hoverport

Image by Keith Ross from article in Isle of Thanet Gazette here

Change to Access at the Hoverport

The deadline for responses is midnight next Monday 19th January.

To respond please click here to “have your say”. You can also sign up to heard at an open floor hearing (online) in regards to the hoverport (using the same link)

We know many of you have already provided feedback on NG’s initial plans for the hoverport. But they have now issued some more detailed information and also rebutted some of the challenges people made in their original feedback.

Again, we need as many of you as possible to respond to this new consultation. Format is as before – log onto the Have Your Say section of the Planning Inspectorate’s website. If you have an Interested Party number, add it in but you can still comment even if you don’t.

If you want to send your comments in by post, the postal address has changed. It is now:

SeaLink Project Planning Inspectorate c/o QUADIENT 69 Buckingham Avenue Slough SL1 4PN

Remember: this consultation is ONLY about their proposal to expand their use of the hoverport. If your comments relate to the project more broadly, your comments will be disregarded.

What to say

The ExA says: “You should include as much detail as possible and cover anything that may affect your day-to-day life. You will be able to submit further comments during the examination of the application once you have registered”

We’ve marked up the hoverport section of their rebuttal document with our comments, but your submission should be personal to you. We know many of you will be really impacted on a day-to-day basis by the hoverport being out of action for years.

We think there are three main areas to challenge:

Lack of transparency over use of the hoverport – they’ve been very inconsistent about how they’ve said they’ll use the hoverport.

Environmental issues – they haven’t carried out any ecological surveys nor have they assessed how the very fragile surface will cope with a lot of heavy machinery.

Impact on health and wellbeing - they have assessed this impact as ‘insignificant’. They say that much of the hoverport will still be accessible. But a narrow strip by the cliffs next to a building site is not exactly what most of us value about the hoverport.

You can add more detail later. The main thing at this stage is to get your comments in.

Questions that may help you answer them

Focus on the things that matter to you:

  • Do you care about loss of a valuable local amenity?

  • Loss of wildlife habitat?

  • Are you worried about damage to the saltmarsh? 

  • Does the impact of construction noise and vibration on the flora and fauna that depend on this unique mosaic habitat concern you?

  • Are you worried about how it will affect your life (and/or business) being right next to a building site for so long?

  • Were you planning on selling your home and this will have a catastrophic impact on the value of your house?

  • Anything and everything that impacts you is important and the ExA want to hear about it.

  • What you write doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to be clever. It needs to come from the heart.

MAIN POINTS

Lack of transparency over use of the hoverport

NG are now saying that they always planned to use the hoverport so this is not a big change. But they did not include it in their Environmental Statement where they said: “the former hoverport will only be used for operational monitoring and maintenance access no civil engineering highway works are planned; rather the existing track and hardstanding areas will be used”

They did not issue a detailed construction plan until AFTER they closed the consultation on the Change Request. Why not?

Environmental issues

The hoverport is very fragile – putting heavy machinery on it will cause it to crack up, releasing the colliery spoil and inevitably damage the saltmarsh

The hoverport is a unique mosaic habitat which they haven’t carried out any ecological surveys on. They now say they will do a survey and have an ecologist to work with them to avoid rare species. How can they know this is possible if they haven’t done any surveys?

Impact on health and wellbeing

The hoverport is a special place because it’s accessible to people with limited mobility – wheelchair uses can get right by the water’s edge to see bird life. They have assessed this impact as ‘insignificant’

Thanet is very nature depleted, and this is one of the few truly wild spaces. Access to wild space is critical to good mental health

They have said that vehicular access across the King Charles III footpath and the Contra Trail cycle path will be insignificant. But they also say they will need access across it between 4 and 40 times a day! The construction period is from 2027-2029. That’s a lot of footpath closures!

Background

National Grid (NG) held Statutory consultations between October and December 2023 and the documents available to the public at that time did not indicate any use for the hoverport site. The PIER Volume 1 Part 3 states:

“The landfall would be a committed trenchless crossing under the sensitive salt marsh habitat within the Pegwell Bay designated sites and this trenchless crossing will also include St Augustine’s and Stonelees Golf Course.” (PIER volume 1 Part 3)

However, the October 2023 plans (General Arrangement Plans Version A) showed the two access routes for the construction machinery as going straight through the saltmarsh:

For clarity, the two access routes shown are either side of the petrol station at Pegwell with the left-hand route being adjacent to the scar left from the Nemo project.

Using these routes would have caused irreparable harm to a protected habitat and showed the NG attitude to protecting habitats at that time.

In July 2024, NG produced amendments to their plans which included, for the first time, the use of the hoverport site for construction, maintenance and a construction compound. NG explained, quite rightly, that this was to avoid damage to the saltmarsh during construction but why this had not been obvious to them before is difficult to understand.

 In November 2024 NG submitted amended plans that removed the compound from the hoverport.

Unfortunately, the amended plans had an access point to the intertidal area from the hoverport apron that passed through existing saltmarsh. Again, this calls into question the priority NG give to safeguarding habitats when making important decisions.

NG applied for development consent in March 2025, and this was accepted for examination in April 2025 despite no detailed environmental survey having been done of the hoverport.

In October 2025, NG applied for 5 changes to the proposed development consent order including changes to the order limits.