If ever there was a place in Kent which provides a view of the challenges we have faced past, present and future, then it is surely a sprawling site in Thanet.

Regardless of your views on Manston Airport’s future plans, were you to be able to stand in one of its long since shuttered control towers (which I’ve been lucky enough to do) you could pause for a moment and ponder at what lies around you.

Looking out across the the coast stretching its picturesque way towards Sandwich, you can see Pegwell Bay and Richborough - where the Romans arrived on our shores. A foreign invasion which would forever redefine the county and the country and the framework of which - our major settlements, our roads, our sanitation, our orchards (yes, they introduced apples here) - we still cling to.

Right in front of you stretches the airport’s runway which, during the Second World War, was alive with the roar of Allied fighter planes. Bombed extensively during the Battle of Britain, its position just miles from the Channel made it a regular stop-off for damaged planes limping back to the UK after foreign bombing raids.

During the Cold War, this site was under US Air Force control. Believe the rumours, and concrete bunkers were built in order for the storage of nuclear weapons if tensions between the West and Russia reached feverpitch.

It also played an - albeit small - role in redefining our seaside towns, as it blended its role as an RAF base with a limited offering of cheap commercial flights to foreign holiday destinations. The loss of trade to the likes of nearby Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs as we headed for guaranteed sun overseas, could not have been fully appreciated at the time, but it would take them decades to recover.

And while we ponder that, we look in the opposite direction - to land which lies just beyond Manston’s boundaries.

Because behind a boundary fence draped in concealing tarpaulin sheets in an immigration processing centre. The first port of call for those seeking asylum in this country - many after making the perilous cross-Channel journey in small, frequently lethally unsuitable, inflatable boats.

Their arrival has proved the hottest of political hot potatoes in recent years and it shows no sign of relenting anytime soon.

And then, of course, there’s a view of the relentless wave of housebuilding the county is facing.

For reasons I’ll leave someone more informed than I to address, not far from the end of the runway - and where, one assumes, ruddy great big cargo planes will be taking off and arriving - is a flurry of preparation work for new housing estates.

I just hope they don’t grow attached to their chimney pots.

Manston Airport is soon, of course, due to see hundreds of millions of pounds invested - if, indeed, it finally delivers on its long stated promises. Which, rather neatly for the purposes of this article, could mean you’re stood on the same ground as one of east Kent’s future economic growth hubs.

We’ll have to wait and see what the next chapter holds for this remarkable part of the county.