Member Article

Operation Stack: Manston Airport to be used as overflow

The Department for Transport (DfT) is set to announce that Manston Airport will be used as a overflow lorry park during Operation Stack for the next crisis in Calais.

As the M20 remains open in both directions and the Channel tunnel trains are running to schedule, the government is developing plants to avoid further delays in the event of another migrant crisis in Calais.

The DfT is set to sign a contract with the owners of Manston airport in east Kent to use it as a lorry park.

The state of the abandoned Manston Airport site is currently under review by newly-elected, UKIP-led Thanet District Counci, which confirmed in May that it would be challenging the decision made by its predecessors not to pursue a compulsory purchase.

The current landowners, Trevor Cartner and Chris Musgrave, want to develop the airport, which closed in May 2014, into a mixed-use development for businesses and homes, creating thousands of jobs in the process.

An announcement to use the airport site as an overflow lorry park is set to be made later on today.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .