News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 200 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.
Sunday, 14 July 2013
Sunny day ramble
42 comments:
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.
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Perhaps it's because apart from a small band of nimbys, there isn't a volumous yet pointless group badmouthing everything and anything about their town ;)
ReplyDeletePleasurama, gone for over 10 years,
Pavillion closed to casual visitors for more years than I can remember, and will remain so if the pointless group mentioned above start whining about plans that will one day bring the pavillion back into use. They have already whined about the re-opened/opening amusements, simply because they don;t like the owners.
Seems to them their narrow self interest and likes/doslikes come long before what's good for Ramsgate.
Ah John this is like which came first the Chicken or the Egg is it? Was it the nimbys or the council owned dereliction, marina swimming pool, Tiberius, Neros, Pleasurama, Albion House, Royal Victoria Pavilion, Westcliffe Hall – from left to tight facing the sea – or the nimbys?
DeleteLook at like this if the majority of the shoreline behind a town’s main leisure beach is owned by the council and derelict, this may not always constitute the best form of tourist attraction, nor does it always suggest the best performing local government.
The dereliction of the foreshore located Marina Pool ?
DeleteWhat about the TDC rule that coaches had to leave Margate by 6PM ?
Publicity like the 1970s iconic image produced by Panorama of discharged mental patients walking in a line hand in hand on Margate sands. Those people who had been discharged metal hospital in other counties with a single rail ticket to Margate and a social worker letter. To arrive homeless until someone in Thanet got them into a Section 37 care home.
Cllr Dr Charles McAvoy warnings that too many planning consents to care home use were distorting Thanet economy and creating burdens on local services (like hospitals and GPs)
Better for you ?
No dereliction os not attractive Michael, and i think it's a dam shame that no matter what's suggested, the same nimbys whine and protest about it, bringing on the appalling state the sea front now finds itself in.
DeleteAs far as the nimbys are concerned EVERY TDC owned building should be a community centre catering for the arts and rafia work! It's always the usual suspects, and they need ignoring, thier their bullshit being ignored as it should have been many years ago.
Michael, whilst agreeing in part that the neglect of council owned property does not help Ramsgate, the constant protests hardly endear the town to outsiders. The current situation with less than might be expected people on the sands cannot solely be down to Pleasurama or the Pavilion because over the many years of these sagas there have been times when good numbers have been there.
ReplyDeleteRamsgate also has a delightful harbour around which a fair number of bars and eating places seem to flourish. The people using those must come from somewhere so, perhaps it is just a problem with the beach. Maybe even constant talk about tsunamis and avalanches has frightened folk away.
Unfortunately tourist numbers are in decline - as you'd expect from TDC mismanagement and a derelict seafront. None form KLM for example and the beaches less busy and almost all locals.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the nudist beaches Peter but certainly not the others, even the bad weather aside. How you know both roads and trains are busy with beach-visitors is beyond me. There's positive and then there's wishful thinking. I agree that the Pleasurama and Ferries TDC work is appalling - the council actually ruining the area.
DeleteAnon 2013, you clearly were not out and about this weekend for beaches from Broadstairs to Westgate were packed. At Joss Bay the car park and Joss Bay Road were packed nose to tail and some visitors had even parked halfway into the farmer's field. In Broadstairs one had to virtually go out as far as side roads at North Foreland to find a parking space with Viking Bay, Stone Bay and Louisa Bay all thronging with beach goers.
DeleteMuch as this may disappoint you, it was rather more than wishful thinking.
Cycling and on the roads and on the trains and onto the beaches. That's some journey every day Peter. Utter cobblers again from the AnonFarnie again: the farmer's field is usually overflowing with cars if it's busy.
DeleteViking Bay was busy but not much and Ramsgate beach slightly busy. All much less than a jam-packed day, especially with forecasted sunshine. And mainly locals not tourists. Tourism in decline as mentioned: no new events and no visitors from the ferry.
Thanks. It wasn't too difficult. It wasn't over a single day though and nor would I claim it to be ultra-scientific, but thank you.
DeleteLike I said tourism in decline even with the hot weather and allowing for the awful weather so far this year. No events, tourism offices downgraded and dereliction so it's to be expected.
Tourism is certainly not in decline in Broadstairs and in Margate it is on the increase. Just where do you get your facts, 4:23, or do you just make them up to suit your argument.
DeleteEmpty opinion 6:40 with no facts at all - why do you say that? I was simply agreeing with Michael's photo that also confirms fewer tourists than expected.
DeleteMichael's photo was of Ramsgate. I was referring to Broadstairs and Margate and the statement was factual. What makes you think you have a monopoly on information, 7:13, for, in my experience, most of what you say is quite groundless, more based on your own jaundiced view of Thanet than anything else.
DeleteI'm sorry 7:26 but you haven't yet provided any facts beyond your opinion and then you saying your opinion is fact. You must do better than that. Try again. Although I think nobody would mind if you didn't.
Delete7:35 when you produce facts to back up your claim that tourism in Thanet is in decline, I will produce links to facts that will prove you wrong where Broadstairs and Margate are concerned. You cannot reasonably demands facts of others when you never produce any yourself.
DeletePlease do not bother to come back with more unsubstantiated garbage for without facts I will simply ignore you.
7:54 when challenged on your assertions you scurry away. Your views are mere empty opinion as you've now confirmed. There is no point to you.
DeleteAll the tourism spending has been on the north of the island with poor old Ramsgate losing out. Margate beach was packed at the weekend, not so Ramsgate. TDC could make a start by giving us our sand back, now the ferries have gone. In fact they should have done that when they realised TEF was on the skids, would have been a much better use of the £3.4m
ReplyDeleteMy aunt and uncle owned a freehold Cliftonville hotel from the 60s to the late 70s. They, and one other hotelier in that road, were fully booked every season. Private guests Christmas, Easter and High Season. Lewisham and Islington Social Services pensioner holidays early and late season.
ReplyDeleteThe turnover for a year was assured by the London Social Services block bookings. There was a Cliftonville coach company would fetch the London pensioners down. The Social Services sending their borough pensioners were sent hotel floor plans. They allocated rooms. So when the coach arrived I would take lunch from work and nip round the hotel. Every suitcase was already labelled with name and room number. The driver off loaded suitcases to the front path and I ran the cases upstairs and to respective rooms. Clockwork.
It was breakfast, lunch and dinner. Low profit margin. Assured turnover.
Other hoteliers would ask to get in on the social services holiday trade. But they didn't work out because the pensioners gave feedback to London boroughs. A fish finger, chips and peas for dinner etc.
Other hoteliers asked my aunt and uncle (dance champions and judge on Come Dancing etc) if they would help them promote trade by theme weekends ballroom dancing.
Then came Fire Precautions. Frankly many struggling hoteliers could not afford them.
Day trip coaches had to be out of Margate by 6PM. Bouncers would travel around the resorts taking index numbers, seating capacities and operator addresses of coaches parked up overnight other than at the empty coach parks. To get an advance idea of how many stag parties were lurking in the towns. But the police night shift for Thanet might be two patrol cars based on an assumption the night economy would be locals only.
Blackpool business leaders used to visit Thanet to see how NOT to do it. Mind you they recently came to the view they went too much for the stag and hen market.
Since the 1948 National Assistance Act the declining hotel trade turned increasingly to change of use to care homes. "Section 37s". Cllrs expressed concern that care provision as a whole and the local economy were being compromised. This has proved to be the case.
Of two TV documentary expose's of poor care standards in UK Section 37 homes BOTH were made at Margate. As stated above in mid 70s the Panorama images became iconic. Questionably discharged mental patients who had initially arrived homeless in Margate (Given single rail tickets by Hospital Social Workers in other counties) eventually they had been housed in the area's Section 37 care homes. But were kicked out after breakfast to wander aimlessly on the beach or lurk in Margate library for shelter. They were let back in at teatime.
We, taking Social Services holidays, were seeing the effects and even adding to them. I remember the Cornwall Gardens GP practice being called by us to one pensioner holidaymaker. And the doctor told us "We are already using the hospital corridors in Ramsgate as wards".
As resorts Thanet was committing economic suicide. Spain had taken the resort trade and it was seen as pragmatic to extend the economic life of largely 19th century building stock by turning to care home, costa del dole type of use.
"Discos" tended to work on an investment cycle. As the decor deteriorated the door admission standard would drop to maintain punter numbers. Hence disorder was in exact harmony with the stage of the investment cycle. After a refit the admission standards would go up. This was reflected in the bar takings growing closer to the door takings and in less trouble. And so the cycle would repeat. No consistency of reputation. A policing area, in spite of the resort economy, that had proportionately fewer police than other more affluent areas of Kent.
All very historic, but no longer relevant to todays very different kind of tourism. We now have far more weekend visitors than the two week type of yesteryear, far more holiday home owners and, with improved roads and rail times, many who come down from London for the day if the sun is shining. What guest houses and hotels remain still do a good trade and in high season one would be pushed to find a vacancy in Broadstairs. It is not all doom and gloom, just different.
DeleteAgree 8:17 although it is doom and gloom in the sense that Thanet has fewer tourists than the glory years. And in recent years as comparisons. And the tourist season you mention has shortened from March to September to June-August.
DeleteEven with this week's sudden hot weather, Thanet's beaches are emptier than usual - Thanet has fallen off the tourist map I would suggest.
Some of that's market forces and changing holiday patterns and some of that is an incompetent council expecting to do less each year rather than improving the towns. Pleasurama is hardly inviting some 10 years on.
The area now has undoubted factual expose's of water table pollution. It doesn't drink its own water any longer. It has a long and UNBROKEN history of council corruption and ineptitude.
ReplyDeleteIn all of the country where did much derided arrests take place within a local territorial Army Unit ? Yes Thanet. Where middle aged men allowed themselves to believe, to be conned into a military fantasy, that they had been selected for SAS style undercover operations. The "Walting" capital of UK.
"Earner burner" capital of the UK. Costa del dole. Don't drink the water. Costa del Kosovo. Whinging capital of UK. Locals who won't move to find work but sit on the dole blaming the council.
Read your own blogs. The endless Strawman arguments and backseat driving. Whinge whinge.
Ask yourselves "Would you want to be a neighbour of the JH persons ?" Imagine the endless commentary pointing out where you are going wrong. Mocking when you stumble.
No wonder the relocating Pfizer workers avoided buying Thanet houses.
The fact is that the well heeled likes of ECR can prose on about interesting architecure and eating out. But the building stock is largely of Napoleonic and Steam age build. Eking out its final economic breaths as HMOs, hostels, bedsits and care homes.
When did Thanet last have a vision for the future ? Take Pleasurama. Cllr Johnstone red hot issue question to the developers "Will there be local employment". "Oh YES caring labourite of course we will employ simply dozens of the local unskilled long term idle unemployed to satsify your concept that jobs are part of social welfare provision"
Would you employ some tw-t whose history proves they are too idle to relocate to get work ? I wouldn't. Even when Richborough was built there were contractors working "No local labour in Thanet".
This is the reality. Opportunity may lay in austerity. How did my aunt and uncle trade successfully when others failed all around them ? Low margin, assured turnover, value for money, quality service. Bloody hard work. They were DFLs
Thank you, Rick, think I will put my house on the market and move away from this dump you describe, but, wait a minute, why are you still here if it is so bad?
DeleteAnd why are you unconcerned about water pollution and corruption? At least Rick is trying to improve things rather than a mere onlooker and cynic like you.
DeleteRick has been trying to improve things since the year dot, to no avail, and you, 9:55, have been predicting the closure of Manston for as long as I can remember, but it is still there. My plan to move away is still the best bet thus leaving the likes of you and Rick to carry on whinging and coming up with conspiracy theories. Oops, I forgot, heads will roll, call in the cops, no more double hatters, kick all the duffers out at the next election, or maybe the one after that because it never happens. You are just sad joke, old man.
DeletePoor old Rick, he writes one of his long diatribes under his alter ego of Lyndon T. Palmer only to have it deleted in its entirety by Michael. You could almost feel sorry for the poor old chap
DeleteAllan there are two aspects to that one, first it was posted signed on as Lyndon T Palmer and there have been numerous comments from this source that have been both spam and potentially libellous. Richard Card has his own blogs and posts under his own name, so I can only assume that he is either using this other identity to put spam comment on this blog or that someone is using this identity and his style of comment to conceal genuine libels in order to get this blog removed. Either way it isn’t comment that I would be prepared to leave. The other aspect is that it was spam and had nothing to with the subject of the post.
DeleteMichael, I was not criticising you and could not agree more that much of what Rick writes, under his various names, is potentially libellous. It is just the length of some of his comments and the evident research, albeit of the more outlandish sources, that goes into them that makes one feel a bit sorry for him. Clearly he believes all this stuff about illegal gun ranges, bomb plots and the Rothschild run world, including the sometimes named local folk who were/are supposedly involved. Nonetheless, I agree it is invariably off topic in much the same way as old 0%/Aquifer turns every thread to his own choosing.
DeleteAllan,
DeleteOf the two, if I were forced to choose between them then I would prefer Rick to the Manston Aquifer Man anytime. But that's not point.
John, Rick once accused a perfectly decent councillor of perjury by name in one of his comments the same week the poor chap's wife died. He is dangerous with his ramblings and has as good as accused another ex-councillor of involvement with illegal gun ranges and terrorist training. At least old aquifer is just mindlessly moronic with his hatred of Manston, even if he is rude to all and sundry. His is more calling people names whereas Rick makes damaging accusations that the more naïve, like Solo Gays, sometimes appear to believe.
DeleteAllan,
DeleteYou are of course correct. Both of them are a nuisance expecially Rick who is libelous and sometime cruel in his remarks. But somehow I feel sorry for him. But I will leave it there.
Thankyou Allan
DeleteCan we have more of the Holyer Trio? They're always amusing just the Holyer and Mallinson though are the two elderly Muppets bickering. My favourite is when they insult someone and then in the next breath claim that the other person is being insulting. Hilarious.
DeleteSolo Gays, no offence intended, but I recall you praising one of Rick's submission which was really straight out of one of these conspiracy rags.
DeleteAs for, 1:01 pm, just ignore the poor old peasant.
Mallinson insulting all and sundry again.
DeleteNo, 5:27, just you on my 'who can I insult today' list.
DeleteYes, anon 5:27, and I've heard that Mr Sundry is very upset about it. He is flying out of Manston tonight to convalesce elsewhere.
DeleteAnd Mallinson and Holyer ruin another debate. At least Hamilton sticks to his own blog with his insults.
DeleteI thought the Aquifer Man and the guy who goes on about illegal gun ranges were the same person. But evidently not. You learn something new every day!
DeleteIt is possible, 10:45, that they are accommodated in the same institution and share ideas. It is certainly noticeable that much of what they spout is at least ten years out of date, tending to add to the notion that they are out of general circulation.
DeleteThe gun range chap is Richard Card and the Aquifer Man is Sue McGonigal concerned about a jail sentence and her pension so raising the pollution and corruption anonymously.
Delete10:24 is the famously inbred aquifer man elsewhere to be found spouting his usual garbage about cancer on Eastcliff Richard's blog. Clearly has no respect for the feelings of those actually suffering from this dreadful disease.
DeleteAnonymous 11:12 am
DeleteThen I suggest we resist the temptation to rise to his bait.