A campaigner has been refused permission to appeal the latest decision in a lengthy legal battle to stop the reopening of an airport.

Jenny Dawes attempted to fight a judge’s ruling which concluded the government’s granting of planning permission for the reinstatement of Manston Airport, near Ramsgate, is legal.

Ms Dawes submitted an intention to appeal against the judgment by Mr Justice Dove, who has now also turned that down.

However, the Ramsgate resident is already preparing to take the judge’s order to the next tier of the court system.

The review over whether the government’s Development Consent Order giving the airport the green light was legal was rejected by Judge Mr Justice Dove on September 22.

Ms Dawes and others against the proposed cargo hub raised questions about whether the need for the airport was correctly assessed and if due consideration was given to what impact the scheme might have on the government’s ability to meet its future carbon reduction targets.

Notice of the refusal to appeal was revealed by the Judge’s clerk at 10.54am today.

Reacting to the latest news Tony Freudmann, the director of the company behind the Manston plans, Riveroak Strategic Partners, said: “The refusal of permission to appeal came with reasons which were pretty comprehensive, as was the original judgement last month.”

Ms Dawes now has 21 days to ask the Court of Appeal to overturn Mr Justice Dove’s refusal to allow an appeal of the decision.

It is the third time Ms Dawes and fellow opponents to the plans have failed in attempts to get the decision overturned after initially calling in the original Development Consent Order’s approval in 2020.

That first challenge saw the DCO turned down by the High Court on the grounds that the approval letter issued by the Secretary of State for Transport did not contain enough detail.

But when the current plans were resubmitted and approved in August last year, Ms Dawes launched another challenge and has crowdfunded more than £75,000 to pay for it.

Her challenge against the 2022 permission was dismissed in January but then partially accepted on appeal in March by another judge.

Riveroak’s ambitions to begin work on its plans cannot begin while the cases are held up in the courts.

These include aims to harness sophisticated state-of-the-art drones and hydrogen-powered barges to help ferry goods from the site to their final destination.

Mr Freudmann previously told KentOnline in January – when Ms Dawes’ initial appeal was rejected – he hoped the airport would be up and running by 2026 after that specific legal hurdle had been cleared.