Sunday 13 December 2009

Does Thanet District Council’s core strategy come from a rotten apple?

Looking back over the history of local government here in Ramsgate we seem to have attracted a variety of individuals some of whom had rather unusual ideas, however back in the days of a borough council at least all of the people involved had some sort of vested interest in Ramsgate’s success.

Nowadays with a district council we have various organisations who’s remit seems to be to try and ensure that Ramsgate gets a fair share of the TDC cake, the latest being the town council.

I think it would be fair to say that over the last few years Ramsgate doesn’t appear to have had its fair share of the cake available and looking at the core strategy for now until 2026 this seems likely to continue.

I have just added the Ramsgate Society’s email about response document to "Shaping our Future" to the Thanet press releases blog, this link takes you to their response http://www.ramsgate-society.org.uk/RS-Response-Doc.pdf this link takes you to the TDC shaping our future document http://www.ramsgate-society.org.uk/TDC-Core-Strategy-Doc.pdf all 121 pages of it.

These various things that go out to public consultation are pretty time consuming, it’s a bit like some advanced form of voting, in as much as if you don’t take the trouble to fill in the response form then it is going to be a bit difficult to justify complaining when decisions you don’t want are made on your behalf.

If you are going to make the effort click on the link to download the form to fill in http://www.thanet.gov.uk/PDF/Core_Strategy_Preferred_Options_Response_Form.pdf there is a seven page summery of the core strategy here http://www.thanet.gov.uk/pdf/CoreStrategy_Preferred%20Options_Consultation_summary_report.pdf for those who don’t want to wade through the 121 pages. Responses need to be emailed to
local.plans@thanet.gov.uk

Responses have to be in by Friday so you don’t have very long to get your act together.

The picture is of Arthur Bloomfield Courtenay Kempe who became Mayor of Ramsgate on November 9th 1938 click on the link for his book http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/id54.htm what kind of mayor was he? The summer of 1939 was his only time as peace time mayor, and during that summer he made Ramsgate one great holiday camp. “All in holidays” at £3.17.6d. He had front page news time and again in the national press – he sold the towns holidays to Coventry. This man had only been a resident for 6 years but his love of the place must have been such that he gave his all as holiday mayor.

However war came in September 1939 – away went the top hat, on went the tin helmet, he put everything into looking after the residents of the town during the darkest days of the war, and for five years no other person was considered for the office of mayor.
Now 70 years later I wonder what he would of made of this core strategy consultation?

Oh and yes a few pictures from this morning not much as it was cold bleak and windy and I had to get back fairly rapidly to get the children ready for church http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop3/id7.htm
Update:
There has been some confusion about making an expert RESPONSE.
The Ramsgate Society -FOUR easy steps to making an expert RESPONSE (coloured names are active links) 1. Read and understand the Ramsgate Society Response Document. 2. Download expert Response Forms prepared by a Town Planning Consultant (Part 2 -forms already completed) 3. Attach the download files to an e-mail showing your full name and address.
(replaces Part 1)
4. Send to local.plans@thanet.gov.uk -RAMSGATE 2026 It is up to you !!!

1 comment:

  1. The great Ramsgate wartime Mayor "A B C" was not a Thanet man then ? Why doesn't that surprise ....

    ReplyDelete

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.