Some Dreamland pictures. A few oldish pictures of margate and Ramsgate

A few pictures of Ramsgate and Margate from autumn 2012 apropos of nothing very much. I suppose the whole business of getting the various bits of tec sorted out for the summer, means that while going through everything I notice stuff that either I had forgotten or that just interests me.

 October 2012

 Nov 2012

Some old Dreamland pictures from the Mick Twyman collection, I think I may have publised some of these recently here, if so apologies

And Later, only six years ago on the Dreamland site here is the link Margate funfair 2012

Christ Church Westgate on Sea

Oh yes, where was I? Tuning up my tec, hopefully to give everyone a better blogging experience. this boils down to, Cameras, phone and computers. So computer wise, laptop and desktop are just about hanging in there, never enough power for the images I process and of course the main computer I use is the one I have never seen that belongs to Google and I access via the internet.

The reason for this is that I have an Android phone and tablet, the other options Apple and Windows phones I have never explored. I suppose the main restriction has been having four children and going through a period where they all needed phone, laptop and tablet and for the most part this equipment needs to be up to date, with my wife this makes six lots of tec kit.

Anyway I have been looking at the various options and considering the various issues when using what boils down to internet storage. On the whole nothing woks perfectly and within the Google product range there are compatibility issues. 

For example, if I write this post in MS Word and copy it into the Google Blogger post editor, for the most part things work and look fine. However if I write this post in Google Docs on Google Drive then it won't paste in properly and it won't look good.

It does beg the question, is there anyone working at Google who uses Google products to write a blog?

Looking at this picture of Harbour Parade Ramsgate around 1880 you may notice that some attempt has been made to tie poles to what are either the sides of ladders of poles used as fenders - I think this is an attempt to form a railing to help stop people from falling in the harbour.

Here are the pictures of the books we put out yesterday 

Manston and the Stonehill Park mixed use development plans

As I am sure most people will know the latest planning application related to this one has gone live on the Thanet District Council planning website, here is the link https://planning.thanet.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=P8EJ3KQE00300

I have reservations about the link continuing to work as the TDC planning website has a bit of a
history of this, so here is the planning ref too OL/TH/18/0660

Clicking on the documents tab on that page brings up the application documents and the responses
from organisations and members of the public either supporting or objecting to the planning
application.

On the whole I support the objectives of the scheme, more jobs, houses, facilities etc. As a bit of a
self confessed petrol head I am particularly interested in the expanded historic aircraft facilities and
like I assume most local aviation enthusiasts I hope to shape the development of these at the
planning stage.  

As with all of the large Thanet developments I am interested in the history of the site and concerned
about the environmental implications of developing it.

The elephant in the room with the Manston site has been hopes to retain it as a regional airport
overshadowed by plans to develop it as an airfreight hub, or other motives, possibly a land grab
or what has actually happened which is benefits politicians and for developers.

Of course for those of us living in Thanet the stick of having an airfreight hub’s pollution knock a
few years off our lives has made the mixed use development into something of a carrot.
Even taking that out of the equation the SHP developers have a very good record in terms of
facilitating employment locally. Their previous project in this area, Sandwich Discovery Park,
is now the main source of quality employment locally.

Historically the now vacant, or at least only in temporary use for operation stack, Manston Airport
site hasn't produced much in terms of economic return. Back in 1916 when the first cpo for military
use took place, the site was pegged out as housing plots because the farm there had gone
bust as the soil was too thin to farm.

The land classification of the the site is also a bit strange, while it looks green, because it was an
airport the site is classified brownfield and so doesn’t have any of the protections associated with
a greenfield site or agricultural land.

I can’t see any hope whatsoever of it turning into a viable passenger airport, passenger flights
now involve taking the fast train to London and the tube to the right part of the the airport.
This leaves the airfreight flights, which seem to be fairly low on job creation and high on
environmental problems. In simple terms, if you live in Thanet the noise pollution from the
freight planes is likely reduce achievement in some of the schools, the air pollution is likely
to reduce your life expectancy and the overall effect on quality of life is that it is likely to be
substantially reduced. Oddly enough this information doesn’t come from any sort of anti airport lobby,
but from the documents produced by RSP the firm that want to build the freight hub.   

With the airfreight hub DCO I have considerable reservation about its real motives and am really
only accepting what it has actually achieved so far i.e. the changing of the district council
administration to Conservative and the failure to set a local plan giving something of a free for
all for developers.

My take on this one, which is open to change from better informed and clarified input, is roughly.
The absence of the local plan really means that either this application is approved locally with
sensible constraints developed from constructive local feedback, or it is likely to go to the
planning inspector and be passed without much local input. But then so much of this depends
on the status of the local plan and whether national government and the planning inspectorate
count the local plan, that should have been replaced by now, as meaning anything at all.

A very considerable problem here is the concern about the much greater impact of the airfreight
hub is giving this application a very easy ride in terms of informed and substantiated but constructive
comment.

Personally my main reservation, which would also count to the same extent for the RSP
proposals is engaging in industrial, commercial, research and aviation activity on top of the
drinking water aquifer. Obviously given a conventional planning consent then it is the restrictions
here that would form a key part of the S106.

The main thing with these major local applications is to try and read them and respond to them
as planning applications, my understanding is that most weight will be given to to people who
live within the Thanet area. Of course the political side to this is another matter altogether.

I think for me a big issue is just how time consuming the big Manston related applications are,
reading some of the responses to the application, it is pretty obvious that some of the respondents
hadn't actually read the thing or even tried to read part of it.

Canterbury of our Grandfathers and 1927 and 1948 or possibly great grandfathers grandfather

I was off painting and bookbuying in Canterbury, some people would call it a day off and others work, whatever it was I have a pile of books to show for it and over the next few days the photos of them will appear like the ones that were priced and put away yesterday on the bookshop blog. Here is the link to yesterdays http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/rogue-in-bookshop.html

In the sense of coals and Newcastle, one of the books I bought today was about Canterbury and once I have enjoyed it, learnt a bit more about Canterbury I will probably sell it in my bookshop to one of my customers from Canterbury.

I would do a reprint of it but think part of it is still in copyright, it is a bit difficult to tell what’s what as the edition I have is the 1948 revision of the 1927 edition with a lot of the book focused on around 1850, gramps.

Anyway here are some pictures of pages from the book

I did a bit more to two of the watercolours that I am painting from Chocolate Café, although it may be a bit of a case of spot the difference.

I have a fairly long association with Canterbury having worked there in about 1970 and for a long time it has been my closest shopping town, although recently the town main shops I used, Chromos the artist’s materials shop and the St Margaret’s St Waterstones – sometime the largest bookshop in east Kent, have both closed.  

What about the other side of Ramsgate's fully licenced roof garden and stuff

I think from the lighting diorama thingys on the harbour arm this dates fro around the Festival of Britain so early 1950s. I do think Wetherspoons may be missing a trick here.

 this one has a postmark for 1922 so the photo must date from before then

Not sure that there is much to say blog wise at the moment, none of the main local stuff is
going very quickly at the moment. Pleasurama isn't going anywhere although there have
been some assurances of a start later in the year. Manston, well the DCO certainly changed
the administration from UKIP to Conservative at TDC, whether that was the intention
all along is anybody's guess.

I am all set up for blogging this summer which is really about mobile technology something
I have made managed to get rightish for now.

The two main toys seem to perform adequately, the main problem I have with the
Nikon P90 camera being sloping horizons. The main problem with the Oukitel K 3 phone
is that it isn’t very good at recognising my fingerprint and the camera is a bit average.
But frankly as the whole kit, new price of phone and secondhand price of camera woul
d be under £200 I am convinced that I couldn’t have done much better.

Here is the link to today’s camera photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/dBNwVqXQNvxG51Qr1 I have
the camera set on a fairly small file size of 1 Megapixel which suites internet publishing of
moderate zoom pictures, stuff like boats on the sea. Here is the link to a few phone pictures
from the last few days https://photos.app.goo.gl/ygEc9S6VQnV5j6o52

The point for me is I can do an entire blog like this from my phone while out and about.

In fact this post was done using both the laptop and the phone, the duel keyboard
facility on the phone, bluetooth and virtual with auto correct and voice recognition
on being my preferred input option.

unusual issue with copy and paste of text from Google Drive to Google blogger
which I will need to sort out for phone posting

Alan Cox Exhibition at Nice Things, Harbour Street Ramsgate

Alan Cox Exhibition runs 16th to 29th May

Also a few pictures of nice things in Nice things and Nice things. Also the recent spread of cultivation in Harbour Street