D-Day for LAA

After years of debate and delays, tonight’s the night for Shepway Council to approve or reject the applications for Lydd Ashford Airport.

Planning officers recommend refusal though there are plenty of precedents from the Development Control Committee to show councillors will not slavishly follow their officers’ recommendations.

What can we expect?

The Lib Dems will surely vote to reject the applications. With ‘green’ and ‘eco-tourism’ being current Lib Dem buzzwords, and repeated articles on their website AGAINST the application, it seems unlikely that the arguments put forward tonight will change their minds although of course they are prepared to listen to both sides of the argument.

Shepway Lib Dem Leader Lynne Beaumont told FUTS she has taken legal advice to ensure that the group’s votes will not be challenged. Fellow Lib Dem Peter Carroll will not be able to vote, having previously stated the expansion would go ahead ‘over my dead body.’

Labour Candidate Donald Worsley is strongly in favour of the expansion, as a hub for jobs and apprenticeships, yet with no councillors Labour’s influence on the decision at this stage is non-existent.

The key lies with Shepway Conservative’s overwhelming majority on the council.

Statements and clues as to how they will vote are somewhat sparse. Were there any Labour councillors, headway could have been made here. Conservative councillors have been notably tight-lipped on this issue. The news section of the conservative website has little mention of Lydd save for noting that Michael Howard MP, who will speak at the meeting, is in support of limited expansion.

Conservative Candidate Damian Collins has previously stated he would support limited expansion depending on officers’ recommendations, yet after officers’ recommendation of refusal he now wants to look at the power of the Natural England veto. Some observers see Mr Collins perching on the fence as delicately as any protected species on the Marsh. Surely the key point here is that Mr Collins is not willing to reject the airport.

The Conservatives have presented a united front over Dungeness, campaigning hard for it to ensure jobs are on the Marsh. Although numbers are contentious, there is no doubt some jobs would come from the airport – should it be a success.

Whether the airport is a success or the jobs materialise is another matter and will surely be the crux of the Conservative debate against the Liberal Democrat stand. The debate will no doubt be fierce at times, but will those outside the chamber ever know what happened? The meeting is being relayed over the web, though there are concerns that the link will crash. Good for poor taste puns but not so good for following how our elected representatives are controlling our area.

Tonight the Conservative councillors will have to pin their colours to the mast. Given their stand on Dungeness and their Westminster men’s views, if I were a betting man I would take a long-odds punt on the application being approved.

Such a highly contentious issue on such a large development has polarised opinions. An extremely vocal pressure group, Lydd Airport Action Group, (L.A.A.G.) is against the application and garners more publicity than the groups supporting the application – most notable Friends of Lydd Airport (F.L.A.G.). Does it represent the feelings of Marsh residents? This is difficult to answer as any poll is denounced as biased, unfair or representative of a small sample of residents.

The only point of agreement in the debate is that any decision will be subject to an appeal. Peter Carroll may have to wait some months before he lies down before the bulldozers.