麻豆约拍

Is it all over for Manston Airport?

What can save it now?

It's owners, the New-Zealand based investment company Infratil, have put it up for sale but who would buy it and is it time to say well, we have tried and failed to sell Manston as a viable answer to airport expansion in the south east?

Flybe is pulling out at the end of this month and there is an ongoing row about the number of night flights which Thanet council has always opposed. Have we as a county really got behind the idea of expansion at Manston ?

Over the Thames estuary in Essex just this week Southend airport officially opened their brand new terminal and railway station.

Later this month Easyjet will begin 70 flights a week from the airport.

The owners - the Eddie Stobart Group bought the airport in 2008 and have brought about this transformation by working with Southend Council to extend the runway, get planning permission for the railway station and the new terminal.

So down the years have we done enough to build the case for Manston airport as a going concern ?

Leader of kent County council Paul Carter says we will have high speed 1 trains into Ramsgate which will bring it to within an hour of London which will make Manston accessible for the first time. But is it too little too late ?

We often hear the appeals to find more children homes with adoptive parents, but just how easy is the process?

The government is announcing new laws today to speed up the adoption process and make mixed race adoption easier in England today. Also under the measures, a local authority which has failed to find a child a new home locally within three months will be required to place them on the national adoption register. Other legislation will make it easier for foster parents to adopt children in their care.

We hear from Liz Hitchcock from Kings Hill near West Malling who adopted her son 10 years ago - she says she would have adopted again, but was put off going through the process because it was so lengthy and difficult.

We hear your view and stories.

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