The firm hoping to develop the former Manston airport site will be giving presentations to parish councils and other community groups.
The team leading the project for Stone Hill Park, including planning consultants GVA and aviation experts York Aviation, will be using the sessions to share the latest enhanced masterplan due to be lodged with Thanet council in the new year.
Stone Hill Park’s plans for the 303ha area include:
- Keeping 1,199 metre section of the main runway as a working heritage airport with Manston’s two museums relocating to a new Spitfire Quarter, alongside new heritage aviation attractions.
- A new settlement with up to 4,000 new homes from starter homes to retirement built over 20 years with all the community facilities to support them including shops and schools.
- A new hi-tech manufacturing business park, part of a number of employment opportunities that aim to create thousands of jobs, a hotel and a new country with an area available for events, farmers markets and other community activities.
- A state-of-the-art sports and leisure village, that will deliver Kent’s first 50m Olympic sized pool, a surf lake and other sports facilities.
- SHP has also revealed that Match Day Centres has signed up to run a football centre at the site.
Invitation to councillors
An invitation has been extended to Thanet District Council, with the offer of one or more presentations to political groups represented on the authority, including UKIP, Conservative, Labour and Independent councillors.
The sessions follow on from two public exhibition events held last month at the Holiday Inn Express, Minster and Pegwell Bay Hotel in Ramsgate.
Trevor Cartner, Co-Owner, Stone Hill Park, said:“Seeking the views of Thanet on what is both right and deliverable for the district’s largest available brownfield site has always been important to us – and continues to be.
“We are moving ahead with significant enhancements to our masterplan, which we have already shared with the public with further engagement to come with local politicians, community groups and others over the coming weeks.
“Their input – together with that of statutory consultees – will ensure the enhanced proposals being submitted to Thanet District Council in the New Year deliver what the district needs – for the long term.
“That will include new heritage attractions; thousands of much needed homes; significant numbers of jobs and training opportunities; acres of new open space and a destination sports and leisure village.”
Get a presentation
If you are a community group from Thanet interested in meeting with or receiving a presentation from the Stone Hill Park project team, please contact Miranda Chapman or Lee Winter at Pillory Barn by calling 01622 684407.
RSP proposal for the Manston site
RiverOak Strategic Partners (RSP) hopes to reopen the airport site in a £300m project to create an air freight hub with passenger services and business aviation.
The company aims to submit an application for a Development Consent Order to the Planning Inspectorate to allow a compulsory purchase of the site. It bought out the DCO rights from the original proposing company RiverOak corporation last December.
The DCO submission date had been the end of this year but has now been delayed until next year.
RSP will now hold further consultation events in Ramsgate and Herne Bay during January 2018. Anyone is welcome to respond to the consultation whether they attend an event or not. RSP says even more events will be held later in 2018 as part of the air space change proposal that it will be submitting to the CAA.
George Yerrall, from RSP, said: “We have been busy considering the 2,200 responses received to the consultation that took place in June and July 2017, which followed the non-statutory consultation in June 2016, and at the same time our plans have undergone further development. We are also taking the opportunity to update our environmental assessment in line with the latest EU Directive, in respect of which we will also welcome comments.
“The new consultation document will set out: a proposed noise mitigation plan – namely the specific commitments we propose to make to minimise aircraft noise impacts; the new areas of environmental assessment and where these can be found in the updated preliminary environmental information; and the details of where the plans have become more developed since the consultation in June/July 2017.”
Further details of exact timings for the January events will follow.
