Pleasurama update

I have just sent the text below as an email to all the councillors, council officers and others involved.


Dear all

As most of you are aware there is a considerable amount of construction work going on at Marina Esplanade, so here is an update on the whole situation.

1 Knight Developments are building a huge roundabout so that the busses and heavy goods vehicles can turn, this is a bit unfortunate really as the weight restrictions on the hill mean that these vehicles won’t actually be able to get to it. So we seem to be losing the main seafront car park for no reason.

2 The cliff façade is being repaired, there is a bit of a problem here in as much as the ground level of the new Royal Sands Development is much lower than the old Pleasurama building, this means that there is a gap of about 1.5 meters between the bottom of the wall and ground level.

The only bit of this that was exposed when I examined it last week had no foundations and was sitting on a little pile of chalky mud. In many places the mud had shrunk away from the wall above and I was able to insert a probe much further than seemed desirable.

3 The grade 2 listed building, the castellated Marina Restaurant has been demolished. Marina Esplanade had then three major Victorian buildings of historical and architectural importance the station, theatre and restaurant, to lose one building may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness but to lose all three, I am lost for words.

I have still not received the up to date plans that reportedly show a different road and car park layout, and the building, like the ugly sisters foot in the less politically correct versions of Cinderella, with more architectural features removed to fit in the space available. This time its not the height problem but to leave room for cliff maintenance.

David Green managed to get a look at the latest plans after requesting to do so under the freedom of information act, and says the ground floor and car park will be only half a meter above the predicted highest tide line.

This of course means that in a surge storm such as the ones that have demolished large portions of the harbour wall and flattened many of the buildings on Marina esplanade in the past, any waves higher than half a meter will enter the car park under the building.

So of course the big unanswered question is, when the waves make the cars float about and bang into the building supports, causing the building to collapse, how do the 1,5000 or so people inside get out, with the sea storm in front and the cliff wall behind?

There are other minor questions that I have posed both on my weblog and websites, here are the web addresses http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/ and http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/tdc/ you can leave your thoughts anonymously on the weblog or you can reply to this email either in confidence or for publication, please make it clear if you want me to publish you replies and also if you wish to remain anonymous.
Best regards to you all Michael