Saturday 5 March 2011

John Terry, Ashley Cole, The Isle of Thanet Gazette and The Royal Sands Development Ramsgate.

Having just got around to this week’s Isle of Thanet Gazette I read the front page article with some interest, obviously as it’s in the paper it must be true.

The article is available online, here http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/where/thanet/Penthouse-view-soccer-stars/article-3291098-detail/article.html it says other things, all of which I have to belive:

Para 2 “The Premiership aces were particularly taken with architectural drawings” I too started to get particularly taken by them back in 2004 to 2007 see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/tdc/id30.htm and was last taken by them the other day see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/02/royal-sands-pleasurama-development.html

Para 4 says “Although the foundations have been laid and work is well under way, the developers were forced to tell both stars they did not have the legal paperwork ready to sell flats” There was me thinking that the foundations hadn’t been laid, silly me. As the development agreement says the foundations have to have been finished by now, or the lease on the site is forfeit and now the local paper says that the foundations have been laid, then I suppose they must be. That’s intrepid investigative journalism for you, they obviously managed to find the foundations that I couldn’t, as the development is supposed to be much bigger than The Turner Contemporary and I have evidently missed the foundations, please accept my apologies for the oversight.

Perhaps the phrase, “Although the foundations have been laid” is being used in a more metaphorical way here as the last 3 paragraphs seem to concur more closely with what I have seen.

Here is news to me about the delays though “Work only began two months ago after a security bond (money the council would get if the work is not finished) was reduced from £5.6 million to £1.6 million.” I thought this happened ages ago and the delays were for some other reason completely like problems with the cliff, oh well it’s nice to know that’s all sorted.

All it takes is a bit of investigative journalism to find out what’s really going on with this development.

The picture above, taken last Thursday is of “first five foundation columns” mentioned in the final paragraph, funny it looks like six to me, you just can’t believe your eyes these days.

12 comments:

  1. Aren't these the same footballers who showed "interest" in a number of failed projects in Dubai, including The Palm? Not sure that's a good sign.

    Also, could it be that the developers engage celebrities and secure permission to mention their "interest" in the hope of generating sales. The celebrities could, in return, receive money or even a flat.

    There is a wonderful parallel with Dubai's The Palm, with building delays and rising sea levels making the project appear a folly before it's even been completed.

    There's much more entertainment to come from this project…

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  2. Yet another piece of Ramsgate seafront filtched from the residents,how long before they make fenced off areas of private beach for the flat owners,
    Stargazer.

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  3. Just a little bit along the coast there are more flats - facing the sea just the same. Most of the residents are DHS and from my own personal experience ( worked there - know the landlord ) are in and out of prison on drug and burglary charges. More out of prison than in as you would expect these days.

    I bet they must be licking their cocaine lips when millionaire footballers move in!

    Ben Kelly - Osaka, Japan.

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  4. Lock up your daughters!

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  5. and your wife!

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  6. And your sons!

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  7. Saint: "The transfer news is hot. Thanet, an area renowned for famous or rather infamous right wingers, may be the new home to some elite footie talent."

    Greavsie "It certainly is a cliffhanger for their futures Saint. They may not want to too far away from League mainstream and want to be all at sea or too far adrift but with Thanet they may nopt get a choice."

    Saint (Chuckling) "What are you saying Greavsie that in Thanet the sea could come and get them ?"

    Greavsie: "Well it is possible in Thanet as they tend to lay the foundations for their own later collapse. And I would advise these lads don't even risk dipping your toe in the water there."

    Saint: "Well there you have it, Greavsie is telling the boys better to pedal your trade in the big city than paddle it in Thanet"

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  8. Well look on the bright side for we might just catch a sight of 'wers kid' Cheryl when she comes to visit her ex, like they do. Not that I am suggesting we do not have far better looking talent, not to mention of more understandable dialect, locally.

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  9. So how many of these apartments are affordable homes for the locals?

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  10. Well I hope that if Cheryl and here friends do visit they dont go topless and make Ramsgate sands look lke Bournemouth!

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  11. So what sort of foundations are they putting in for the new building? I've just been down there and they seem to be putting concrete cylinders on top of wet chalk. Are they assuming the chalk is firm enough to take the weight of a 70,000 tonne building? Some days it isn't firm enough to hold the road up.

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  12. 16.17 with my engineering hat on I can assure you that the foundations are sufficient, the problem is that they are at the wrong end of the site and there are only six of them.

    The development agreement says that all of the foundations had to be completed last year for the lease to remain valid. It also says that the building frame for the hotel had to start going up at the other end of the site at the beginning of this month.

    I think the six foundations and associated pillars are part of some sort of publicity stunt to give them the option on the site for a few more years, but don’t really know as the council and the developers haven’t told me what is going on.

    I have a foi request in but these can take a long time.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.