Friday 16 July 2010

The middle of Hartsdown Park to be disposed of.

The middle of Hartsdown Park is to be fenced off with a 2 metre high fence for a synthetic football pitch for Margate Football Club as this is connected directly to the similarly fenced and little used five aside pitch you can pretty much say goodbye to the middle of the park.

The map above says it all really, click on it to enlarge, what is going is the bit outlined in red, I was a bit surprised that I hadn’t noticed this one on the assets disposal list, as are the people who use the park who hadn’t seen any signs about this happening in the park.

Many thanks to Margate resident Bob for pointing this one out to me, this is what he has to say.

"Residents of Margate have been surprised to learn that Hartsdown DevelopmentCompany on behalf of Margate Football Club have been granted permission toconstuct in Hartsdown Park. a large artificial grass fenced in football pitchabutting the existing 5 a side enclosed pitches This will have the effect of denying the people of Margate, to whom the land was left by the Hatfield family, access to a further large part of the park, access having already been reduced by the construction of the 5 a sidepitches now rarely used.


The planning approval states that only two objections were received. Thisis hardly surprising as it is understood only households on Tivoli and Hartsdown were advised of the development. The users of the park were not consulted and notices of a planning application were not evident in the park. Surely a development of this kind should have had maximum publicity before a decision was taken?


In the past year the park has seen much greater use. Footballers, both boysand girls have put down their markers and practised their skills. It is wonderful to see the young children from the nursery school using all parts of the park. In the woods, on the logs and with their trundle trucks making expeditions to Tivoli Park.


If the development goes ahead they should still be able to get there but they will have to take the long way round because their usual route will be blocked by a fenced off football pitch.


I feel sure members of Margate Football Club are trying to do their best forthe club but please do it on your own land, not land that belongs to the people of Margate.

6 comments:

  1. This should not be allowed to happen, does anyone know how we go about putting a stop to this..... ?

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. Sorry 00.35 After the unfortunate standards business the T word is out when describing officers or councillors.

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  4. I can only guess what the T word is when it is describing tdc and the planning department.
    What can you say the views of the people in thanet are not taken into account by a bunch of directors from maidstone and sevenoaks and various other places other than thanet

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  5. 14.49 I posted about the T word some time ago see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/02/beanbag-toss.html it is always a bit of a problem when people make derisory anonymous comments, as I imagine the responsibility would fall on me.

    I am always very reluctant to moderate comment here as I think it stifles debate, it certainly puts me off when faced with word verification and comment moderation I am inclined to give up.

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  6. This is pure scaremongering & the loss of park space will be minimal.These days Hartsdown park is highly unused & parkland left over will still be more than enough for people to enjoy like they once did but not so so much these days.

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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.