Bad News for Ramsgate Summer Leisure

With all the talk of people having to holiday more in the UK this year, the prospect of the fast ferry bringing European tourists and Preston Steam Museum revitalising the presentation of our maritime heritage, I have been trying extra hard to get temporary leisure use for the Pleasurama site this year.

The developers confirmed that work wouldn’t start on the development until the end of the summer, at the moment they seem to be using it as a temporary builders yard.

I have had a letter from Richard Samuel the chief executive of TDC saying that temporary leisure use of the site this summer will not be allowed.

One would have though that the developers would benefit greatly from Ramsgate being busier and more successful and be 100% for making as much temporary leisure use of the site as possible both before and while the development progresses.

I have had several constructive conversations with the developer’s agent, I was rather stupid in not contacting him earlier, I an afraid we had both assumed the other was some sort of unreasonable fool.

I believe that he is definitely coming round to my way of thinking i.e. without a flood risk assessment the building will be uninsurable and that the work on the access road has been done wrongly, the money wasted, and that it will have to be done again.

However in view of the letter which seems to be unreasonable and suggests that there may be further unreasonableness around the corner I have put further pressure onto TDC with regard to the legality of the planning application.

Below is the relevant part of my email to them.

“I have been told that as work has started on the access road work is deemed to have started on the development and therefore the consent didn’t expire after five years.

1 Does this mean that planning consent is granted in perpetuity for this development?

I have been told that before work can start on the development a bond has to be placed in a bank account, last time I asked about a month ago and after the five years had expired the bond had not been placed.

2 Does this mean that work has not officially started on the development and therefore planning consent has expired?

3 I gather that SFP as a company would need to have supplied you with a certificate of authenticity for prevention of money laundering purposes does such a certificate exist?

I am copying this to the LGO officer who dealt with my complaint about this before that resulted in the environment agency’s letter strongly recommending a FRA and emergency escapes.”

I have added the video, which is of an ordinary spring tide with an average sea running as I think five years of pursuing Pleasurama often makes me feel like the person walking along the harbour wall.




I think that much of the problem here is trying to get people to understand that they have to act somewhat differently in the present economic climate otherwise when we do finally get to the end of the recession there are not going to be many pieces left to pick up.

Over the previous five years I only managed to get temporary leisure use for one on all the other occasions I was told that building work would be going on, on the site during the summer months making leisure use impossible.

No building work actually took place during any of the other summers and I see very little likelihood of the contractor needing the entire site this summer.