Boris needs to answer on Cliffe Airport

The Medway Tory response today to the Cliffe Airport proposal continues to be unacceptably lacklustre.

All we have had from Conservatives for the last three years has been polite letters, after silent conversations, after poorly funded campaigns. True, Cllr Chambers has ratcheted up the rhetoric today, but once again there is no plan being put forward by Conservatives to actively oppose the airport.

The Tories have treated the community with utter contempt. We have proposal, denial, counter-proposal, denial and now we have the return of Cliffe Airport.

Residents in Medway are being treated like a political football, with our house prices and lives at the mercy of Tory whims.

It is simply discusting the the Conservative Party and its Mayor of London is treating residents in Medway like a play-thing. The proposal for an airport is a very real concern and has impacts on house prices on the Peninsula. It is simply unaccetable for Conservartive MPs to keep laughing this off this as an eccentric idea, whilst the Conservative Mayor continues to fund proposals. This is not a joke to home owners in All Hallows, Cliffe or High Halstow.

Get a grip Conservatives. Get your mayor in line.

We now need some action and quick from Medway Conservatives.

The current online petition and poster campaign have not worked.

The quiet diplomacy strategy has achieved nothing.

Boris Johnson has today given his blessing to a further consultation for the proposal to create an airport on Cliffe. His officials are now actively putting together proposals for a 'cheaper' version of the Island Airport which would bulldoze and concrete over properties and communities.

This now requires a robust and aggressive response from the Council.

Medway Labour and this blog have consistently warned Conservatives that this move from Island Airport to Cliffe was likely to happen. They have ignored all representation.

Residents have heard these denials from Conservatives so many times now. Denials, counter-denials and coalition promises. Yet again the issue comes back onto the table with more detail and more momentum

The worry is that once again Medway Conservatives are not treating this issue seriously.

Why do they object to visual and funded campaigns to oppose the airport?

Conservatives continue to selectively ignore the fact that officials in Number 10 and the Treasury are being actively lobbied on an airport proposal in North Kent. They ignore the fact that senior officials are being lobbied, we have expensive proposals being drafted, we have investors in the Middle East being consulted. What part of serious do Medway Conservatives not quite grasp.

A polite letter to the Sunday Times simply will not do.

House prices on the peninsula will be affected unless we have an immediate denial from Boris Johnson. This needs to happen and it needs to happen now.

The idea that you could tread softly when the airport was a mythical island in the estuary was an argument which could be considered coherent. This is a plan, on land, and where we have had a previous history. The movement of bird reserves aside, this proposal clearly has wings otherwise it would not be being considered as a proposal.

We have had constant denials from Medway Conservative MPs that the airport will not happen and that the Conservatives have no plan to build an airport.

Either way residents are fed up with being kicked around like a football. We elect Tory MPs to do a job. Do it.

There is a now a demand that instead of harsh words and ineffective posters that Medway Tories get a grip and campaign now.

Medway Labour will be challenging Tories once again.