Wednesday 23 January 2013

Midweek ramble, Pleasurama, The Pav, John Worrow



First yesterday the BBC and then Thanet Life http://birchington.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/wheres-worrow.html seemed to be reporting that Cllr Worrow was resigning and now today Thanet Extra seem to be saying he isn’t, see http://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet_extra/news/2013/january/23/john_worrow.aspx  

I think the news story here, if that is what it is, is that John Worrow won’t be standing at the next district council election in about three years, I guess around this time it is possible things may be overshadowed by a referendum asking us if we want to get out of Europe.

Anyway in this case it would appear that no news is just no news.

The business with The Royal Sands has moved on a bit, here is the latest from Alan Poole:

“Hi Michael,

The wording that was agreed for the Royal Sands item at last night’s Cabinet Meeting is as below:-

It is agreed that Cabinet set a review period of 4 months from 22nd January 2013 and request officers at the end of this period to prepare an options report to Cabinet if either the finance is not in place for the completion of the development or no agreement is in place for the construction and operation of a hotel.

Basically we are giving SFP 4 months to come up with the money to complete the development. After that we will then see what options we have and decide on a way forward.

Now you know as much as I do!

Regards,

Alan”

This combined with his latest email exchange with Janet:

On 23 Jan 2013, at 10:32, janet woods wrote:

 How can this be transparency?


 You will let us know when the agreement is signed .decision to be made by select few.
 Who advised you that TDC would be "laughed out of court "

Janet woods

> From: Alan Poole
> Date: 23 January 2013 11:25:29 GMT
> To: janet woods
> Subject: Re: Pleasurama
> Hi Janet,
> It has now been to several Council Meetings, several Cabinet Meetings and has been looked at by Overview & Scrutiny..........is this not transparency? We can endlessly debate the minutiae but until we have something definite we are just wasting our time.
> I'm sure everyone will be informed when (if) we get anywhere near to signing a new Development Agreement.........currently it is looking very unlikely!
> I am obliged to listen to the advice of the TDC Section  151 Officer who is also the Chief Executive, the Legal Officer and my Cabinet and Labour Group colleagues.........
> I'm sure Cllr Driver will also want to be involved..........
> It is my intention to be as open as possible when I actually have some progress to report........currently there is no progress to report....repeat 'no progress to report'.......only rumours and ill-informed gossip mainly put about by people who would not be happy under any circumstances..........
> I hope you can sense that I'm as frustrated with the lack of progress as you are!
> Regards,
> Alan
> Sent from my iPad

Suggests we may be looking at the beginning of the end with the Pleasurama fiasco.

The new group http://www.facebook.com/groups/516220578418850/?ref=ts&fref=ts who have been putting pressure on about Pleasurama are also going to have a go over The Royal Victoria Pavillion, The Pav to me and The Casino to some of the younger people.   

Some time ago at the end of 2010 the council issued a press release saying The Rank Organisation had repaired it following a council repairs order. I wandered down there and took a few photos, click on the links to look at them.


here is the council’s press release:

“Repair work has been completed on one of Ramsgate’s most familiar seafront buildings.
Work has been carried out over the last four months to the Royal Victoria Pavilion on Harbour Parade by the Rank Organisation. It follows lengthy discussions with the council, which owns the building. It is Rank’s responsibility, as the tenants, to ensure that the building is kept in good repair.

Since work started in the summer, the roof of the pavilion has been repaired, partly recovered and redecorated. The external rendering was fractured and in poor condition in a large number of places, which was allowing weather penetration to occur in some of these areas. To avoid deterioration of the structure, these areas have been repaired, re-rendered and redecorated.

Cllr. Roger Latchford, Cabinet Member for Regeneration, said: “Most people in Ramsgate know the pavilion building and have wanted to see something happening with it, as has the council. We’re delighted that finally work has been completed on the exterior of the building to bring it back into good repair. Hopefully, now that this work has been undertaken, we can look forward to it being re-occupied.”

It does as they say, only go to show how one should not necessarily believe everything one reads.  

23 comments:

  1. From this, McGonigal is the CE, FD and the Section 151/Scutiny Officer? And signed off the 0% salaries?

    Let's hope the Police are called in and Pleasurama scrapped asap.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why don't you call them in then, sunshine. You seem to think the police are the answer to everything. Go on, pick up the phone and call them but don't expect my support when they charge you with wasting police time.

      Delete
    2. Tom I am completely mystified as to why this person should wish to come up with this nonsensical over the top stuff, I can only conclude it is an attempt to by someone who doesn’t like the post content to try and rubbish it.

      Personally this is an important subject to me and as a local taxpayer the way the council handles the liabilities most important too.

      Anon 5.04 could you take yourself off elsewhere, or I will start deleting all your comments out of hand.

      Delete
    3. Tom,

      The anonymous's obsession with the police could have arisen from his frequently being called upon to assist the police with their inquiries.

      We should bear in mind that we cannot libel anonymous for the reason that we do not know who she is.

      Delete
    4. John, Anon has to be a male for no woman could be so obsessed with things outside her own immediate world. No, he is an elderly man, eaten up with bitterness over some misfortune, possibly illness that has befallen him, and seeks a source to blame being incapable of accepting any self responsibility. He does not debate, simply states his own misguided opinions and then insults anyone who disagrees with them.

      Interestingly, depending on the issue of the day, I range from ex-RAF living on nostalgic memories of Manston to a retired copper who is out of date on criminal law. I could equally be a councillor, local government officer or shareholder in Infratil if it suited his jaundiced arguments.

      I suppose it adds something to the flavour of local blogging, but the constant calls for police to arrest all and sundry on his say so get just a little tedious and suggest a very limited upper cell capacity.

      Delete
    5. Tom,

      I referred to him as 'she' just for a change. I agree with your assessment of his character.

      Delete
  2. How peculiar, TDC should already know what the options are otherwise they are is no position to have negotiation meetings with SFP.
    They must be in a position at anytime to respond to SFP and not take more months after the 22 May.
    They should also have a no sell on clause if the site sale with SFP goes ahead with SFP being liable for any fees such as the 15% stamp duty should a buy back be needed.
    I hope cllr Poole will take minutes at any future meetings with SFP, they may be needed in court.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You do appreciate that the decision to sell the freehold subject to the developer being able to prove funds has already been made, do you?

      Delete
    2. 22nd May puts Pleasurama after the election. Which councillors will pledge to cancel Pleasurama and start again as a condition of their reelection?

      Delete
    3. The election is for County not District.

      Delete
  3. You are right, Michael, about the bit on Worrow being no news, but then that is the trouble. Being an avid attention seeker he has to create something if he is not mentioned for a while. Hence his statement to the BBC and subsequent retraction. It is all about putting himself back in the spotlight. Sadly, he makes a nonsense of local governance in the process.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah he must love the attention of being told to DIE of AIDS... Tom you are a total James Hunt! and thats with a capital C

      Delete
    2. Thanks John, love you too.

      Delete
    3. I think Clarke's a Hunt too and I'm not John. This blog is becoming an airing of Holyer and Clarke's drab prejudices and idiocy.

      Must they comment on everything? They add little. Surely their own blogs could be started from miscellaneous extracts from the Daily Mail each day?

      Delete
    4. So what do you contribute, 4:26, apart from futile comments about aquifers and police arresting people. By the way, you have to read the Daily Mail to know what is in it.

      Delete
    5. anonymouse 4:26PM,

      Calm down and keep taking the pills.

      Delete
    6. Too late for pills in his case, John.

      Delete
    7. anonymouse 4:26,

      Which extracts from the Daily Mail would you recommend. I bet the pictures on the online DM sidebar of shame are popular with you.

      Delete
  4. best thing he could do one less joker on the exs list of no use what so ever just costing tax payers J.W if you are going go now not in 2/3 years time

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree we need more drunk driver councillors and people that tell others to die of AIDS, instead of those that have the cheek to expose them

      Delete
    2. John again I presume!

      Delete
  5. Someone who actually has resigned is Zita Wilshire. She is now an independent after resigning the Tory whip. Wonder what triggered that?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh dear. Blog venom.

    Decades ago I was in the office of a local road haulier. The phone went and it transpired that a driver had delivered the load OK but was broken down in Cornwall/

    The problem was that the trailer stranded in Cornwall did not belong to the haulier. He had been storing it in his yard as a favour to a local large road haulage firm.

    Then the phone went again. We could hear one end of the conversation

    "Yep yer trailer is fine lookin out the window at it now as a matter of fact. Is there a problem? Oh you want me to store it another couple of nights. two nights ain't a problem my pleasure"

    A man who won't put his hands up till the bullet is half way up the barrel. Next thing he is back on the phone booking another load for the trailer next day and organising breakdown recovery and repair for his tractive unit in Cornwall.

    No matter the moral scruples that is the sort of bottle sometimes needed in business. And I guess HSF Ventures has it in spades. Get a commitment on buying the freehold and take the tacit commitment to the bank.

    But I think they will face problems re raising finance given the EA flood risk situation.

    Wait and see.

    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.