The owners of the former Manston airport say they remain convinced an attempt to force them to relinquish the site will not succeed.

Trevor Cartner, director of Stone Hill Park, was responding to the news that RiverOak Strategic Partners had re-submitted its application for a Development Consent Order (DCO) for the site.

He said that if RSP failed, it should acknowledge “the game is up.”

“RSP have now had time to put together a compelling, evidence-based argument for what they propose. We shall now wait to see what happens next but it has always been our view that RSP’s plans are flawed and will not get out of the stocks. If this re-submission results again in failure we hope RSP will accept the game is finally up.”

He said: “Our planning application, now in the hands of Thanet District Council, offers a realistic and deliverable plan, which will create much needed homes, thousands of job opportunities, together with aviation heritage attractions and high-quality leisure facilities.”

RSP says it has ironed out the issues raised by the Planning Inspectorate which led to its withdrawal in May. It says the revised application meets the test of being considered as a nationally significant project.

Director George Yerrall said: "The original application, which was submitted in early April, and which ran to 11,000 pages, was the culmination of 27 months of intensive work on the part of the RSP team and our professional consultants. This included three separate consultation exercises as well as a complex planning appeal. We were therefore naturally disappointed to be informed by PINS that, in their view, the application fell short in certain respects."

“Nevertheless, we have taken up all the points raised and, working with our full team, we have used the past nine weeks to provide full and comprehensive responses to those points. “The submission sent to PINS [Planning Inspectorate] incorporates all that additional work and we believe that the documentation as amended is sufficient to justify the DCO application being allowed to move to the next stage.”

The latest developments come as councillors prepare to vote on Thanet’s Local Plan, which will be critical in relation to the potential for Manston to be opened as a cargo hub airport.

The plan includes an option to continue to recognise the existing use of the site at the same time as it acknowledges the current Development Consent Order (DCO) process.

If councillors back that option, then the additional houses earmarked for Manston would be reallocated around other areas.