if we had railway trains without stations !

This is a small grass airfield proposal, there are one or two dotted around the south east and they bring some financial income to the area, a little tourism, wildlife friendly habitat instead of a ploughed field.

The type of people involved are generally friendly, conscientious aviators, not drunken yobs !

I think I would rather have these types visiting my local area than a trainfull of football hooligans.

I wonder if Ms Elphicke has seen the attached Government Document released today (27.4.21) from the DfT and the office of Mt Robert Court MP outlining the Goverment's support for general aviation, Entitled Roadmap for General Aviation: Perusal of thss before indulging in knee-jerk Nimbyism might provide a more balanced , less emotional argument in support of the development of the airstrip

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/general-aviation-in-the-uk

Thanks for sharing and writing to NE, we have all had the same letter back...but useful 👍