PART of Rochester Airport has been approved for development. Medway Council's Conservative-only Cabinet agreed in a secret session last week to allow the Medway Innovation Centre to be built at the airfield.

No plans have yet been submitted. Instead, they will ask the council dominated by the Tories this Thursday to go into a further secret session and back the principle of the development going ahead.

A report to the councillors says the centre would "greatly benefit Medway's economy by enhancing the attractiveness of the area for inward investment."

The Cabinet made up of leader Rodney Chambers and 10 other senior councillors issued a press statement after the meeting last Tuesday afternoon to say that they had agreed to renew the airport management company's lease for 18 months.

What they did not say was that they ordered officers to immediately start to negotiate "future arrangements for the site" and make regular updates on their progress to the relevant portfolio holder, Alan Jarrett, the finance portfolio holder and Conservative deputy leader.

It would maintain revenue and income, and eliminate the risk of additional revenue costs, they have reported to the rest of the council.

Nor did they report a further secret move at the same meeting, which allows council-owned land and buildings in Laker Road, on the edge of the airfield, to be sold by the finance director.

There has been acrimony over the airfield's future for some years. Labour and Liberal Democrats believe it should be reduced to one runway, and redeveloped. They say the towns could earn £2million a year from rents. Instead they current get around £18,000 a year from the airfield.

Conservatives campaigned at the last election to scrap the developments being proposed in the new Local Plan, and instead support local residents who want the airfield retained as fields.