I did manage to get out in Ramsgate for a
bit this afternoon and frankly it wasn’t as cold as I had expected.
The British Heart foundation has moved into the middle of the high street, and added to a group of unreal shops, a money lender, betting shop and now charity shop.
Obviously a prime trading site and not one I could afford to rent as an independent retailer
The removal of their shop signs in Harbour Street reveals the signs for Instyle, which jogs a faint memory, but not of anything I can remember shopping in
Anyone know what is going there now?
Instyle. At the back of my mind I'm thinking something like a kitchen or bathroom showroom or similar ? I could be way off the mark though but it does ring a bell.
ReplyDeleteIn the 80s there was an very upmarket, bespoke and off the peg, clothing store in Bombay called 'Instyle', if that's any help, which I doubt.
DeleteIs any good for the concrete and steel supports to be rusting away like that?
ReplyDeleteAnyone who eventually takes up the mantle of building something on that bomb site will no doubt deny it...but clearly leaving the steel to rust will significantly reduce its ability to do the job. If apartments or a hotel or whatever do get built there, expect large cracks to start appearing not long after it's completed...
DeleteWill a Morrisons local store come to Ramsgate? I see that they have bought 49 Blockbuster stores in the south east but there is no detail yet of the locations.
ReplyDeleteHow long til someone blames TDC for the Business Rates costs....
ReplyDeleteI would guess the never will as TDC don’t set them this is done by the inland revenue, all TDC do is collect them, incidentally TDC don’t get a proportion of the Thanet business rates, the whole lot go to central gov and are the apportioned districts and counties.
DeleteMy take is this needs looking at so that councils benefit from having more business rates paid in their district.
To answer that point, the relevant section from the recently approved Budget:
Delete"Business Rates
2.1.4 Currently, councils collect business rates based on local rateable values
multiplied by a national uniform rate. The total amount, less certain reliefs and
other deductions, is paid to a central pool managed by Central Government,
which in turn pays back to authorities their share of the pool based on a standard
amount per head of the local population. There is currently no incentive and no
direct financial benefit to councils who succeed in growing their local economy. A
new business rates retention scheme is being launched in 2013/14 which seeks
to incentivise local authorities to encourage business growth by allowing them to
retain a proportion of the business rates collected. In return for the incentives,
authorities will share some of the risk of a fall in rate yield, subject to a safety net
mechanism. A baseline funding level (known as the Baseline Need) has been
established by the Government for each authority. The Baseline Need figure for
this Council for 2013/14 is £4.415m. The Government has then made an
assumption regarding the amount of business rates that the Council will be able
to collect (this is known as the NDR Baseline) and for Thanet this is £12.649m.
As the Council will receive more in business rates than its funding level, the
difference of £8.234m will be paid over to the Government as a tariff to ‘top up’
those authorities who will receive less than their funding level. Authorities will be allowed to keep 50% of new business rate yield, with the balance being split 80%
to the district and 20% to the county. However, to ensure the scheme is not
weighted towards richer local authorities, some of any business rates growth will
be taken as a levy. The levy will be calculated so as to ensure that a 1%
increase in business rates income will provide no more than a 1% increase in
funding. The levy will be used to provide a safety net mechanism to protect those
authorities that see their business rates income drop by more than 7.5%. For this
Council, the safety net threshold has been set at £4.084m which means that the
Council could potentially face a loss of up to £330k in business rates income
before the safety net mechanism would kick in. This is reflected in the financial
risk assessment at Annex 3 to this report.
James my children seem to have been on nitrous oxide or something and I am trying to formulate a planning objection and associated blog post for the Granville as the last date to object is on Friday.
DeleteAny chance you could explain what this means for Thanet in terms that the really stupid – in this case me – can understand.
Anonymous 7:57,
DeleteIt's me - I will blame TDC for the Business Rates Costs, whatever they are. I blame TDC for everything - for letting Kirstie batter poor Tyrone.....
James,
DeleteOn a serious note, thank you for such a helpful and informative post explaining Business Rates.
Any objection has to, obviously, be a planning matter, such as over-development, the proposed development not being in keeping with the area or perhaps the size of the residential units being too small (that being a key reason for the refusal of Soper's Yard). There could be an objection on the lack of parking or the potential for overlooking or perhaps there's a lack of affordable housing in the plans. Whether any of these objections apply to this application is a different matter.
ReplyDeleteGlancing over the artists impressions but not having looked at the plans in full, the new build is stylistically different to the nearby buildings and, as John Holyer said last month, should match up with the neighbouring buildings. While it will settle in over the years, its still a very modern building for that area.
Got thus far and going to be.
Deleteplanning.services@thanet.gov.uk
Planning objection
Dear Sir/Madam,
In the first instance could you kindly confirm your receipt of this objection?
As a Ramsgate Eastcliff ward resident I wish to object to the following planning applications.
L/TH/12/1019 LAND ADJACENT GRANVILLE HOUSE, VICTORIA PARADE, RAMSGATE, CT11 8DF
F/TH/12/1018 LAND ADJACENT GRANVILLE HOUSE, VICTORIA PARADE, RAMSGATE, CT11 8DF
This development forms an extension to the grade II listed Victorian building that fronted the whole block.
Most was designed by Edward Pugin although parts by J T Wimperis all was built in the same Victorian Gothic style between 1867 and 1880.
Part of the development was demolished by a bomb in WW2 and part demolished in the early 1980s to make way for a 1980s development that didn’t occur.
Then in the early 2000s a completely different attitude to the status of this important Victorian Gothic Pugin building and a substantial part of it was rebuilt in the Victorian Gothic style, when the new part was completed it was reclassified as a Grade II listed building and then went on to win an award by Thanet District Council for attention to detail.
The current application has a strong resemblance to the highly unstable 1980s plans that were abandoned and are devoid of any sympathetic architectural detail.
I would like to object on the following grounds.
The whole reconstruction project should be I the same architectural style, particularly as a considerable part already has been rebuilt in that syle.
There could have been a case for a modern and dramatic design as the original was when first built had part of the building not been newly rebuilt in the original style
I can see no case for this proposal that has the look of 1980s economy and featureless buildings, designed around the popular plastic double glazed windows of the time.
The proposed building uses a different bricklaying style to the Flemish bond used in the rest of the building.
The proposed building has a glazed tower which appears to be of a confrontational design to the existing tower.
Thank you Michael.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI worked for instyle kitchens and remember visit the shop on my rounds when I was 17. Now 45 years old it seem long time ago now.
ReplyDeleteT.castle