23 January 2018
+VIDEO A plan for Fairoaks Airport that includes retaining the airfield is being unveiled by campaign group No Fairoaks New Town (NFNT) on January 27-28.
‘Fairoaks 2020’ is an alternative to the garden village put forward by developers. The garden village would see the airport disappear under 1500 new houses and facilities.
Douglas Mancini, chairman of NFNT, said: “Unlike the garden village people, we wanted to give the community an opportunity to feedback and tell us what they would like to see for the site.
“”We’re going to give the council something else to look at. We think the airport should be an amenity for the local community and the general aviation community worldwide, without penalising the local infrastructure.”
The event will be held at Chobham Village Hall in Station Road on January 27 and 28. There will be two sessions on Saturday January 27, one between 10.30am and 12.30pm and another between 2pm and 3.30pm. On Sunday January 28, the event will be open between 2.30pm and 4.30pm.
9 comments
I wish this plan very well.Keep the Airfield.
All the very best for your plan/campaign, of course Fairoaks is a very important airfield facility and must be safeguarded at all costs.
I hope the campaign to keep Fairoaks as an airfield succeeds. Since my first ever flight which was from Fairoaks in November 1954 and gaining a PPL there in 1957, I have been pleased to fly there regularly and would like to be able to continue doing so.
Dear Douglas Mancini,
My group is fighting a similar but much larger, 12,000 house, Gov’t sponsored development here in Kent called ‘Otterpool Park’ (??) any thing less like a Park or a Garden Town it is difficult to imagine as it would bury my village of Lympne and our historic Lympne Airfield (Douglas Bader, Amy Johnson, Skyways and Silver City Air Bridge) and three other important local villages contrary to the largely ignored criteria laid down by the DCLG in its official documentation.
Our campaign which has overwhelming public support is titled ‘NO Otterpool New Town’ and we are in head-on collision with our local authority Shepway District Council and our useless MP Damian Collins.
I have fond memories of Fairoaks and will do my best to join you on one of your two public meeting days to explore our strategy of combining with groups like yours to build national opposition to seriously damaging proposals such as these.
Should you wish to talk my telephone number is 01303 265737. Leave a message and landline (preferably) number on my BT message service should I not answer.
Sincerely,
David Plumstead
Shepway Environment and Community Network
‘NO Otterpool Newtown Campaign’
Very good luck to you. Airfields should not be considered brownfield sites and all attempts to treat them as such should be forcefully resisted. You have my total support.
It would be such a shame if this historic airfield goes under the bulldozer having provided ab initio training to WW2 pilots and post-war ones as well. I enjoyed many times there including the social life and now 51 years later can still remember the evening that I met my wife Alison at one such event!
Please keep this historic airfield active. Yes, there is pressure to build houses and if this was an abandoned airfield it might be possible. It is NOT however, abandoned and is very much in use providing employment as well as all the usual aviation facilities which will be lost if the airfield is closed. Housing development may be practical alongside aviation as long as future residents do not start complaining in the future.
Bob Anthony.
Fairoaks is a local asset and having attend the Fairoaks 2020 meeting yesterday very much approve of their proposals for the site.
I was taught to fly at FAIROAKS AIRFIELD with THAMES TELEVISION FLYING CLUB and gained my PPL in early MAY 1971. My basic aircraft was the old yellow & blue ROLLASON CONDOR with a tailskid wheel formation with my ‘Spin and Recovery’ in a STAMPE over Guildford Cathedral. Fairoaks Airfield was then owned by the formidable Mr Duggie Arnold who eventually sold it to ALAN MANN HELICOPTERS, who didn’t want us so we followed Duggie to his new airfield called BLACKBUSHE. I have very fond memories of FAIROAKS AIRFIELD and would like it to remain an AIRFIELD and certainly not a HOUSING ESTATE. MEMORY HOLD the DOOR.
Yours Aye, Liveryman Dr. JOHN McADAM, PhD, MA, BA(Hons), FRGS.
[The Honourable Company of Air Pilots].