Time for Change: Campaign for an Independent Green Thanet MP and Ramsgate Mayor

Except it's not. It's making air monitoring worse by....removing the most advanced monitor at Manston. The Kentmere Avenue monitor right at the end of the runway. It's strange that this release plops out from Cheryl and Penny the day after I'd asked Penny for clarification on the data from the Kentmwere monitor and the flight logs. And bizarrely this release is from last week announcing the changes that were made...in August - at the time of the night flight announcements. It's pretty clear we're expected to swallow this flannel and bullshot along with the failures in monitoring at an airport that was slated for expansion through a mix of council and Infratil collusion. And rank incompetence in expanding it on the water supply and just down the road from Heathrow and Ostend. But I'm picky about being poisoned. Maybe you are too. Maybe even TDC's own staff and councillors are too. Aviation fuel doesn't fall like stair rods under the plane does it - it...

Strange that this monitor was removed on 1st August – wasn’t that around the time of the announcement of night flights by TDC and Infratil? The Kentmere monitor is right at the end of the Manston runway next to the housing estate nearest the airport so quite important you’d think for public health and safety. It’s by far the most advanced monitor at Manston: electronic readings, 24/7, benzene etc etc. All the other monitors now are dabs of cotton wool along the perimeter road. Apparently the monitor was “constantly malfunctioning” which is strange after all these years. And the removal of the noise monitors by Infratil and TDC from 2006. So at the time of airport expansion, Infratil and TDC have repeatedly removed monitoring, never provided the mobile monitoring and never sought to improve monitoring. Now you know and I know that if you want to expand the most polluting industries in an area it’s very difficult as the monitoring has to be robust to ensure the death rate doesn’t rise to...

Dear Mr Garbutt Thank you for your communication received on 14/10/2009. I can respond to your queries as follows: 1. If you can email which companies/amounts TDC invests in each year - a summary is fine. Is the £2m investment a reduction or a fall in shares performance? At 31 March 2008 the Council had the following investments: - Glitner Bank £3.016m - Irish Nationwide Building Society £4.041m - Landsbanki Islands £1.001m - Bank of Scotland £1.005m At 31 March 2009 the Council had the following investments: - Debt Management Office £5.9m - Alliance and Leicester £1.036m The level of investments depends entirely on cash flow requirements and therefore the level of investments at year end can vary significantly between years. (Weren't we told by TDC that they hadn't invested in Icelandic Banks and it's hardly spectacualr investing in the "Debt Management Office" ie putting the funds back into the Treasury. But with a £2M loss). 2. Payroll: please provide with any ...

The South Coast NHS has released details of the lung cancer rates in the area. East Kent: Thanet and parts of Dover have a rating of 70 dbl. Areas around Heathrow such as Hounslow and Hillingdon have rating from 66 down to 54. Nearby Richmond near the flightpath has a rating of 45. No specific ratings exist for each of the Thanet towns. As you can see – and not unexpectedly – living near and under the flight path for 747 jumbo jets at very low level makes Manston one of the most unhealthy places in Kent. The NHS didn’t even try the ”airports are good for you” approach. And Thanet has the highest early death rate in Kent: dying at 69 years old in Thanet and 81 years old in the rest of Kent – again a massive statistical skew. The 106 went some way to attempting to reduce these effects: flight paths away from the towns, air monitor etc – all of which have been ignored by Infratil, KCC and TDC. And now our councillors and civil servants seem to be aware of the problem but simply standing a...

Infratil have sold off their Lubeck airport in Germany. Infratil Manston is little more than half a dozen cargo flights from Ostend cargo airport each week. Which are then unloaded and trucked to Heathrow or around the M25. All of it on the water supply and at rooftop height with some of the highest levels of lung cancer in the UK. Clearly Manston has been seen as a "quick-fix" and "one-0ff" regeneration for Thanet by ignoring and removing noise and air monitoring. What must they be doing at Prestwick? Here's an article I've written on the subject in Your Thanet (page 15). http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/Launch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=m17XJx05n3A1&PBID=84956776-5fe0-4064-a733-83aabf1dd4b7&skip = Infratil have been pandered to by our councils to the point of deliberately endangering the public. While the RAF and MOD have done much the same with oil and chemical sprays over the runway and Fire base - all built upon the underground r...

Most of the problems with the airport are being resolved. Very few flights now. Which is good. Pointless poisoning your own citizens with aviation fuel. And pointless poisoning your own water supply. Not one flight. Not one helicopter. Closed. No lung cancer. No aviation fuel. Nothing. As MP I will assist with the EU inquiries into Lubeck and Prestwick and tighter regulation of noise and air monitoring. We cannot have aviation companies and councils endangering the public. Aside from the airport, tobacco is obviously a major lung cancer problem and a bit more so than other towns: tobacco vending machines should be banned from pubs and cigarettes removed from the large supermarkets. Tobacco kills over 100,000 people (at least) in Britain each year. Ramsgate Town Council are rattling along although there’s some silliness over trying to exclude the public and press from parts of the meeting. 16 councillors represent the 40,000 citizens of Ramsgate. Every piece of information is available ...