Sunday 31 October 2010

Manston - gateway to AlQaida

With cargo flight bombs now an AlQaida option – again Manston is wide open.

Random night flights. Egyptair. Banned African flights. Unchecked cargo. Offroute flights etc etc.

A few minutes fly time from Canary Wharf.

It's a wonder a few bombs aren't hidden under a couple of pallets of heroin from Amsterdam or some Sudanese Kalashnikovs from Ostend.

Shouldn’t flights be pulled - the last major terrorism alert in Summer 2007 still had flights coming in plus banned flights.

Shouldn’t there be an aviation blacklist for blatant breaches of airport operations and safety: Infratil’s Directors seem to do what they like.

Why have noise and air monitors been removed and flight breaches deliberately ignored by our councillors and civil servants - for years?

And silence on the East Kent drinking water supply under the runway.

Over a year of fudge and delay since the BAWC night flight application with Matt Clarke and Latchford and Ezekiel last July. The same sort of delay as with the Albion House petition.

We seem to have had public safety endagered for mere dogma and incompetence.

Manston can only close now. The sooner the better.

And the runway and buildings and KCC/SEEDA carpark removed to allow the underground water reservoir to refill and clean.

The same - when action is eventually taken - for Thor mercury.

And at some point a desalination plant will need to be considered rather than piping water in from West Kent and failing flood defences and drains.

Our 1970's pensioners have failed us.

The towns have burned down and fallen down.

A bottom 10% council and bottom 10% UK area.

If you told me I wouldn't have believed you.

Thursday 28 October 2010

Guns R Us: Manston and Ostend

http://www.ruudleeuw.com/ostend.htm



“Bulgaria and Slovakia are major sources of arms to be transported to war zones. Airports from where the arms' transfer is organised or effected are mainly Burgas and Plovdiv in Bulgaria, Bratislava in Slovakia, a number of Russian airports, Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and the airport of Ostend. The arms are subsequently delivered to the Sudanese airport of Khartoum, to Sierra Leone, Angola, the Congo or other war zones. All the airports mentioned above are still visited by aircraft from Ostend.”



Info above (simply Google “gunrunning Ostend”) on gunrunning in and out of Ostend.


Manston – less so now – used various known gunrunners for the “Ostend hops” eg DAS, MK etc etc (plus aircraft already banned from EU) and in the last 7 days there’s been another unmarked and rather tatty 747 flying in and out. Plus various smaller aircraft.

Presumably also EgyptAir.

And several out-of-hours flights and unchecked flights.

Infratil’s new Director Charles Buchanan – formerly London City Airport – has stated in the last month that it’s not Infratil’s responsibility to check what flights are coming in and out of its airport.

I thought it was.

Along with CAA and Police/Customs – unless they’ve lost control of the airport and UK airspace.

As Infratil “have form” with MK etc shouldn’t the flight logs from the control tower be provided by CAA? And the Infratil Directors placed on a blacklist?

And a transport review of CAA/Customs/Police/Flight logs at airports?

Any – or most - banned aircraft should be identified from a two minute Excel sheet search.

All the specified flight routes are still being ignored by Infratil: at what point does the CAA seek fines and jail sentences?

Or even - I know, foolish when they can't even paint a park bench - TDC.

Arms to dodgy regimes is one thing but blatantly flying them in and out of airports is another.

Separately, still silence on the toxin levels and cleanup at Manston, Thor and Richboro.

There was a half page article in the Sunday Times just gone on the dangers of mercury.

Silence on why Thor was still open for 20 years.

Nothing on dumped jets at Manston.

And ships off Cliftonville and the Blue Flag beaches.

Nothing on KCC's staff costs and pensions by department.

Nor TDC's.

Not even RTC's report and accounts (the whole report and accounts!) - personally promised by Richard Styles a fortnight ago - after being singed off 3 months ago.

Shush.

Not for you to know.

It does make a difference when you can see the services provided and the actual cost doesn't it?

Time for Change.

Wednesday 27 October 2010

Manston night and day cancer

Just another farcical public meeting on Manston again.

As usual all the public opposed to whatever nonsense the TDC councillors are suggesting.

Empty burble from Mike Harrison – the Chair of the Airport Committee no less - about there might be a consultation or not a consultation and maybe in a month or two.

Nor – supposedly - could they say what their own opinions are. How ridiculous to elect silent representatives.

Just embarrassing.

TDC and KCC only seem to operate on silence and lies - and RTC much the same.

A no explanation for over a year’s delay since the first request by Infratil – other than the sound of bucks being passed and councillors ducking the public protests then.

Stale old men relying on secrecy, pass the buck and petty committee procedure while Infratil do what they like.

No explanation for the repeated breaches of the 106.

No explanation on how many deaths form the lack of monitoring.

Nor the delay on a night flights consultation since last July.

Nor why it would be 12 weeks of consultation – you may remember the EUJet farce of a consultation that began when TDC was closed continued after the planes began flying - rather than the specified 26 weeks.

Empty burble and flannel now they’ve been found out.

It’s a lot of deaths to explain if the mortality rate is 63 rather than 81 years old.

And a lot of monitors removed, altered and not in place.

Time to change these useless Darby and Joaners.

Time for criminal charges for Samuel and White and Infratil Directors for removing the noise and air monitors form an airport slated for expansion and 0% fraud.

Time for a public enquiry requested by Tracy Emin into our substandard councils.

Time for a public meeting for all votes on Manston outside of the ludicrously small Custom House..

Our council has failed.

Can’t even publish the report and accounts – presumably it’s the same £300k as of the Charter Trustees – but more costs for pensions. Where is Ramsgate’s £20M share of council tax?

Manston’s failed.

And a lot of people have cancer unnecessarily.

The only question now is how long will we wait before the airport is closed to safeguard the water – and the public from our shoddy civil servants and councillors.

Delays in closing the airport simply mean more air and water pollution and cancer before the plug is pulled.

Time to stop the cancer.

Time for Change.

Sunday 10 October 2010

Stop the pollution, corruption and construction

Why the delays and silence from our politicians and civil servants on the pollution, corruption and construction in Thanet?


Our politicians and civil servants have failed us:


· major pollution incidents and cover-up: highest cancer rate in South East

· Third World death rates: 18 year death gap from rest of Kent

· deliberate pollution from Manston and Thor

· collapse of Margate

· utter waste of tax-funds


Vote Garbutt for Mayor May 2011: Independent Green – directly elected


Stop the Pollution:

• Close Manston airport: built on the polluted drinking water supply - and repeated safety breaches by TDC and Infratil

• Thor mercury factory near Hornby – publish EA toxin cleanup details: should have closed in 1988 but remains open

• Demolish the derelict and polluting Richboro power station

• Clean up Pegwell Bay: one of the two most polluted sites in Kent

* Close Manston MOD Fire station: thousands of litres of chemicals into the water supply

* Limit Thanet windfarm: expansion details, funding and free electricity.

* Revise building codes for refurb and One House. Two Solar Panels.

* Detail all asbestos sites and cleanup.

* Ban pollution ships from the Cliftonville Blue Flag beaches, reform Port and Marina and Channel routes

• NHS joint-monitoring of TDC pollution sites to reduce Thanet’s Third world death rates: dying at 63 not 81.


Stop the Corruption:

• Repay fraudulent TDC civil service 0% pay rises from Messrs Samuel and White

• A fair trial for the Toxic Two and Infratil’s Directors with a public-funded class action in removing monitors of Messrs Samuel and White - and underperforming civil servants and councillors

* Boycott KCC’s council tax payments until Thanet is regenerated and electoral reform: recall, referenda, KCC direct votes

* Peg council tax to inflation and back-office reform and bloat

• Publish all TDC and RTC £22m (almost 50% of a council tax budget of £60m!): civil servant staffing, salaries, expenses, cars, pensions and other benefits each month

• End Chinagate completely and refund the £25k Labour party donations to charity

* Publish EKO and Pleasurama contracts and costs

• End “minimargateism” – create Margate Town Council, reopen Ramsgate Tourist

Centre and Albion House Town Hall to the public and MP offices upstairs


Stop the Construction:

• Halt overdevelopment 23,000 empty houses in Kent: no new build houses except on brownfield

• End garden-grabbing construction: Thnaet has lowest green space per head

• Halt £80M East Kent access road - another “road to nowhere” construction

• Reverse the dereliction of the town centres: civil service vanity projects and wasteful roadbuild

• Rollback development at Westwood Cross and introduce parking charges: an out-of-town-shopping-centre-built-near-the-town-centres

• Expand greenbelt, trees, verges and parks: begin Van Gogh gallery and reopen town museums and tourist centres

* Begin Pleasurama icerink and 2012 pool

* Demolish Arlington House and recharge Turner Centre to KCC


Here’s an article from March’s Independent on Sunday on air pollution in the UK -clearly the collusion by civil servants and our councillors and MP’s to expand Manston has seriously endangered the health of many members of the public:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/britain-a-breath-of-foul-air-1924790.htm

Thanet has sites with over 4x the EU levels for emissions.

We await explanations on why noise and air monitors were removed and not replaced
by Infratil and TDC – for an airport slated for expansion when nearby Canterbury has 5 permanent monitors for roads.

How many dead from cancer.

Why there are repeated breaches of the 106 airport regulations and Consultations.

Why the airport is still allowed to pollute the drinking water supply - and

why after months and years our councillors, civil servants and MP’s remain silent.

Time for national change:

* Achieve the UNMDG and 1% aid before 2015 with World Bank and IMF reform
* Establish Tobin Fund, Tobin Tax and Tobin Crisis Fund
* No UN and EU payments without FOI
* Create UNMDG 2.0 for 2020
* Mayors for Peace and no nukes
* Whitehall out of Whitehall
* Fund “One Tax” - and from Treasury line payments: no collection and scrutiny

Stop the Pollution. Stop the Corruption. Stop the Construction.

Vote Garbutt for Mayor - May 2011.

Independent Green and directly elected.

Visit the blog: http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.com/

Or email timgarbutt@yahoo.com for more info

Volunteers required for office, fundraising and leafleting


Time for Change

Thursday 7 October 2010

Night flight blight

Night Flight blight

The meeting on Ramsgate’s consultation for night flights at Ramsgate town council was much the same. A council room overflowing with people complaining about night flights, cancer, asthma, the drinking water etc.

And councillors silent or biting their lips to speak up in favour of night flights.

After the meeting one councillor mentioned how wonderful Manston was back in the 1960’s when it was an RAF base and base for Invicta airlines.

In the 1960’s. Funded by tax-money. Trailing jet fuel. And a few airshows to keep the public quiet.

And then it collapsed.

And Manston as a private airport has collapsed over the last 10 years.

Even Charles Buchanan of Infratil now says private planes won’t keep the airport open. It can only be 24hour cargo. If that.

A bargain basement junkyard of an airport.

Kept open by removing the safety measures and endangering the public.

Elections next May: no vote sin poisoning your own citizens before now – and until then.

A year after the last night flight farce we still have planes breaching the 106 repeatedly with overflights, banned planes and landing on the water supply.

Time to close Manston completely.

No night flights.

No day flights.

The runway dug up.

The buildings cleared.

The dumped jets cleared.

The water protected.

The reality is our councillors are simply a busted flush.

And what incompetent town planning.

An airport on the drinking water supply.

A few minutes fly time from Ostend cargo airport and Gatwick and Heathrow.

The removal of the safety measures.

Time for corporate manslaughter charges for Infratil’s Directors and the Toxic Two.

I asked again for the RTC reports and accounts missing form the website months after being signed off.

No doubt we’ll see RTC has merely been acting as the Charter Trustee social club again.

After 2 years little has been achieved.

Albion House remains derelict and the new council room is simply too small.

A quick question on Thor mercury at the end of the meeting? Nothing to do with the council.

Members of the public have organised a meeting for 3:30 pm at the church in Arklow Square to discuss the public’s response the night flights and improvements to the town council.

Time for Change.

Time to reduce the number of councillors at RTC and TDC

Time to remove double hatters sitting on all the councils.

Time to end public sector pensions.

Time to publish all civil servants costs.

Time to reduce the number of civil servants: a 30% increase at TDC to 750 in the last couple of years.

Time to end the public and press banned from meetings.

Time to provide webcams.

Time to establish Margate Town Council and town council tax funds.

Tie to reduce the bloat and waste and lack of funding from KCC.

Time to reduce automatic over-inflation council tax rises.

Time for itemised MP’s costs and activities to be published.

We seem to have stale councillors living in the past or simply incompetent and allowing the towns to fall into dereliction, and asking the public to pay for the privilege.

For 2 years – after a 2 year delay by TDC – RTC has sat around.

The public have been endangered – even yesterday a 747 flew over the towns.

A vote of no confidence in RTC/TDC.
Close the airport.

A council tax boycott.

Criminal charges.

Time for change.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Toxic air quality in Canterbury and Herne Bay: “we’re choking” and “bad taste in mouths”.

A front cover article in KM for Canterbury and Herne Bay: “shocking report reveals the air we breathe is getting dirtier”.

5 permanent monitors in Canterbury just for road traffic.

Worth remembering that Manston airport will provide - banned - fuel discharge over Herne Bay and Canterbury.

Thanet also has discharge levels over 4x EU emissions – and monitors removed by Infratil and TDC.

I’ve written to Kent Police as I’m concerned that the flight paths are repeatedly breached and the operating times.

Last night a plane landed over the town at midnight: blatantly breaching both regulations.

I don’t know how Kent Police/Customs monitor aircraft cargo if planes are landing outside of the airport operating hours.

Nor why the public haven’t been protected.

There doesn’t seem to have been a Police investigation for detailed statutory duties to monitor and record air pollution: benzene, carbon monoxide, lead, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

So why, for an airport due to expand, did Infratil and TDC remove the noise monitors from Clarendon School and a tower block in 2006 – and not replace them? Even now.

Why has the mobile noise monitor not been deployed? Even now.

Why was the benzene monitor attempted to be removed at last July's attempt for expansion?

Why have Roger Gale and Laura Sandys remained silent?

All 56 councillors silent?

Silence from 8 Thanet KCC councillors?

Only Paul Carter calling for airport expansion via a vague announcement of a Parkway train station with public funds.

Silence from Kent Police in investigating the missing monitors.

Silence from Infratil’s Directors and TDC on corporate manslaughter.

Did Brian White really expect a sideways job title rejig and the two politicians in the Gang of Four Ezekiel and Latchford resigning to solve the problem. Carry on polluting as usual?

Did our silent councillors? Not one statement on air pollution.

Nothing on the monitors.

Worth remembering at election time next May.

Seems party and civil servant loyalty comes before the public.

We seem to have cockroach civil servants and grubby politicians scurrying around for months and years doing anything but protect the public.

The highest lung cancer rates in the South East: dying at 63 not 81 years old as in the rest of Kent. The same mortality rate as Haiti or Burma.

It's to be expected next to an airport and the monitors are downgraded and removed and the data fudged and silence form our elected representatives.

We seem to have silent councillors actively colluding with civil servants to deliberately endanger public health and safety?

With 99% of people not members of a political party, and over a third of people not voting, we seem to have allowed tweedledum and tweedldee political parties and civil servants quibble over divvying up tax funds at c.42% of GDP and ever-more pointless laws - and failure to reform for their benefit.

How can housebuilding and road building be a priority for public funds and jobs with 23,000 empty houses in Kent and two motorways?

And the lowest amount of public green space per head in Thanet?

How can council tax rise above inflation every year?

And silent politicians and ciivl servants.

How can the various public sector quango task forces in Margate resolve the problems they’ve created?

Why are there so many doublehatter and triple hatter politicians in sinecures and dead wood seats politicians hollowing out democracy?

How can the public sector unionise at a far greater rate than the private sector – and on public funds? And then complain if public funds are cut. And strike to penalise the public.

And silent politicians and civil servants.

How can public sector machine politicians and civil servant understand the private sector or reform the public sector?

How can tax n’waste and secrecy on public funds be so widespread? Is it outrageously unusual in the 21st century that these are public funds and the public should see every penny and contract and document?

Why a 14 month delay for a feeble empty noise report? Nothing on air pollution. Nothing on the water supply.

A bottom 10% UK council.

A bottom 10% UK area.

And a 24hour cargo airport by removing the safety measures and deceiving the public is the best they can do.

Failed. Failed. Failed.

Time for Change.

Time for Garbutt for Ramsgate Mayor May 2011

Time to:

1. Close Manston airport completely and clean and protect the water supply
2. Sack the Toxic Two: White and Samuel for failure and mismanagement. No pensions. No payoffs. No public sector jobs.
3. A Police investigation – and public funds for a public legal action - into TDC and Infratil’s Directors for corporate manslaughter and endangering the public
4. Demolish derelict Richboro
5. Clean Thor and publish the toxin levels – and a funded investigation into why a banned mercury factory was still operating for 20 years and silence since from our elected and public representatives
6. Designate TDC as a failed council requiring direct oversight from Whitehall: bottom 10% of UK areas
7. Repay the 0% salary fraud from the Toxic Two with public-funded legal action
8. Boycott council tax payments to KCC until a Margate Town Council and the missing £20M per town direct funding is provided
9. Suspend Vattenfall’s 2nd Port office and windfarm expansion: further investment than a £175k TDC charge and free electricity is required
10. Establish Pleasurama ice rink and suspend the Granville Folly and Slipway glass stump –clearer local design code and conservation area
11. Publish all TDC and RTC costs, salaries, expenses and pensions and contracts: no exceptions
12. Cut the bloat and waste at TDC and KCC and end double-hatter funded roles
13. Abolish new TDC pensions and withdraw existing pensions above the average wage and open any existing pensions to the public
14. Establish 2 consultation periods: March and October – end the ludicrous “ask again and again until we get what we want” and rubberstamp system as with EUJet
15. Establish Recall of politicians for 10% of vote and specific issues, plus Deselection from Parties and Local Referenda

Time to stop the pollution. Stop the corruption. Stop the construction.

Time to close the airport: no night flights. No day flights. The runway dug up and the buildings cleared. The Fire station closed. Petrol station resited, no further building and the aquifer protected.

What have they been doing? An airport on the water supply. What fools.

Time to reform TDC.

Time to stop the cancer.

Time for clean air and water.

Time for Change.