We’ve been shoulder to shoulder with the Friends of North Kent Marshes for over a decade campaigning to save this historic landscape and world class wildlife site from proposals to build a major new four runway airport. But to the people of the Hoo Peninsula it is also their home – as the Friends of North Kent Marshes put it – Conservation and Communities United.
Here’s a guest post FoNKM’s Gill Moore who met one of the Hoo Peninsula’s better known residents at a recent campaign meeting:
Musician Jools Holland has pledged his support for the No Estuary Airport campaign and will fight any plans to build an airport that will destroy protected habitats in the Thames estuary. “ If this magical area protected by law and international agreement, is not safe from threat of development, I fear no corner of England is safe” he told Friends of the North Kent Marshes at a meeting in Cooling on the Hoo Peninsula
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds welcomed Jools’s support. Paul Outhwaite RSPB's Head of Public Affairs for the South East said "The RSPB is delighted to have such an eminent figure campaigning alongside us. Jools fought alongside us 10 years ago during the successful No airport at Cliffe campaign and the threats and risks remain the same. Environmentally, ecologically and economically a Thames estuary airport is a complete nonstarter as evidence to the Davies Commission will prove"
Joan Darwell, a Friend of the North Kent Marshes, said "It was an excellent meeting and wonderful to have Jools support for the campaign."
" We have a message for Boris Johnson he is not Mayor of the South East and he has no jurisdiction here." Joan added "We have a message for all proponents of estuary airports. Ours is the marsh country down by the river within as the river winds twenty miles of the sea and we will fight with the utmost vigour to protect our natural and cultural heritage and our communities here in Thames estuary "
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