Ramsgate Town Council Submits Formal Objection to Manston Airspace Proposal and Urges Residents to Make Their Voices Heard

Ramsgate Town Council has formally submitted its response to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) consultation on proposed changes to airspace and flight procedures linked to the potential reopening of Manston Airport.

The Council’s response sets out strong objections to the proposals, citing concerns over noise, public health, safety, environmental impact, and the credibility of the project. The submission is supported by an independent technical report commissioned by the Council, which has been submitted alongside the response.

Residents are strongly encouraged to take part in the consultation and submit their own views before the deadline of 22 June 2026.

The consultation can be accessed via the Civil Aviation Authority’s Airspace Change Portal (https://consultations.airspacechange.co.uk/manston-airport/manston-airport-consultation/) Residents may respond with any views they wish, including personal experience, specific concerns, or general comments on the proposal.

Council’s Submitted Response 

Ramsgate Town Council has commissioned an independent technical review, “Review of Manston Airport Airspace Change Proposal (ACP) – Options Appraisal” (ASA, May 2026), which is submitted alongside this response as a supporting document. This report has informed the Council’s position and should be read in conjunction with this submission.

(i) Overall Objection to the Proposal

Ramsgate Town Council strongly objects to the proposed airspace changes and Instrument Flight Procedures (IFPs) for Manston Airport due to unacceptable noise and health impacts, serious safety concerns, environmental harm, procedural inconsistencies, and fundamental credibility issues with the proposal.

Under both Design Combinations A and B put forward by the applicant, aircraft (primarily cargo freighters) would routinely overfly densely populated areas of Ramsgate (population circa 42,000) at very low altitudes of approximately 230–900 feet above ground level (AGL) during departures from RWY10 and arrivals on RWY28.

This position is supported by the Council’s commissioned consultant report, which confirms that departures and arrivals would inevitably overfly Ramsgate, with aircraft potentially as low as approximately 375 feet in some locations.

The applicant proposes increasing activity to 14,000 Air Traffic Movements (ATMs) annually by 2038 (around 38 movements per day), between 2 and 4 per hour.

These flight paths and 3° approach and initial climb paths were previously used by 747 400 freighters until the airport’s closure in 2014, when operations were limited to around 1,000 ATMs per year (roughly one cargo flight daily). Even at that much lower level of activity, they caused considerable disturbance to residents’ sleep and enjoyment of their gardens and open spaces. Lessons were disrupted in local schools, and services in churches.

Approval of these greatly increased plans would cause major blight over residential, business and community facilities without the applicant having secured funding, committed operators, or independently verified demand.

The application for a Development Consent Order (DCO) led to over one thousand local objections. Following a substantial hearing into the applicant’s bid for a DCO, the Planning Inspectorate recommended refusal on the grounds that the applicant had not demonstrated need for the proposal and that there was potential for environmental harm. The DCO was subsequently allowed by the then Secretary of State without addressing those concerns.

(ii) Public Health Impacts of Noise

Based on the documentation provided in the Manston Airport Airspace Change Proposal (ACP C3 2), it is possible to understand the impact of noise from the proposed Freight Hub.

Table 6.1 of RSP’s report explicitly monetises the expected increase in adverse health conditions resulting from the noise generated by the airport’s operations, including dementia and strokes.

The UK Government, via Department for Transport TAG units, uses established medical research to link environmental noise, specifically aircraft noise, to physical health impacts.
Long term exposure to high noise levels, particularly at night, triggers stress responses in the body such as increased cortisol levels and raised blood pressure. Over time, this significantly increases the statistical risk of strokes and Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI / heart attacks).

More recent environmental studies show a correlation between long term noise pollution and the acceleration of cognitive decline or the onset of dementia.

The proposal also results in significant sleep disturbance and loss of amenity, representing the economic cost of people losing sleep and the loss of enjoyment of their homes and gardens.

The Council’s commissioned report further confirms that chronic exposure to aircraft noise is associated with cardiovascular impacts, sleep disturbance, cognitive effects, and wider public health consequences, reinforcing the seriousness of these impacts for Ramsgate residents.

RSP’s own report assigns the following monetised health impacts attributable to noise (identical under both design options):

• Sleep disturbance: £355,157
• Loss of amenity: £14,539,029
• Acute myocardial infarction (AMI): £95,670
• Stroke: £2,333,407
• Dementia: £3,519,740

This equates to total health effects from noise of £20,843,003 over a ten year period.

The inclusion of these figures is an explicit admission by the applicant that the reopening and operation of Manston Airport is projected to have a quantifiable negative impact on public health. The report effectively states that, over the ten year assessment period, the increased noise from the airport will result in sufficient additional strokes and cases of dementia alone to cost the health service and society over £5.8 million.

(iii) Requested Conditions and Redesign Requirements

Ramsgate Town Council considers that the Civil Aviation Authority should withhold approval of the proposed Instrument Flight Procedures unless the applicant brings forward a fundamental redesign that:

• Achieves at least 1,500 feet AGL above populated areas.
• Provides an absolute preference for the use of non-seaward flight paths for both take-off and landing.
• Delivers meaningful seaward offsets, in accordance with the stated Design Principles, for any residual seaward flight paths used for departures or arrivals.
• Enforces strict night time restrictions, consistent with prior “no night flights” pledges.
• Is supported by robust, independently scrutinised evidence of demand, operational viability, safety, and secured funding.

These requirements are consistent with the findings of the Council’s independent review, which identifies limited viable options to reduce overflight of Ramsgate and highlights deficiencies in the assessment of alternative designs and operational assumptions.

(iv) Critique of the Consultation Process

RSP has organised only two public facing consultation sessions, only one of which is in Ramsgate, despite 40,000 residents potentially being affected by the proposals. Previous public consultations organised by RSP have resulted in residents being harassed by RSP personnel and airport supporters.

The online consultation process is also inadequate and open to manipulation. The submission space is very limited, text only, and did not allow PDF or Word documents, photographs, diagrams or plans to be submitted, until Ramsgate Town Council made this request.

Individual submissions, whether online via Citizen Space or by post, are not visible to respondents or the public during the consultation period (open until 22 June 2026). The Citizen Space portal currently exists solely for viewing the sponsor’s materials and submitting new responses. There is no public responses section, browsable list, or real time feed. No moderation or publication occurs during the open period; all submissions remain private until closure.

Only after the consultation closes does RSP collate, review and categorise responses, moderating content before uploading anonymised submissions for public viewing. RSP then produces a Consultation Response Document summarising themes and explaining how feedback influenced, or failed to influence, the proposal.

This material is then submitted to the CAA as part of the Consultation Gateway review, where the CAA assesses whether the consultation was proportionate, fair and transparent, including sampling whether opposition has been accurately categorised and not downplayed.

If an individual response does not appear, or appears misrepresented, following publication after consultation closure, that is the only point at which respondents can escalate concerns directly to the CAA, with proof of submission.

While the process is ostensibly designed to prevent real time influence campaigns during the consultation window, it places significant trust in the sponsor and creates a clear asymmetry whereby respondents submit blind and have no visibility or confidence in how their views are handled until after the process concludes.

(v) Summary and Conclusion
Ramsgate Town Council considers that the proposed airspace changes and associated Instrument Flight Procedures for Manston Airport would have a significant and adverse impact on the town and its residents. The proposals would result in frequent, low level overflight of a densely populated urban area, recreating historic flight paths that previously caused serious and well documented disturbance, but at a scale many times greater than before.

The applicant’s own documentation acknowledges substantial negative effects arising from aircraft noise, including sleep disturbance, loss of amenity and increased risks of serious health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease and dementia. These impacts are not abstract or speculative; they are explicitly quantified within the proposal and amount to a material public health burden over the assessment period.

The Council’s independent consultant report, submitted alongside this response, provides further technical analysis supporting these conclusions, including detailed assessment of airspace options, noise impacts, and associated environmental and operational considerations.

In addition to the environmental and health concerns, the Town Council has significant reservations regarding the credibility of the project as a whole, given the absence of secured funding, committed operators, or independently verified demand, alongside the unresolved objections previously raised during the Development Consent Order process. The consultation itself is also considered inadequate in scale and accessibility for a proposal with such far reaching consequences for Ramsgate’s community.

For these reasons, Ramsgate Town Council believes that approval of the proposed airspace changes would be premature and unjustified. The Council urges the Civil Aviation Authority to withhold approval unless and until the applicant brings forward a fundamentally revised scheme that demonstrably minimises overflight of populated areas, protects residents from night time disturbance, aligns with stated design principles, and is supported by robust, independently scrutinised evidence of need, viability, safety and funding.