This photo shows the books I bought yesterday for stock in
my bookshop, with the various centenary dates coming up for WW1 I am trying to
build up a bit of stock in this area.
I was pleased to get some WW1 aviation books as these mostly
fall into the hard to find category.
You would think that with the expansion of the what’s on the
internet about both aviation and WW1 there wouldn’t really be any need for paper
books on the subject at all. In practice however if you try to learn about
specialist aspects of WW1 the book remains an important resource and the only
difference between studying the subject now and studying it twenty years ago,
when there was very little internet content and few of us had internet access,
is that the internet becomes an added resource.
I had been reading quite a bit of WW1 related fiction, which
has spurred something of a personal interest, so it is useful to have a fairly
comprehensive stock of books on the subject.
On to the artistic failure in Broadstairs, my excuse here is
that when I sat down there were clouds between me and the sun and as the
thinned out or went away I got progressively hotter.
I suppose the sky came out fairly true to how the sky
looked, but Bleak House, well once you have got the main roof line sloping in
the wrong direction and one part of the building far too wide, there really is
no way back with watercolour.
I am however persevering with putting the paint straight on
without sketching the basic outlines in first, the slow improvement does
produce some strange disasters.
The various news stories relating to the Dover ferries http://www.dover-express.co.uk/CMA-giving-Eurotunnel-MyFerryLink-ships-boot/story-21298425-detail/story.html
and http://www.dover-express.co.uk/MyFerryLink-Booting-Dover-bad-ll-appeal/story-21298434-detail/story.html
are worth a look at, although I don’t see that anything that happens there at
the moment could help Port Ramsgate.
On to the Manston Airport cpo, despite all of the massive
amount of posts and comment about this, particularly on FaceBook there is very
little that I reckon counts as new information.
So while I may have missed other things that do update the
situation I think this FaceBook comment from the council’s leader Iris Johnston
is worth copying here:
“Iris Johnston Jason TDC are very aware of the need for a
viability study and have expert legal advice. Officers are progressing this.
For a CP O the council must offer to buy, be turned down and then look to the
viability of a purchase with a price determined by a third party ie land
tribunal. The absolute need for a back to back agreement with a third part
investor who has gone through all due diligence has been covered in many posts
. I will see Mrs Gloag on 3rd July in London with Deputy Cllr Nicholson and two
officers. Next day we will travel to Maidstone to see Paul Carter. Several
other East Kent bodies have had my comments on the need for them to help and discuss.
I am also following up on Cllr Clive Hart's request for the extension on the
enterprise Zone. We have to produce a business case and this is under
discussion,”
As is the case with facebook you will only be able to view
content if you are friends with the right people, the following link may or may
not work, but if the do should take you the whole exchange.
It is looking as though I have time to ramble on more, so
what next?
The council say that they have now served some sort of
notice on the Pleasurama site http://thanet.gov.uk/the-thanet-magazine/press-releases/2014/june/latest-update-on-the-royal-sands-site,-ramsgate/
What is says is:
“On Thursday 20 February, Cabinet members at Thanet District
Council agreed to terminate the Royal Sands site (Ramsgate) development
agreement, in line with the recommendations of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel.
The council wishes to confirm that pursuant to those
recommendations formal notice has been served on the developer’s solicitors
requiring them to correct a breach of contract.
Cabinet Member for Financial Services and Estates, Cllr Rick
Everitt, said: “I’d like to offer my strongest assurances to residents that we
are doing all we can to progress matters.
“I can appreciate the frustration when it appears that
things are not progressing as quickly as anticipated. However, the council is
working hard behind the scenes and has a dedicated team in place who are
driving this forward.
“There are a number of complicated legal issues which we are
continuing to work to resolve. This does mean that we need to take the time to
ensure we get the process right. It also means that we won’t be able to provide
any further detail at this stage – to do so would only undermine the strength
of our legal position and that’s not something I’m willing to risk.
“What I can confirm is that the council is committed to
ensuring this matter is resolved as quickly as possible."”
What I think it means is that the council have sent the
developer’s solicitor a schedule at which various bits of work must be done on
the site, with an ultimatum that is particular pieces of the development are
not done by particular dates the developer will have breached the development
agreement and the council will go to court to get the development agreement terminated.
Now on to blog comments, first my apologies for turning
comments of altogether for a while, managing the blog from a mobile phone is a
bit like flying a remote control helicopter, sometimes it flies into a tree.
Ah well shouldn't have said that, about 30 deleted troll comments later I am knocking off anonymous comments for a while.
what I do not understand is this.
ReplyDeleteAs the Development Agreement was written in 2006 and a variation was written to that agreement in 2009 both when the Conservatives under Ezekiel was leader it would seem that the current administration have everything to gain by announcing that they have got to the bottom of who instructed the Solicitors to leave out the "long-stop date".
Yet to date no one at the Council, either officer or member, has made it clear who cocked up all we have is this from Councillor Everitt "There are a number of complicated legal issues which we are continuing to work to resolve" which if it refers to the mistakes in the past doesn't make any sort of sense.