Traditionally the quizathon has been held in the Village Hall to allow more people to join us for a fun evening and also as a way of the Memorial Hall assisting the Village Hall with all the major works needing to be done. Last year we broke with tradition because the Memorial Hall needed a new floor and other remedial works which would have a major price tag. This work is now complete in the Memorial Hall, albeit we are always renovating and upgrading, and we now want to return to the Village Hall and assist with their fundraising. With this in mind the quizathon will be on 27th April. The normal start time for quiz nights is 8.00 but because we have more rounds at the quizathon (making it a marathon) we will be starting at 7.30.
Please come along and support both the quiz team and the efforts of the Village Hall committee. If you haven’t had an opportunity to view what has been done so far in the hall, now is your chance. If you do not normally attend quiz nights but would like to join in on the quizathon please give me a ring on 244203 or speak to Lesley Munday or John Pink.
Margaret Church
In 2003 when government launched its consultation into aviation expansion in the South East, for our part of the Thames Estuary, the announcement was like a bolt from the blue. This sleepy corner of Kent with its strange mix of dramatic Dickensian landscapes interspersed with power stations, oil refineries and everyday folk was suddenly thrust into the spotlight of progress !
A wave of unanimous protest, indignation and anger spread across the peninsula into the surrounding towns of Medway, Gravesend, Sheerness and beyond. Such was the feeling here that detractors could almost have been considered traitors! One local building society had investors withdrawing their life savings because its Managing Director was in favour of an airport.
Today we are all ten years older and seemingly ten years wiser. Between December 2004, when Alistair Darling (the then Secretary of State for Transport) ruled out the Cliffe option and the intervention of Boris Johnson in 2008 with his proposals for an Estuary Airport, opinions have developed on all levels.
Some who were on the periphery of the debate in 2003 are now talking knowledgeably of climate change and the effect of aviation on the UK’s carbon targets. Others are experiencing the frustration of blight and uncertainty, fearing for the future; a few just want to get out. Many have joined the RSPB as volunteers on its reserves.
George Osborne’s talk of jobs and the economy has compounded the issue. There has been a fleeting perception that an airport built in the Thames Estuary will bring the panacea of immediate prosperity. That is, until the realisation of the full implications of how far into the future the project would be, and what everyday life would be like here over the next 30 years while new roads, railways, houses, factories and head quarters are built. In fact comparable to what it was like living close to Heathrow while it was developed.
Most people now, thankfully, understand how precious the Thames Estuary is and the importance of the international biodiversity protection afforded to it by the European Union.
Prior to the release of the review into the Habitats and Wild Birds directives, Government ministers never publicly acknowledged their role or their importance for the Thames Estuary. When Caroline Spelman (Sec of State for the Environment) spelt out in the introduction of her review that Government was keen to make the directives simpler for developers to understand, we breathed a sigh of relief. Now we can argue in the knowledge that MPs are aware of these precious places and that the directives are not gold plated nor stand in the way of progress, as the Chancellor indicated.
Despite the review, an Estuary option is still under consideration and will undoubtedly be in the upcoming consultation. We have hit the ground running this time round and have a far wider spectrum of organised support, with powerful, passionate and articulate opposition. Populations and Councils all around the Estuary are becoming more aware of the implications of an airport on their doorstep. And they are saying NO!
George Crozer is founder member of the Friends of the North Kent Marshes, http:/
The Greater Thames Marshes area has now become a Defra Nature Improvement Area.
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Article first published in Airport Bulletin For March 2012
Do you ever hear the exasperated cry “Its not about birds !! Its about people !!
If the airport is built here the price of my house will fall through the floor ! ….. Generations of our family have lived and worked here for years, our great grandparents are buried in the local Church. Moving away will mean breaking the family apart, changing doctors, losing friends, my children will have to move school I will have to find a new job! …. I don’t know If I can cope?? All of this and everyone is shouting save the birds, save the birds, what about the people don’t we matter?? Please click here to read more March 2012
Never make plans that rely on mother nature as you will invariably be disappointed! We had planned to accompany RSPB on a boat trip to show journalist the site of Lord Foster’s Thames Estuary airport, off the Isle of Grain. On the way across to Queenborough to meet the boat we learnt that the trip was postponed in the face of a force eight.
We regrouped on the Isle go Grain to view on foot and were fortunate to meet senior members of our local Labour group and Maria Eagle the shadow minister for Transport who was visiting the airport site first hand. A great opportunity for us to outline the international importance of the estuary for some 350,000 migratory wildfowl and how they would render any airport 12 times more dangerous than any other major UK airport.
Maria was able to witness for herself a real feeling of wilderness for which the Thames estuary marsh is renown and which Charles Dickens so romantically described in the opening words of his novel Great Expectation. A wilderness containing 5 of England’s 84 Special Protection Areas designated under the European Birds and Habitats directives.
Maria called for better use of existing aviation capacity and ruled out Labour’s support for an Airport in the Thames Estuary.
For further information from Friends of North kent Marshes please click here
George Crozer
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