Dear Neighbour
After 26 years of flying from Kempton Park, the Kempton Park Model Flying Club has been given notice to quit by the end of April next year. Kempton Park have also written to local Councillors asking for help in finding the club a new home (Document 82, attached).
The letter from Mr Phil White, the General Manager of Kempton Park, is undated, but was sent out late last week, just as the KPMFC was told of the decision. He says there have been “a number of complaints from neighbours”. As we understand it, there have been just two complaints this year. One was resolved to the satisfaction of the complainer within days of the complaint being made. The other is the subject of a yet-to-be-completed investigation by Spelthorne’s Environmental Health Department. In fact, the KPMFC have told us that Mr White had said, in their meeting last week, that there was only one complainant.
Kempton Park is quoted in today’s Surrey Herald as saying that the eviction of the KPMFC has nothing to do with the proposed construction of 1500 dwellings + commercial units on the Kempton Park estate. It must be sheer bloody coincidence, then, that the club’s flying area (outlined in red on Document 83 attached) is right in the middle of the expanse which The Jockey Club wishes to cover with concrete (outlined in yellow).
And what about a response from Spelthorne Council? It’s been a week, and nothing, to our knowledge, has been said or done. One would have thought that it is part of the Council’s remit to encourage the public use of Green Belt land such as the Kempton Park estate.
The areas outlined in blue on Document 83 are the parcels of land subject to the Covenant, whereby Spelthorne Council stands to receive, based on conservative estimates, more than £14 million, if they or anyone else grants permission to develop that land. There is another £14 million to be had by the Council from other sources of “planning gain” if the development goes ahead.
KPMFC’s flying area lies within the northern of those two areas of land, and their clubhouse within the southern area. What a glad event of totally unforeseen serendipity for the Council.
If anyone knows of a possible new site for the KPMFC, please could you contact the club on 07891 900372 .
Recently released FOI documents confirm that a planning application is expected to be made by The Jockey Club after the general election in May 2015. At the same time we are likely to have to fight to ensure that swathes of Spelthorne’s open spaces are not released for development in the Review of our Local Plan. We will need funds to fight both.
Donations to the Keep Kempton Green Fighting Fund can now be made through PayPal. Just go to http://www.losra.org, scroll down a little, and click on the button marked “Donate to the Keep Kempton Green Fund”. You can also donate by cheque. Please make your cheque payable to LOSRA and send it to:
20 Green Street, Sunbury, TW16 6RN
As you would expect, the identity of all donors will be kept confidential.
Remember: Keep Kempton Green began as a campaign to protect Green Belt at Kempton Park. That campaign has now been forced to expand to protect Green Belt throughout Spelthorne, which is all at risk in a forthcoming review of our Local Plan, in which the Council appears to be planning the building of 8000 dwellings over the next twenty years. This threat is against the whole Borough. It has to be fought.
Visit us at http://www.keepkemptongreen.com, Like our Facebook page, and Follow us on Twitter (links to both on the website). Leave your comments at all three.
Kind regards, and thank you very much in advance for your generosity.
Keep Kempton Green
Keep Kempton Green 
I think there has been at least 20 formal complaint s to Spelthorne bc’s EHO and the jockey clubs MD apply for a Freedom of information act and they will be listed. So maybe they are too blame
You may be correct Kenton ave house owner but the management of KP told the model club it was one single complainer. It’s also known that this complainer lives no more than 10yrds from the main road which has constant traffic noise, and choose to complain about the odd aircraft noise that could not be detected when measurement tests were done above the traffic noise and even complains about the lights being on round the track! Let’s hope he is just as successful in future complaints about the additional traffic noise, congestion, building noise, road works noise, and once done night time social disputes, police siren’s etc !
Perhaps he is being singled out unfairly, but we all know the real reason for the model club’s demise is really about removing any obstacle however trivial it may seem for the ‘potential’ development of the site! Good luck to them flyers in finding an alternative site in enjoying what looks like an relaxing sport, yes sport, I read recently model flying is a recognised sport, so let’s hope SBC at least try and support them with this search especially when ‘entertaining’ the Jockey Club in their ‘preliminary meetings, research & survey’s!’
I walk my dogs regularly in the Kempton dog enclosure, bounded on one side by Staines Road East and on the other by the wide expanse of grass which leads to the Model Flying Club’s hut and airstrip. What with the roar of the busy road and the real planes flying in and out of Heathrow, it is very hard to even hear the model planes when in flight. (One exception is one member’s turbine powered model plane which has a distinctive drone but which I understand the club has decided itself to ban from flying there. This really is a trumped up charge!
Regards
James Graham
Thanks James, although we know of the complaints in from Kenton Ave (one address), and our offer to SBC’s EHO to meet with the complainer in an effort to try and resolve any noise issues that we may cause, we heard nothing back and monitoring tests from the corner of Kenton while models were flying clearly showed that nothing registered above the noise of the traffic anyhow !
I hope said complainer enjoys all the construction noise next summer !