Press Release: March 4th 2010

Lydd Airport - Long Legal Battle Ahead

Shepway District Councillors have ignored the recommendations of their planning officers and have voted to support Lydd Airport’s planning application for a runway extension and new terminal. 

Our legal advisor Matthew Horton QC has confirmed that the decision is contrary to European Law as the councillors have not correctly interpreted the Habitats Regulations.  We have requested the Government Office of the South East to call in this planning application for a public inquiry as it fulfills four of the five criteria used to assess whether a public inquiry is applicable. We are confident that the decision will be overturned on the correct interpretation of the European Habitats Regulations. Other important factors which we will raise at a public inquiry include nuclear safety, an issue dismissed by Shepway District Council. LAAG believes that the risk of crash damage is too high and can demonstrate that the methodology used to assess crash damage risk cannot account for the high specific risk at Lydd Airport. 

Louise Barton
Lydd Airport Action Group
The Hook Madeira Road
Littlestone, TN28 8QX
01797 361 548
blmbarton@aol.com
www.lyddairportaction.co.uk 

Notes to Editors:

(1) Lydd Airport submitted a planning application in December 2006 (Y06/1647/SH & Y06/1648/SH) for a 444m extension to its runway and a new terminal to increase its passenger numbers from <2000 per annum in 2008 to 500,000 passengers per annum (ppa). This planning application represents Phase 1 of the airport’s Master Plan objective to increase passenger numbers to 2million passengers per annum (2mppa). Due to the inaccuracy and omissions in the original planning application there have been three subsequent submissions of supplementary information sent to Shepway District Council at their request and one set of supplementary information sent by the airport after it challenged the first Officer’s Report. There have been five public consultations in total. 

(2) Lydd Airport’s planning application was scheduled to be determined on July 9th, 2009 after the publication of the first Officer’s Report on July 1st 2009. This was delayed at the behest of Lydd Airport to September 23rd, later changed to September 24th. On September 8th 2009 Shepway District Council announced that the determination would again be delayed until February/March 2010 allegedly to allow Lydd Airport’s new Managing Director Jonathan Gordon to assess the paperwork associated with the applications. The latest Officer’s Report was published on February 19th, 2010 with an amendment published on March 1st. 

(3) Lydd Airport is located less than three miles from the Dungeness Nuclear Power Complex with a height restriction of 2000ft and less than two miles and eight miles respectively from the Lydd (D044) and Hythe (D141) Military Ranges with respective height restrictions of 4000 ft, and 3200ft. The airport is surrounded by unique natural habitats protected under European and national laws and is located under the main bird migratory route in the south of England. All these factors make the location unsuitable for a regional airport. 

(4) The criteria used to assess whether a public inquiry is warranted are (criteria relevant to this application are in bold) : 

(i) May conflict with national policy on important matters
(ii) Could have significant effects beyond their immediate locality 
(iii) Give rise to substantial regional or national controversy 
(iv) May involve the interests of national security or of foreign governments 
(v) Raise significant architectural and urban design issues 

(5) LAAG is an action group formed in late August 2004 to oppose the large scale development of Lydd Airport.  LAAG has over 2850 active members.