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Last evenings secret meeting of full council voted to go ahead with the developer that can’t get insurance from their bank to protect us taxpayers from financial losses incurred. 
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.
Sounds like their last roll of the dice in the last chance saloon. How did they let it come to this? I think we should be told!
ReplyDeleteAnon 10:38 We wont ever find out the last thing TDC will do is be transparent
ReplyDeleteDon,
ReplyDeleteWe want to be transparent, but there are matters that are considered confidential, It is impossible to do business if confidentiality cannot be asured. Its a bit like publishing the finances of all council house occupiers.
Oh, so Doc Moores and Richard Samuel cooking up a blog gagging code - the only council in the country to be doing so - is all in aid of 'transparency' is it Ken? Give us a break. We're not all as stupid as you'd like to think we are! If this council were forced to open up to proper democratic scrutiny you'd all wee your pants!
ReplyDeleteMichael, one hopes that the next Labour administration running Thanet in 2011, does not regret supporting last night's decision and that the bally thing will now eventally proceed.
ReplyDeleteKen if it will help I will publish the financial detail names and connections and then you won't have to worry.
ReplyDeleteI am you could say losing my rag a bit on this one.
Assuming that the council will not allow buildings to go up that are higher than the cliff top and that the architecture is of some merit, whats the worse that could happen if the buildings are started but not completed and the developer goes bust, the buildings are completed but just dont sell and the developer goes under?
ReplyDeleteyes mr 1913, and what if the developer makes a pigs ear of things, goes nuts up and the cost to fix is greater than the £1.6m insured?
ReplyDeleteWe pay for it.
19.13 I believe you ought to peruse the latest plans, I have discussed these with the planning officers in great detail, both they and I are in no doubt that the building is above the cliff in some places.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that the plans are scaled drawings and don’t have clearly defined levels above ODN (height above sea level) whereas the survey measurements are in ODN.
None of us can work out just hoe far above it will be an where.
Normally the top of a building is er up in the air and I don’t think anyone much would notice a metre either way, here next to the cliff top it’s the difference between being able to see the horizon or not
There is of course, if you study the plans no doubt that we will never be able to see the beach from the cliff top again.
Without financial insurance and TDC being obliged to buy the hotel if the developer can’t sell it I would say TDCs liability paid for with our council tax would be about £4m.
As they have already spent about £1m on the cliff repairs that have turned out to be faulty things don’t look so good.
Stop Manston Expansion Group, the developer is an offshore company he isn’t subject to UK financial regulation and doesn’t have to go bankrupt, just transfer what fuds he has out of the country abroad, through Credit Swiss and decamp.
ReplyDeleteJust to note the Labour group argued for this to be held publicly and voted accordingly. It could have been done, or there could have been 2 separate reports allowing the vast majority to be debated openly with the restricted matters placed into a separate report. A pity because this is not a party political matter from my experience.
ReplyDeleteShame, Thanet Council...Thanet is blessed with so much potential (Dreamland, Marina pool site, Pleasurama as a leisure park or the potential development now over due since 2003!, the old abandoned motor museum building etc, etc more to name! You have ruined our old tourism and former amenities and have taken them and our fame away! and you let all the best bits go! Shame on you!
ReplyDeleteoh and I think all of you will be very interested in this post!
ReplyDeletehttp://thandotnet.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-are-council-not-telling-us.html
Comming from West Kent and for the last few years spending a week in Ramsgate I can see why locals are concerned. Nobody wants a blot on their landscape. And nobody wants their council to get into bed with a deleveloper that is not accountable to UK financial laws and no proven record of similar buildings. One thing you ask for when getting Building work done is a list of satisfied customers that you can contact.
ReplyDeleteI dont have a clue what this is to do with the council revealing the finances of council house tenants as one of your correspondants suggested. Is he out of touch with the real concern of Ramsate's public? The two are like chalk and cheese, or should that be sand and cheese.