Wednesday 4 August 2010

Bin Laden jets into Manston

I’m sure Osama is a bit busy at the moment to fly in to Manston.

But if EgyptAir can fly into Manston from Ostend - and land at 3am - then maybe he could pay Manston a flying visit.

Flytime from Cairo is about 4 hours so the 747 must be setting off - even as Manston is supposedly closed from 11pm.

Osama himself could fly in at night, flick the transponder off and just keep going until he hit Canary Wharf.

But who’d want to fly a jumbo jet into Canary Wharf at night and risk missing it?

With public disregarded surely EgyptAir plus half a dozen Lear jets full of semtex could be used.

In broad daylight. Maybe on the weekend.

Not quite as spectacular as the World Trade Centre but there you go.

As the RAF – hopefully - shoots the jumbo down somewhere over Kent then away the jets go into Parliament.

130,000 people in Thanet have been endangered for an airport glory scheme by nincompoops.

A 24 hour cargo airport.

By removing the safety measures.

And built on the water supply.

Opposite Ostend cargo airport.

And a few minutes flytime from Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton and Stansted.


And now only silence and buckpassing and scapegoating from our 56 councillors - rather than closing the airport.

I see there’s a bit of political gamesmanship on the front page of the Gazette with a “surprising” reveal by KIACC that mobile monitors were never deployed at Manston as required.

For over 5 years.

Each and every meeting mere cynical denial from the Gang of Four.

And now silence, buckpassing and tokenism from our MP's and councillors.

And the top 200 civil servants from Whitehall visiting Thanet for an awayday on deprivation and poverty.

Noise monitors from a school and tower block being removed seems the least of their problems with the collapse of Thanet.

On more mundane matters than another 9/11, I understand there’s a review of the Port and consideration on redeveloping Arlington House with Dreamland.

It seems to me that the Port is of little use without a foot passenger ferry – and even then with Ostend 4 hours away the land could better be used for a tourist attraction like the Landings.

With hundreds of empty houses and the dereliction of Dreamland there's never been a better time to demolish the 1960's carbuncle of Arlington House and look at Dreamland to the TDC building and Cecil Square as one regeneration project.

While the Vattenfall office block in Ram,sgate, again given dozens of empty offices and brownfield sites, should be called in for scrutiny as it seems as foolish as building houses or roads on farmland in the Climate Change Age – or even on top of the water supply as with Manston and Thanet Earth.

We seem to have a council that can only think in terms of land sales and construction permits to fund its own salaries and pensions. Only to then let public sites rot through idleness and incompetence. And then to knock them down to build houses or the ridiculous white elephant New Road and skyscrapers.

Until the very things that make Thanet unique and special are destroyed.

And we have merely clone towns and urban sprawl.

The dereliction is almost total.

Osama couldn't have done better.

Ground Zero Thanet.

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