After more than five years of scrutiny, RiverOak Strategic Partners (RSP) has received the redetermined Development Consent Order (DCO), from the UK Department for Transport, for its plans to invest up to £500m (US$589m) in reviving Manston Airport in the UK.
Construction will begin later next year, with the airport operating its first cargo services in early 2025. The airport is expected to provide air freight capacity in the Southeast of England, alleviate overcrowding in the London airport system and ease road congestion caused by lorries carrying freight through the Channel Tunnel to European airports. It will be built to have net zero carbon emissions, enabling it to demonstrate to the government how it can grow the aviation sector, while still meeting its decarbonization targets.
It will also create approximately 23,000 jobs across East Kent and the wider national economy by the airport’s 20th year of operation. Alongside the work needed to return Manston to operational status, RSP will now accelerate its local procurement program and partnership work with a wide range of business, education, training and local authority organizations, to ensure local people and local businesses can derive economic, employment and investment benefits from a revived Manston Airport.
Tony Freudmann, director of RSP, said, “Today is a day to celebrate the culmination of years of campaigning. I would like to pay tribute to the extraordinary army of Manston Airport supporters who have never given up hope of seeing new life breathed into this historic aviation asset. And I would also like to thank our two dedicated local MPs, Sir Roger Gale and Craig Mackinlay, as well as the thousands of supporters who have supported us from the start of the DCO process and have long shared our bold and ambitious vision for the airport.”