Frederick Forsyth’s Comment about Manston Airport
A mention of Manston Airport by Frederick Forsyth in Friday 1st Jan 2016’s Daily Express.
“It’s only an idea and it might not work, but the furore and exasperation over the matter of increasing airline capacity in the South-east just goes on and on.
The key seems to be the inadequacy of landing and take-off slots at Heathrow, which is apparently causing us immense mercantile damage when compared to Paris, Schiphol and Frankfurt.
But on the north coast of Kent is the decommissioned airbase of Manston.
It has huge empty facilities, a gigantic 6,000-foot runway, hangars, mess halls – the lot. It has fast links to London that could be easily upgraded.
To recommission Manston would cost a fraction of a complete new runway elsewhere.
If you transferred all freight and holiday charter flights from Heathrow to Manston, I think you could free up the landing and take-off slots equivalent to a new runway.”
Photo: “Frederick Forsyth – 01” by Das blaue Sofa – http://www.flickr.com/photos/das-blaue-sofa/6317965950/. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons.
Our family and friends travel regularly to Spain , we lived local to Manston and used Manston when we’re first moved here , since travel to and from Spain stopped we all now have to travel to and from Gatwick , Stansted … From Thanet . Bring back Manston .
His make perfect sense. The transport links have been paid for and are in place. Thanet needs jobs not more homes. As an unemployment black spot, where are the people that live in the new houses going to work! Why do the powers dimiss thus obvious answer!
People have been fighting tooth and nail for the reopening of the airport. The election here was fought an won on the promise of reopening of Manston. It’s been unfortunate that this perfectly wonderful chance for Thanet’s future has been thrown to the wind just because the owner Mrs Gloag and her frontsmen wish to make money from housing .This is my personal opinion shared by many others This destruction af our valuable asset is very cynical as there is little work here, and a water shortage in summer. The airport if properly managed would encourage business to locate locally and bring real work. What better for these small seaside towns than to have a dynamic economy and not just be used as a place to dump people pushed out of London