A SERIOUS rift within Tory ranks over the Cliffe airport plan has opened up after a senior county councillor spoke out in support of the idea.

Conservative councillor Keith Ferrin, a former deputy leader of Kent County Council who represents Swale, has broken ranks with his own administration to express his backing for the scheme.

Cllr Ferrin, a member of KCC’s Tory cabinet, said many people believed the airport would bring “considerable advantages and many opportunities” - a view at odds with his own Conservative group.

His comments, made at a KCC council meeting on July 18, have landed him in hot water with Tory colleagues. Fellow Tory county councillor Frank Gibson has lodged a formal complaint over the remarks and is calling for Mr Ferrin to be formally rebuked by Tory leaders.

In a leaked internal letter seen by the Kent Messenger Group, Cllr Gibson said he was appalled by Mr Ferrin’s remarks, accuses him of a “serious breach of the Conservative group rules” and says they were against party policy.

The letter, sent to the Tory group secretary, goes on to claim that had county council leader Sandy Bruce-Lockhart not distanced himself from the comments “the press and the public…would have been lead (sic) to believe that the Conservative group had changed its policy dramatically.”

Mr Ferrin had argued: “It seems clear to me that there are two different reactions. The first is from officialdom and the environmentalists, who are clearly anti [the idea]. There’s another group of people who have a quite different view. Of all the people I have spoken to about Cliffe airport, about three quarters are very much in favour.”

KCC could end up on the wrong side of popular opinion if it failed to take account of those who supported the option. “If we do decide to oppose Cliffe, then we could be siding with the minority rather than the majority. In my own area, people are saying there are lots of jobs and lots of opportunities. That is what is being said across a broad band of people in Kent,” he said.

It was unlikely that the Government would dispense with the idea even if it eventually opted for elsewhere.

Neither Cllr Gibson nor Cllr Ferrin could be contacted for comment.