The ROAR of the Silent Majority

On Sunday we had a leaflet through our door from Resident Objections to the Airport Regime (ROAR) with the leading question “Did you know that Blackpool Airport has pushed back the deadline for you to view and comment on the plans for a major expansion?”. This elicited a Fanque family response of “What major expansion?”. Further reading told us that “Blackpool Airport has B-I-G plans [their hyphenation and capitalisation] and they hoped to pass them through Government without any local Residents being consulted … however, under growing local awareness, we have gained an extension … to register our views”.

I had a look at the Blackpool Airport website and downloaded a PDF file (good grief how I hate those stupid files!) of the Airport Master Plan as recommended. It’s taken me until now to figure out from the plans what the proposed changes are as the reproductions are so bloody small! Is this part of the airport owners devious scheme to confuse the elderly of St.Annes as they envisage it?

The ROAR group were holding a meeting tonight at the St.Annes Cricket Club but I was unable to attend so I e-mailed them on Sunday asking if they have a web site to show progress, updates, etc. So far no reply, but I would have thought a web site would be invaluable in campaigns of this nature.

Serious Part

a) The Airport are proposing to move the Control Tower, Radar and Fire Station to the south (St.Annes) side from its present position amongst all the other buildings on the north side adjacent to Squires Gate Lane (Blackpool). After which they propose moving/building hangars also on to the south side. This is to accommodate a change in the layout of the runways and taxiing areas which will enable more planes to take off and land.

b) Under the heading ‘Aircraft Noise’ I was amazed to discover this:
“Given that the airport is historic in the sense that it was an operational airbase prior to the introduction of planning legislation, there are therefore, no planning conditions currently restricting the number of flights, their times of operation, nor their noise attenuation levels”!

Amusing Part

a) The airport is now known as Blackpool International Airport!

b) Under the heading of ‘Surface Access Proposals’ is this gem:

“The airport has set up an Air Transport Forum to help deliver quality and sustainable solutions to the improvement of the accessibility to the airport for all modes of transport. Some of the key findings so far from that group concern the following proposals.

• Re-naming of Squires Gate station to Blackpool International Station”.

Now those with local knowledge will be aware that Squires Gate station is a rather run down edifice whose sole purpose on the single track line is to give passengers access to the Pontins Holiday Camp which backs onto the station. To this day, despite a lick of cheaply garish paint, it still resembles a PoW camp by virtue of the shape and style of its featureless buildings and their layout. Passengers can also disembark here for the beginning of Blackpool South Shore as the traditional starting point to see the Illuminations. The concept of it being called Blackpool International Station is just too hilarious for words.

So it looks like there are serious times ahead for sleepy St.Annes though I suspect the dress code for any future ROAR meetings will be more sports jacket and cords rather than combat jacket and jeans.