In the Planning Supporting Statement there's a suggestion that they intend to have cycle hire facilities on site. Given the location of the airfield, I wonder whether this is entirely appropriate? Willow Woods Road is very narrow around the airfield and, in my opinion, is unsuitable for casual cyclists. To get to Deal involves negotiating the hill upto Great Mongeham and then the busy roads from there through to Deal. To get to Northbourne involves negotiating the major climb on Deal Road, which itself has blind bends. So again, is this a suitable route for the casual cyclist? Any thoughts. Tony. P.S. Autocorrect changed my first sentence to "they intend to have chuckle hire facilities on site" 😁

Comments from @Keith Jones uses words such as "exaggerated" and "uninformed" on more than one occasion. So, let's be honest, we, the uninformed public, can only make decisions based upon the information that is being presented to us. At the moment this is the contents of the planning application and supporting documentation. If we don't have the facts how can we come to an informed decision. We have to and will assume the worst case and make decisions based on that, whether it's the number of aircraft, the noise produced by the light aircraft, the number of flights per day, the hours of operation and so on. I am certain there are a number of people on this forum who are in support of this proposal, are aviators themselves and who were based at the Maypole Airfield. So I'd like to make a request to those individuals. I'd like to ask a series of questions, consider it a Freedom of Information request if you like, in an attempt to clear up some areas of confusion: In the Planning Support Statement it states "a small group of keen aviators who have been displaced from their long-standing home in north Kent". How "small" is small? How many of these aviators would be moving to this new airfield? How many aircraft and what types would they relocate? During a typical year, how often would they expect to fly? Where/how far do these aviators live from the proposed airfield? How many additional aviators have expressed interest in using the airfield as their base? What types of aircraft will they base there? Will aircraft be permitted to park and for how long? I've driven past airfields and seen aircraft tied down under weatherproof covers which would imply they were parked long-term. What type of maintenance/servicing is required for these aircraft, how often and where will this take place? There appears to be no refuelling facilities at the airfield, so how will light aircraft based at the airfield, light aircraft visiting the airfield; helicopters; emergency services and Air Search services be refuelled? Many thanks in advance.

Just found out that microlights will be flying out of the new airfield. Anyone, who has been flown over by a microlight, knows: How much noise they make. How long it takes them to fly overhead. They seems to drift round and around overhead without any definitive destination. One more reason to stop this application.

Apologies for not getting this out sooner. Following the meeting on Thursday I've done another review of the Planning Support Statement including a review of the facilities that were available at the Maypole Airfield, from which a group of pilots are relocating. Significant changes are highlighted in yellow. Please feel free to use these as a source of information for any objections you are submitting but please do not quote verbatim from these documents to avoid objections looking like they are coming from a template. I've uploaded my documents in .DOCX and .PDF formats.

I tried to search for a video of a light aircraft flying over at various heights to give us an idea of how loud it's going to be - dBs are absolutely meaningless in normal conversation. The nearest I could find is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1M9g01Wgms I thought a bit of humour after the long Zoom meeting would be good 😉😉😉

I've had a look through the Planning Application and Planning Supporting Statement and I have a few, quick observations - a brain-dump if you like :) This is a bit rushed but I wanted to get them out before tonight's meeting. Planning Support Statement 3.3: States that some of the planes will have four seats. So I assume these will have larger, noisier engines. It doesn't state how many. 3.16: Makes mention that "Most Little Mongeham residents and users have flown for many years across East Kent." This statement doesn't make sense.
 3.16: Suggests that the areas flown over by Little Mongeham pilots were comparable to the areas flown over from Maypole. However: Take off & landings happened at Maypole not Little Mongeham The planes from Maypole would have been more spread out over the county, whereas the Little Mongeham airfield will concentrate flights over the immediate area The planes from Maypole will have been much higher by the time they crossed into the Northbourne area, so noise will have been reduced.
 3.17: Suggests that helicopters would fit in with normal opening hours. No mention of how many and helicopters are considerably louder.
 3.22: Maximum of 7500 flights a year - is this the guaranteed maximum? What if this airfield becomes the "destination of choice"?
 3.22: 40 movements a day - is this the maximum? So assuming flights take place between 9 and 5 that's 5 movements an hour - around one every 10 minutes.
 3.23: Flying is proposed from sunrise - sunset. So, in mid-summer, we could have flights from 4.30am - 9.15pm.
Flights should start/finish at a reasonable time. 3.28 & 3.29: States that the glamping site will not create any disturbance. However the oak tree is a designated focal point which suggests visiting pilots/glampers will be meeting up. 5.5 states that BBQ packs will be encouraged from local businesses. So, during warm summer evenings could these get-togethers take place well into the night?
 4.12: "Flying is a recognised sport". Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the word "sport" but what's the likelihood of airplane acrobatics taking place?
 4.17: Suggests that the airfield would become a tourist attraction on the White Cliffs County Trail. I'm not too sure how I would feel if my walk through Kent countryside is disturbed by light aircraft flying over every few minutes or so.
 5.3: "Fly-ins would support Martha Trust". So what's the likelihood of a group of pilots organising their own fly-ins? Thus increasing the number of flights on a particular day.
 6.6: What is the prevailing wind direction? South-West?I'm assuming this has an effect on the general take-off/landing direction and also would mean that pilots would have to fly a circuit to line up for landing.
 6.15: The farm ceased to be a hub in 2012. So for 9 years there's been a significant reduction in the traffic in and out of the farm. So the approval of this proposal will result in an increase in traffic along out narrow country lanes, particularly at the weekends.
 Other thoughts: There are just twelve parking spaces to be used by: Pilots of the 20 planes. Their entourage. People staying at the glamping site Visitors to the site (see 4.21).
 Aircraft will need to be refuelled. However there's no mention of the storage and delivery of fuel. HSE consider petrol to be a hazardous substance and yet the planning application (section 21) states that no hazardous substances will be used or stored.
 There is mention that there will be no flying school, however there's no statement about whether an air charter service would be allowed. There was one at Maypole.
 Again, just to repeat, a list of initial observations from reading through the Planning Support Statement. I'm happy to be corrected if I have made any mistakes - but please provide evidence to back up these. I await your responses :)

I note on the plan that there's to be a permissive footpath, which is NOT a public right of way, running north east from the end of the runway to Deal Road and then onto Northbourne. I'm puzzled as to why they should feel the need for this permissive path. There's a well-established public footpath (EE420), forming part of the White Cliffs Country Trail, running from Northbourne to Little Mongeham across the end of the airstrip? Are they suggesting that they don't want people to use EE420 because it's too dangerous for them with planes landing and taking off? If that's the case, then the sensible approached would be for them to have the footpath redirected. So, why the need for the permissive path?