Tuesday 10 February 2015

The council’s brave new plans for Ramsgate. What’s the snag? Hornby Hobbies off to Discovery Park and possibly a ramble.

There are always snags with either administration at TDC, I guess one of the greatest problems that the previous Labour administration caused for Ramsgate was the wonderful coloured concrete promenade in front of the Pleasurama debacle.

Of course it looked marvellous on paper, but it did remove pretty much all of the seafront parking in one swoop damaging Ramsgate’s tourist economy immeasurably and as it wasn’t attached to the chalk bedrock but sits on lose sand it also fails to act a as a sea defence there, however it did use up the grant funding.

Of course had some other administration been in power the money would have undoubtedly been spent in Margate.

Subsequently Ramsgate was pretty much left to its own devices under the Conservatives and two very beneficial things occurred. One being the café culture along Harbour Parade, the other being the emergence of a food shopping centre based around Staffordshire Street car park. Ramsgate has 3 butchers, 2 greengrocers and 2 bakers, of course on paper this should be occurring around the Leopold Street multi-storey car park, the problem here is most of the women who do most of the food shopping won’t go anywhere near it.

Anyway the council have put Staffordshire Street car park out to tender for development, here is the link http://thanet.gov.uk/publications/properties/staffordshire-street-ramsgate/ I imagine like the large shop the council have recently bought in King Street the idea will be social housing.


There are also new plans for the seafront car park


Not sure about these, but am cautious about plans for Ramsgate Seafront.

Here is the article about the Hornby Hobbies move http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Hornby-Hobbies-quit-Margate/story-25998183-detail/story.html frankly I am surprised this they didn’t move from this site when they transferred manufacturing to China thirty years or more ago.

You don’t need a factory to make toy trains in, if you are no longer making them.

9 comments:

  1. Michael, the drawing shows the proposed beach club not a car park, car parking is only incidental on this development...

    ReplyDelete
  2. What is a Beach Club? Another name for a hotel? Terrible design too.

    Staffordshire St car park will be built on?

    Looks like you're backtracking on your support of Ramsgate Labour Michael?

    With Cllr Driver confirming TDC know of the O'Regan plans 6 months ago why did Margate Labour not brief Ramsgate Labour or did they and they kept quiet?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Horny at Discovery Park is a concern as it shows our tax grants are being used to displace existing businesses rather than help create new ones or ones from outside Thanet.

    And Discovery park is not focused on science jobs which was the emphasis.

    A terrible waste. How can this be prevented

    Presumably Hornby will downsize too if it is is just an office now?

    And this is an indication of any Manston Busienss Park with CarternMusgrave.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Michael you're becoming a grumpy old man. How could the wonderful promenade 15 years ago damage tourism by removing parking? All the car parks are empty eyesores as is the marina parking.

    We need more seafront promenades and less car parks.

    While your labour mates are responsible for the Pleasurama disaster year after year.

    But you say it's not so bad now and we should vote them in again?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anon, 1.30

    See below for Sir Roger Gale's original press release welcoming Discovery Park, and promising to support it:

    http://www.rogergale.co.uk/content_manager/pagee1a4.html?ID=103239&dbc=c6827a996193cb8d333d802183e66e32

    The electorate will decide in May, whether Sir Roger was as good as his word.


    ReplyDelete
  6. It would seem that Sir Roger learnt nothing from the Antolin debacle, political mud slinging doesn't help to create or retain jobs ...

    http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/grupo_antolin_who_was_to_blame_1_1036858

    ReplyDelete
  7. Michael

    Have you seen this from Ian Driver regarding O'Regan Group's proposal for waste Ramsgate Port?

    http://thanetgreencouncillor.blogspot.co.uk/

    ReplyDelete
  8. Seems like positive news a manufacturing plant at the port. Jobs.

    A Wetherspoons increasing footfall around the harbour front. Jobs.

    Cleaner air at Westwood (although the aquifer contaminations remains a problem our Green Cllr strangely ignores)

    Mixed development at Manston. Attracting new blood to the area.

    No doubt a few more petitions against progress. No doubt some time yet to endure the constant Thanet whine.

    But progress beckons.

    ReplyDelete
  9. My son and his friend left their cars in this car park last night. On return they found their cars locked in. just imagine the bother this caused. Getting home to Essex and getting back in the morning to get their cars. If your going to do this to visitors you should put bigger clearer signs up. Spoil t a nice day out in Ramsgate.

    ReplyDelete

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.