Stone Hill Park talks with Homes England over Manston airport site

The SHP plans

Stone Hill Park (SHP) has announced it is in talks with Homes England to support the redevelopment of the airport site at Manston through the £3billion Home Building Fund.

Homes England is a public-sector organisation, sponsored by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Its purpose is to bring together land, money, expertise and planning to help with the delivery of new homes on behalf of the government.

Trevor Cartner, co-owner Stone Hill Park, said: “To have the support of Homes England will be a huge bonus. They are tasked with tackling the chronic shortage of new homes by the Government and they are as enthusiastic about Stone Hill Park as we are.  With their help we can speed up delivery of future phases of the site by building infrastructure, including the first school and other facilities.”

Stone Hill Park has also announced a tie-up with housing association, Optivo for the delivery of the first 400 homes. The company has submitted a planning application for a mixed-use scheme, including up to 3,700 homes, a hi-tech manufacturing park, aviation heritage attractions, a new country park and leisure facilities, including Kent’s first Olympic sized pool.

To view all documents related to Stone Hill Park’s proposals for the Manston Airport site, visit the planning portal of Thanet District Council’s website at www.thanet.gov.uk and enter the ref number OL/TH/18/0660.

A Homes England spokesman said: “Whilst we are aware of the proposals we have no direct involvement.”

Riveroak Strategic Partners (RSP), the firm aiming to bring aviation back to the site, withdrew its Development Consent Order which it submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in April but says it hopes to resubmit in the coming weeks.

A DCO is the means of obtaining permission for developments categorised as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP). This includes energy, transport, water and waste projects.

39 Comments

  1. Mr. Cartner is a little premature with this announcement,
    He has yet to get Planning Permission….and Change of Use,
    The Airport site is still Designated for Aviation Use Only.
    There are a lot of objections to his Planning Application, Including Statutory Bodies .

    • It’s only designated for aviation use now because some councillors just won’t listen to reason.

      It doesn’t matter how many objections there are to SHP’s plans. What matters is the quality of the objections.

  2. It’s now a month since RSP was contacted by the Planning Inspectorate, giving the nod that RSP’s application was woefully inadequate.
    It’s now time for the legal owners to be given the opportunity to develop their plans.

  3. so SHP have no resources of their own and want someone else to pay for and build these house so far their planning application has 75% of objections to it

    • But these “objections” are largely of the form “Airport airport airport”. These really don’t count.

      • As the land is designated for airport use then those objections hold some weight. BTW the support seems to be solely “not airport, not airport” mind how you go!

        • There are several good reasons for supporting SHP’s plans. The supportive comments on the planning website lay out many of them.

  4. It’s good that there will be a significant amount of social housing on this site. I hope SHP is more open about their funding than RSP.

    The percentage of objections on the planning website is irrelevant. To be valid, grounds for objection must be based on facts, not emotion.

  5. The U.K. government are planning to move problem anti social families / Persons out of London to estates like the one they want to build at Manston Airport. That way the government will be able to boast they they have reduced the London crime rate. However all they will be doing is spreading the crime across the U.K. It will also free up houses / Flats in London. Thatcher and Lady Street Porter undertook the same actions in the 70 / 90s with. [ Dole by the Sea scandal to kick Labour voters and unemployed out of London] . After a public outcry it was investigated and it was deemed to be ‘gerrymandering’ Lady Street Porter was found guilty and fined Millions of ££££s. Alas by the time it all came to light the damage had been done. Cliftonville in Thanet had become a getto with all the problems that used to be elsewhere.

  6. Please, please, please – let’s end this on going saga. Let the rightful owner (Stone Hill Park) get on with it. We don’t need heavy cargo planes poluting or skys and lorries carrying heavy loads breaking up our roads and causing congestion throughout kent. The thanet way is already dangerous.

  7. If the above comment is true then I expect TDC know all about it and their desire to preserve the residents of Thanet from such a fate is the reason why several of them are so keen to have a cargo airport on the former airport site rather than have it used for housing and industry.

    What other reason could they have, given the unhealthy effects of aircraft noise and pollution on people living under its flight path?

  8. The government will also be offering incentives to both the builders/ / site owners / and those whom they want to move out of London to achieve their [ governments] aim. £25,000 per London family to move to Manston is the kind of incentive that will be offered.

  9. Will the government be giving money to TDC for building all the new council housing the area already needs?

  10. Andrew. Just like in the days of Thatcher and Lady porter of gerrymandering the truth will out in time. I am not going to give you an insight as to how I know these things or my source of information, just be happy that you and others have been made aware of these plans at an early stage. What evidence do you have that once the current owners of Manston obtain planning permission that they don’t hold on to the land gain all the perks they can then in 3 years time sell the site on to others laughing all the way to the bank.? Why do you think that the department of transport has already paid them millions of ££££s of taxpayers money to rent the airport for Operation Stack and as yet it as never been used for one day as such. My advice to Thanet residents would be ‘wake up and smell the coffee’.

    • Your comments have no credibility whatsoever. Anyone can say anything, but without evidence or facts to back it up, such comments have no validity whatsoever.
      I know that Tony Freudman and the other directors of RSP are qctually alien lizards. They want to get their hands on Stonehill Park because it is actually a Portal to the Old Ones.
      I’m not going to tell you how I know this, nor what Cthulhu has to do with it.
      Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.

    • I suppose the old airport hasn’t been needed for parking lorries. Why, if I may ask, do you think it hasn’t been used yet? Or is there a secret reason which a simple country lass such as I shouldn’t learn about?

  11. Without some proof, your allegations are going to be taken with a pinch of salt. I have no evidence that SHP won’t landbank for as long as possible. (I don’t know if Andrew does.) But so what if they do? I would thoroughly disapprove of such a measure. But it seems pretty clear that such a big brownfield site is going to be built on by somebody.

    Theree’s no point in being secretive about information which, if you have it, really should be made public. But if you want to be believed, there must be evidence as well as assertions.

  12. Given the choice I would rather the airport was there than another problem estate. I don’t care who knows what but I do think the whole Manston Airport saga stinks from the day Ann Gloag reportedly paid a £1 for it. I don’t remember reading anything about Gloag selling to those who say they own it now. I do know that Ann Gloag via her company Stage Coach is a Conservative party donor, that in itself rings alarm bells to me nudge nudge wink wink.

    • Ann Gloag did pay £1 for the site and she also had to pay off the debts incurred by the airport. If I’m mistaken about this then please correct me.

      I’m a socialist and I don’t want to live near a busy airport.

      Why “nudge nudge wink wink”?

      Are RSP Labour supporters? Would it make their plans more acceptable if they were? Would it wipe out the noise and pollution which their plans, if successful, would inflict on those living under the flight path of their proposed cargo hub airport?

      • It’s irrelevant if you are a socialist or not. I guess the airport was there before you moved near it.?

        • If it’s irrelevant that I’m a socialist, then it must also be irrelevant that Ann Gloag is a Conservative Party donor.

          It’s also irrelevant how long I, or anyone else, have lived in Ramsgate.

  13. Given the choice I would choose Airport any day. Perhaps Boris will telll May he wants the third runway at Manston instead of knocking hundreds of houses down to expand Heathrow.

    • “Airport” – but how will it work? It never has in the past. Not one expert independent opinion says it will in the future. The Davies Commission, and the Government, are keen to establish a third runway at Heathrow. Not at Gatwick; certainly not at Manston.
      If the “problem estate” is not built on the brownfield of the ex-Manston site, it will be built on what’s left of the greenfields of Thanet.
      I would rather there be no airport expansion anywhere (and some critics of Davies say that it’s not necessary at all). There are alternatives: business video conferencing, staycation, rail and sea freight, for example. There doesn’t need to be a knee-jerk response to people’s wishes to holiday in Benidorm, or to eat fresh mange tout flown in from Kenya.

  14. We do have residents who have moved down to Thanet from London and other places. As soon as they arrive they start moaning “ oh no we don’t want an airport near my house” That is until they want to go on holiday then they don’t give an hoot about Gatwick or Heathrow area residents or the jobs that could be created if Manston Airport was reopened as an airport. A lot of Londoners have sold their properties for a lot of money to enable them to buy one in east Kent outright, good for them, they don’t have to find a job to pay the mortgage or save for a deposit to buy their first house.

  15. Please stop these insulting generalizations about people from London and people who live in social housing.

    I lived in housing co-ops in London for over 30 years and my fellow-members were a mixed bag…like people who own houses.

    In Ramsgate, the people I know who don’t want an airport don’t moan about it. They give very good reasons for not wanting one.

    Personally, I don’t fly. I feel a lot of sympathy for people living near Heathrow and Gatwick. At least their MPs are fighting their corner, whereas our Thanet MPs, inexplicably, are supporting RSP.

  16. Andrew. Yesterday you among others were asking ‘what evidence’ I had of London councils / Government shipping problem families out of London into the housing estate that the current onwners of Manston Airport are hoping to build to spread the capital’s crime wave across the U.K. so the government can boast how they have reduced the London crime rate and other problems. Those of you who may have watched TV this evening will have seen on South East Today all the evidence you need to see.

  17. The government isn’t “hoping to spread the capital’s crime wave across the U.K”! Good grief, how can you make such an interpretation?

    You are not alone in displaying an extraordinarily unpleasant attitude towards Londoners.

  18. Further to my last the current owners of Manston Airport still own the site in Sandwich that was given planning permission in 2014 to build 500 houses. Here we are 2018 can anyone tell me how many of those 500 houses have been built??

  19. Marva. I live in London I was born in London I also have an interest in two properties in Thanet one of which I spend a lot of time in. So your assumptions are way of target.

  20. I’m making no assumptions. You just sound as if you don’t like Londoners- other Londoners, I should say now.

  21. Fact: We have a housing crisis, this site can help solve that problem.
    Fact: housing projects create jobs
    Fact: communities create long term jobs
    Fact: Manston has failed every time as airport
    Fact: funding a failed project costs a lot of money
    Fact: job security for a failed project is low, meaning you are unable to attract the best people.
    Let’s got on with the housing project and bring some much needed wealth into town

  22. Fact: We don’t have an housing crisis we have a too many people and sold off council houses crisis.
    Fact: The more houses that are built the greater the demand on public services.
    Fact: Airports create long term jobs. Housing estates like the one planned London over-spill create long term problems
    Fact: EU jet was successful and building. It was the parent company that was bought down by the Bank scandal.
    Fact: Funding. The government are planning to use a lot of taxpayers money to pay towards a problem estate.
    Fact: There is NO job security in the East Kent area. There is no ‘pull’ factor at all. Indeed local stores are closing.
    Fact: The demands on hospitals-GPs-schools-dentist-water supply-roads. Are bad enough now.

Comments are closed.