Lydd Airport Expansion, Kent
Council Decision on 4th March 2010
Conjuring Trick
The application was passed on a false premise.
The Council was only entitled to accept the application if they were satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the proposed expansion would not damage the environment. That is the law.
I have yet to grasp the legal basis that entitled Councillor Dearden to cut and paste two reports to make a new report and at the last minute introduce that new report as the report by which the Council was to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt. Perhaps the Council would be good enough to provide me with the legal - and also moral - chapter and verse for this unusual amalgamation.
What I witnessed via live webcam has convinced me beyond reasonable doubt that the majority of the Council was, shamefully, happy to operate a political conjuring trick. In spite of due legal process, the debate was adroitly passed off as a debate between jobs and nature, which it never truly was.
Thus the people of Shepway (and elsewhere), unaware of the night’s proceedings, woke this morning invited to believe that the “heroic Council – facing down the cranks - has saved and created jobs for our young people”.
However, the people are not that daft. Nor are the Council's very own officers, or environmental experts!