For those of you who don’t know I have had an ongoing debate with Thanet District Council about a proposed development on Ramsgate seafront click here to read about it. I still haven’t received the up to date plans that I asked for in March however TDC have sent me what they describe in the accompanying letter as the approved plans for the Pleasurama building
I hadn’t seen these approved plans before and they are the craziest so far, they show a building which when viewed from the side is 17.5 high when viewed from the front is 16.25 meters high when viewed from the rear is 16.5 meters high inside at one end it’s 17.5 meters high the other 16.25 meters high.
One drawing shows a vehicle embedded in the car park ceiling and another several people with their heads embedded in the ceilings.
I gather that these approved plans have also finally been sent to the Environment Agency who asked for them so that they could make a formal flood and storm risk analysis.
The idea is that the Environment Agency who can only officially comment on the approved plans will use them to work out how safe the building is relative to their predicted flood levels.
I have tried to do this using the height of the top of cliff behind the new building, which I have been promised that the roof of new building will be below.
With all the inconsistencies on the plans I couldn’t do it so I showed them to a qualified professional architect who for obvious reasons doesn’t wish to be named neither he nor I could work out the level of the bottom of the building to within 2 meters the lowest level being on the beach, the highest level still being liable to flooding.
His final comments were. “To build this dangerous ill conceived, badly designed structure that has the look and many of the features of some of the worst structures of the 1970s on that site is truly obscene.”
There has obviously been a further delay to work starting both on the cliff repairs and the temporary access road to the site both of which were due to start last month.
I can only presume that TDC won’t send me the up to date plans because the show something that they don’t want me to see, in view of the approved plans it’s hard to imagine that they could be worse.
I hadn’t seen these approved plans before and they are the craziest so far, they show a building which when viewed from the side is 17.5 high when viewed from the front is 16.25 meters high when viewed from the rear is 16.5 meters high inside at one end it’s 17.5 meters high the other 16.25 meters high.
One drawing shows a vehicle embedded in the car park ceiling and another several people with their heads embedded in the ceilings.
I gather that these approved plans have also finally been sent to the Environment Agency who asked for them so that they could make a formal flood and storm risk analysis.
The idea is that the Environment Agency who can only officially comment on the approved plans will use them to work out how safe the building is relative to their predicted flood levels.
I have tried to do this using the height of the top of cliff behind the new building, which I have been promised that the roof of new building will be below.
With all the inconsistencies on the plans I couldn’t do it so I showed them to a qualified professional architect who for obvious reasons doesn’t wish to be named neither he nor I could work out the level of the bottom of the building to within 2 meters the lowest level being on the beach, the highest level still being liable to flooding.
His final comments were. “To build this dangerous ill conceived, badly designed structure that has the look and many of the features of some of the worst structures of the 1970s on that site is truly obscene.”
There has obviously been a further delay to work starting both on the cliff repairs and the temporary access road to the site both of which were due to start last month.
I can only presume that TDC won’t send me the up to date plans because the show something that they don’t want me to see, in view of the approved plans it’s hard to imagine that they could be worse.
The mind boggles at what's going on here. I find my thoughts drifting back to Carry On Abroad and the Elsbels Palace Hotel, which collapsed around Sid James and co. following a flood. Anyone for chippings?
ReplyDeleteRichard I am wondering as the TDC planning department have now sent me two different sets of plans with peoples heads embedded in the concrete ceiling, if they are trying to tell me something in some sort of code, any ideas?
ReplyDeletePerhaps there is the makings of Carry on Council here.