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Judge rules white paper lawful on Cliffe
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Friends of the North Kent Marshes
What about the future of
aviation now?
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A Message
So an airport at Cliffe is consigned to history, and what a
fight it has been to reach this point! I have been privileged to be just a
small part in a very large campaign with so many organisations and
individuals sharing the victory.
Now at last we have chance to look forward to life after the
Aviation White Paper. Through the No Airport campaign, it has become
abundantly clear that if the North Kent Marshes and its surrounding area are
to be properly safeguarded for the future, we need to develop a moral case
for protection that will stand alongside the legal protection and preclude
any Government or developer from ever thinking about destroying the area
again.
The terms ‘Special Protection Area’ and ‘Ramsar Site’ meant
nothing to me 18 months ago, and I’m not sure they meant anything to the
Department of Transport either, otherwise Cliffe would never have been an
option in the first place. It has been suggested that they did understand
all along and were just testing to see what response they would get – well,
they got their answer loud and clear!
How do you establish a moral case for protection of the area?
How do you get to the point where the very name of the area instantly says
‘This place is not up for grabs.” We want the words ‘North Kent Marshes’ to
roll off the tongue like ‘The New Forest’, ‘Snowdonia’ or ‘The Lake
District’.
To achieve that, firstly people must be able to get to these
places to see them with their own eyes and enjoy them. And secondly, if the
area or the key sites within it can be joined under a single banner that
pronounces how good it is, that can only help too.
Even before the airport proposal came along, a whole raft of
key organisations from local authorities to the major conservation bodies
have long been supportive of improving our environment and our access to it.
The idea of a Regional Park was contained in the Thames Gateway Area
Investment Framework, having been first suggested by Dickens Country
Protection Society over three decades ago. Now we really have the chance to
make it happen.
The future is exciting. Cross-organisation partnerships such
as the ‘Cliffe Project Steering Group’ are already up and running looking at
ways to develop and promote the North Kent Marshes.
In October 2001, just prior to the airport consultation, the
RSPB acquired Cliffe Pools to add to their already large landholding in the
area. Their plans are to turn Cliffe Pools into a national flagship reserve,
complemented by improved visiting to their existing reserves such as
Northward Hill in High Halstow (with the largest heronry in Britain), Elmley
Marshes, and by their massive new reserve at Rainham just inside the M25.
It has been a privilege to work with members ‘Campaign
Liaison Group’ alongside RSPB, Medway Council, DCPS and so many other
organisations and I would hope in some way to be a part of the new and
exciting developments being planned for our community. I hope that in the
future we will be able to look back on the past 18 months of blight and
despair and say that they were a blessing in disguise.
George Crozer
Friends of the North Kent Marshes
Friends of North Kent Marshes is a group for all who want to help celebrate,
enhance and protect the North Kent Marshes
Formed in 2004 out of the No airport at Cliffe Campaign Liaison Group, the
group works both with the local communities that live on and around the
Marshes, and with organisations such as the RSPB as they develop flagship
visitor sites here.
Membership is free — members receive a quarterly newsletter by email, or by
post on supply of stamped-addressed envelopes. The group is run entirely
voluntarily and holds no funds.
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