Frankly I have been a bit depressed since Jeremy Clarkson
got the sack for the punch up because he asked for a UKIP receipt for his
steak. On the local front I guess TDC selling off Staffordshire Street car park
to developers and Transport Select Committee reviewing plans to turn The Isle
of Thanet into one massive airport got me down a bit too.
Now I have to face the facts, there will probably never be
any more Top Gear, all of Thanet will probably become one massive airport – due
to popular local demand – and I am likely to get a UKIP MP who has no interest
in Ramsgate.
On a brighter note today when I went into the new Labour
shop and asked how much to buy a politician, after being told it was too
expensive – I did discover that the intention over Staffordshire Street car
park is for any development there not to reduce the number of parking places,
something like the Sainsbury at WC.
I have been very busy of late, mostly buying book stock for
my bookshop, which after a busier November, December and January (I haven’t
added up Feb yet) is a bit depleted. So ‘pologies for the lack of blog posts
here.
So what have I been up to? I will try to add to this going backwards
in time – if I get time.
Yesterday, having spent most of the morning out doing book
buying house calls I had a late snack lunch at The Minnis
I did remember to get something I could eat easily while
sketching
So here is the sketch.
Next comes the local shop closures, starting I suppose with No. 13 King Street, which was Tesco’s then Tesco Home and wear and then Macdonald’s, so are they closing or just cancelling the franchise and carrying on regardless. What will the closure of Primark do to Margate? I have to say I miss the BHS cafĂ© there looking over the sea on a cold winter day. And of course with WC reaching its ten year anniversary, up come some of the leases there for renewal. With retail the rent has to reflect the profitability of the site and ultimately it doesn’t matter where the value of real estate climbs to, retail real estate is limited by this factor.
You know thinking of the UKIP receipt and having spent most of yesterday lugging about boxes of books on the north side of the island, it would never occur to me to claim my lunch against expenses. Thinking back to the main MP expenses scandal locally, with Steve and the big dinners and Roger and the big TV, well it obviously isn’t over yet.
Of course it was Price Waterhouse Coopers that Infratil
used to dispose of the airport in the first place.
It looks like The Royal Sands development on the
Pleasurama site is back on again and I guess this is the key photo (taken last
summer).
This is mostly about sand, the sand that will hold the Royal Sands in place, the problem being that it is fast washing away.
Flat Eric has found a new book to review, like so many books now 1p on Amazon – which means £2.81 including postage which means our price is £2.50. While on the subject of falling book prices, after an ex library copy of The Ramsgate Millennium Book sold on ebay for about £60 including postage, it looks like the price is going down on this title. Makes you wonder which of the libraries sold it off, or even if they did.
On the Royal Victoria Pavillion front there is a rumour going around that now the council have agreed to Weatherspoons making it the largest pub in Europe, they are now dragging their feet over the terms of the lease so that it will remain derelict for several years.
Once again the candidates seem a bit loathe to explain
what they would do for Ramsgate, apart from the air freight hub and getting
Thanet out of Europe, that is.
What worries me here is the number of customers I have who work at Discovery Park or who have a job related to us being members of the EU.
Next comes the local shop closures, starting I suppose with No. 13 King Street, which was Tesco’s then Tesco Home and wear and then Macdonald’s, so are they closing or just cancelling the franchise and carrying on regardless. What will the closure of Primark do to Margate? I have to say I miss the BHS cafĂ© there looking over the sea on a cold winter day. And of course with WC reaching its ten year anniversary, up come some of the leases there for renewal. With retail the rent has to reflect the profitability of the site and ultimately it doesn’t matter where the value of real estate climbs to, retail real estate is limited by this factor.
You know thinking of the UKIP receipt and having spent most of yesterday lugging about boxes of books on the north side of the island, it would never occur to me to claim my lunch against expenses. Thinking back to the main MP expenses scandal locally, with Steve and the big dinners and Roger and the big TV, well it obviously isn’t over yet.
On the Manston front the government have decided to spend
their £1m on getting Price Waterhouse Coopers to investigate whether TDC should
have engaged in the RiverOak cpo to turn Manston Airport in to an airfreight
hub. I wonder if any money will be
spent on asking what the TDC voters want for Manston.
This is mostly about sand, the sand that will hold the Royal Sands in place, the problem being that it is fast washing away.
Flat Eric has found a new book to review, like so many books now 1p on Amazon – which means £2.81 including postage which means our price is £2.50. While on the subject of falling book prices, after an ex library copy of The Ramsgate Millennium Book sold on ebay for about £60 including postage, it looks like the price is going down on this title. Makes you wonder which of the libraries sold it off, or even if they did.
On the Royal Victoria Pavillion front there is a rumour going around that now the council have agreed to Weatherspoons making it the largest pub in Europe, they are now dragging their feet over the terms of the lease so that it will remain derelict for several years.
Of course with the unanswered questions about our future
MPs, the main one for me being what will they do for Ramsgate? With the council
also election wise being in a state of Preparation H the question of Gold
Member or Gold Members arises.
What worries me here is the number of customers I have who work at Discovery Park or who have a job related to us being members of the EU.
Say hello to Flat Eric for me. I don't actually get out much anymore so don't speak to people about Ukip and the possibility that Farrage May not actually get to become Thanet South MP, what is the word on the ground?
ReplyDeleteFlat sends his regards Don. Very mixed views on the election, I would say at local level no councillor feels their seat is safe and there is a general acceptance that TDC will probably become a Tory UKIP coalition. On the MP front I would say it’s still pretty much wide open with a lot of voters who voted either Labour or Conservative last time still considering UKIP. It seems to be moving more towards a fight between UKIP and Labour at the moment, possibly because the Tory candidate is very anti Europe, so if you want to stay in Europe then Labour is the only option. Possibly because of peoples concerns about what they will get in terms of a constituency MP if something goes wrong with there relationship with the government after the elections e.g. if the government stops paying you your pension, disability benefit or whatever, who is the most likely candidate to sort it out for you. So I would say it looks to me as though Labour are pulling ahead a bit.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile back at Port Ramsgate according to the Green councillor, TDC have no recorded information of the 5 meetings they held with the company that wants to open concrete block and waste wood processing operations. This is despite TDC being censored for not keepng records of the Transeuropa fiasco. Now were TDC officers under instructions from the elected cabinet to operate in this way? maybe few councillors should be asked this when they come calling for your vote.
ReplyDeleteI just hope the \green councillor keeps up his investigations after the election where he seems to be fighting a lost cause to retain his seat.
I guess Dave that this one is going to run and run, the two people putting the case for the company were previously two very senior TDC planning officers, if they didn’t write the TDC rule book they would certainly know all of the loopholes in it.
ReplyDeleteI think the nub of the problem is having Port Ramsgate designated as a port when Dover is under capacity and there isn’t really any chance of companies we would want to use it coming here.
I would say it’s leisure use there or more problems, like animal exports and polluting industry that no one else wants.