Royal Sands Development a walk and some pictures.

Only a short walk today, mainly due to the logistics of half term, so some pictures but not that many as I would have liked.

Click on the link for the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Blogpicts1210/id10.htm

A few thoughts on them follow:

It is good to see the wall round the eastcliff bandstand dance floor being repaired by a competent local firm.

The work on the roof rainwater drainage pipe between the Pleasurama site and the inner basin is progressing well. As a matter of note I have warned them that they may encounter the underground public toilets.

When I worked as an engineer for Pleasurama Amusements many years ago one of the arcades “Stardust” in the end of the pavilion had access to the part of toilets that had been blocked off probably since before the war, it was very large indeed and obviously I don’t want to see a JCB go down the hole.

The strange reflections on the wall in Kent Place I think may be caused by sunlight reflection off of double glazing.

The blockwork repair to the cliff façade doesn’t look entirely straight relative to the pillar beside it, I am not really certain if it was built like that of if it on the move already.

Incidentally one of the chaps working on the laying of the drainage pipe is related to an old motorcycling friend of mine George Brown who had the motorcycle shop in Stevenage when we had the bookshop there.

George was involved in the speed trials on the western undercliff in Ramsgate with his Vincent motorbikes Nero and Super Nero, it is as they say a small world.

He was one fast shopkeeper see http://www.myvincent.co.uk/people/george_brown.php and http://motorbike-search-engine.co.uk/classic_bikes/1963-super-nero.php 236 mph is quick for a motorbike even by today’s standards.

Back to the more mundane, the long slug with the Royal Sands Development is still going on and I have received yet another unsatisfactory reply from the council, something I will reply to and post in the coming days.

The problem being that while the council remains in a state of denial about the condition of the cliff façade, no construction work on the steel framework of the building can possibly start and we are heading into another year of the main leisure site in Ramsgate being a deserted building site.

The maritime museum, pavilion, Pleasurama, Granville marina, Nero’s the marina swimming pool, it seems incredible that the most prominent part of Ramsgate’s seafront should have got into such a mess one begins to wonder if it is just a stream of incompetence, or perhaps some malign influence is at work.

Certainly the worst situation for Ramsgate’s prominent buildings seems to be when the freehold is owned by the council, one of the problems with the Pleasurama development, is that because it is council owned land there is no planning agreement and therefore no public document laying out how the development should proceed.