Royal Sands Development Ramsgate more pictures of the cliff collapses.

I have just managed to obtain two more pictures (click on them to enlarge them) of a cliff collapse in this area, this is a slow process, it generally starts with anecdotal information, which is followed by asking local historians if they can find anything concrete, like a photograph or a newspaper article.

For instance several people remember a collapse into the Pleasurama amusement park that demolished a couple of kiosks, there is obviously a kiosk in this picture which is of the first of the two collapses at Augusta Stairs, click on the link for the newspaper article about it http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id14.htm

The question here is, as the cliff collapsed here a second time, during the reconstruction work, have the people that I have spoken to confused one of these two collapses or was there another collapse, that I haven’t got any positive proof of?

Please let me know if you have any information on any cliff collapses in this area of Ramsgate.

Some of you may be wondering why when I have the environment agency’s report, in which is a government expert says that the current plans are dangerous, why I don’t just leave it at that, or pursue the flood risk element more vigorously.

The answer to that one, is one of motive, which is to try to get a safe and viable development here rather than another 12 years of building site.

With the flood risk we only seem to get the sort of tidal surge storm that could seriously damage the development every 50 years or so, with a warning of a possible about every 5 years. In most cases there would be some sort of warning, so I consider that it is within the bounds of acceptable risk, assuming that is that they are prepared to evacuate the development every 5 years or so.
This may seem a bit strange but I believe this is something that the environment agency would enforce.

The cliff collapses on the other hand happen without any warning at all, as you can see from this picture, the fireman are having to sift through the rubble to see if anyone is buried in it.

It is my contention that the cliff, from the lift to the other side of Augusta Stairs, should be properly surveyed and work done to make it safe to a standard suitable for building a residential development very close to it.

Incidentally I don’t believe out fire brigade are properly aware of the dangers here as I recently noticed a fire tender, weighing several tonnes, on the edge of the cliff above the site. As the engineers report on the cliff says nothing heavy should go nearer to the edge than 22 metres, it makes me wonder at the council’s motives in not informing them of this. The fire brigade were statutory consutltees on the plans and presumably must have considered the possibility of having evacuate the building from the cliff top. On second thoughts if the council didn’t show the fire brigade the environment agency’s report maybe they didn’t even think about it.