MEDWAY cannot survive if an airport is built at Cliffe that warning was delivered to the Government at the weekend by the team set up to regenerate Medway and other north Kent boroughs.

The Thames Gateway Kent Partnership told the Secretary of State for Transport, Alistair Darling, Medway does not have the physical or environmental capacity to accommodate the scale of development now being proposed.

The partnership was established two years ago by the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, to develop Dartford, Gravesham, Medway and Swale.

But they say the airport would hold back Gateway development projects. They say the Hoo Peninsula's unique landscape and nature conservation sites make it a site of national and international importance.

The partnership is planning thousands of homes and jobs in north Kent. But the airport is seen as being a draconian solution that would throw plans agreed with the Government out of the window.

Arguing against the proposal to build the world's largest airport across most of the nature conservation areas, the Thames Gateway Kent Partnership says the Government has committed itself to high levels of growth in north Kent in the next 30 years.

"This is critically balanced by protection for important natural assets in order to achieve a sustainable form of regeneration and growth," they said in opposing the airport plans.

"The Medway administrative area and its hinterland does not have the physical or environmental capacity to accommodate the scale of development".