Yesterday the council issued a statement detailing why they can’t proceed with the Manston Airport cpo, they have stated several reasons but the most glaring one is that in order to pursue a cpo that fell into the, “could possibly succeed, wouldn’t fall at the first hurdle” bracket, they have to make the owner an offer for the land.
As we all know the airport cpo has
become a very emotive issue, and over the years one comes to realise
(particularly having teenage children) that arguments can develop to the point
where neither side listens to what the other side is saying and spends all the
time their opponent is talking making up what they are going to say next.
I started to wonder if the split in
the UKIP administration and the hostility of the airport supporters lobby
wasn’t more due to this state of affairs, than a real difference opinion.
So I had a couple online dialogues with a couple of the Manston supporters, here they are with their names removed.
Michael Child *** correct me if I am wrong here, but the council
seem to be saying.
Part of the cpo process that can’t be got around is that the
acquiring authority (TDC) have to offer to buy the land from the owner before
the cpo can start.
Say if the council want to buy your house to build a new road and
the going rate for a 4 bed house in Thanet is £200,000, then the council would
have to make you an offer in that ball park before they could mount a cpo.
However you look at it I think the council would have to offer at
least as much as RiverOak offered, which I think was £7m and in order to do
this the council would have to have access to that amount of money and as far
as I can see RiverOak have said they will only put up £2m before the cpo
starts.
Like · Reply · 2 · 15 hrs
***
*** Michael we will think on this and take advice, but my first
reaction is that both TDC and RiverOak have made numerous attempts to buy the
airport from Ann Gloag and Cartner & Musgrave and been turned down or
quoted funny money. The problem is we are not discussing a nice pretty house
with a known value, or even discussing good farmland, we are discussing a
trashed airfield, only zoned for aviation use, and Ann Gloag and C&M hope
to make £100m to £2b from the good people of Thanet - and London - by selling
it for housing. CPOs don't consider the value of the houses you have not built
or have planning permission for. That is why a CPO is the only way forward. To
suggest that they are suddenly going to ring up and say they have changed their
minds is improbable. And to suggest that Chris Wells still has to phone up Ann
Gloag each week and ask her to sell is perverse.
Like · Reply · 1 · 15 hrs · Edited
****
**** To be slightly clearer - if Ann Gloag wants to sell, well
that is not a CPO, and TDC are not involved at all, any started CPO process
just stops and TDC have lost nothing (because of the indemnity Agreement).
RiverOak just buy it from her, if they think the price is reasonable and not
unduly above what the Government appointed Inspector is likely to set it at.
Otherwise the offer is rejected and the CPO process is continued.
Like · Reply · 2 · 15 hrs · Edited
Michael Child
Michael Child *** I am pretty sure that, although please correct
me if I am wrong, it isn’t RiverOak that have to have made an offer for the
land, but the acquiring authority, in this case TDC in order to start a cpo.
I don’t think this has to be in any way related to the
compensation amount, which in the case of a cpo, like your house would be
basically enough to buy a similar house, or in this case land, in the same area
plus your costs for moving and some compensation for the inconvenience.
My guess is that the actual cpo compensation award would be
related to the amount per acre of similar land in the southeast and not in any
way related to the value of the airport as a business, because cpos can only be
made for land, and not a business which is what I think RiveOak made the offer
for.
I wasn’t thinking in terms of anything more than the current
stalling points, the most basic of which is that TDC just don’t seem to have
the funds to make any realistic offer for the land, which is something I think
they have to do in order to start the cpo process.
One thing that I know about councils is that the councillors can’t
legally force the council to do something they don’t have the funds to do, if
the council wanted to raise council tax significantly to raise money they have
to hold a referendum, which is what KCC are talking about at the moment,
because of central government cuts.
Like · Reply · 14 hrs
****
*** I see no absolute requirement in the Government guidelines, to
make an offer for the land during the CPO process - the words used are
"may" and "usually". This is an unusual case as there is no
clear cut value for the airport land that the inspector is likely to declare.
Like · Reply · 1 · 14 hrs
Michael Child
Michael Child ***** you could well be right and I could be
completely wrong, but it looks to me to be the main stumbling point and could
be worth discussing with the councillors who seem to be falling out over it.
I think rightly or wrongly you have one group who see it as being
the end of the cpo and another group who don’t, but either haven’t grasped the
point, (which I think you will concede is not that easy as you are an
intelligent bloke and it took several comments from me to get it across to you)
or haven’t come up with another solution.
I am going to sleep on it and see if it looks different in the
morning and I suggest you do the same.
Like · Reply · 14 hrs
******
**** Thanks for discussing - yes a good night's sleep is something
I could do with.
Like · Reply ·
And this is the end of the other one as the beginning was pretty much
the same as above.
///// No. Paragraph 24 of ODPM 06/2004, which refers to this only
suggests that "acquiring authorities should seek to acquire land by
negotiation wherever practicable." Now, even allowing for the fact that
Mrs Gloag knows full well that subsequent to several decades of financial
mismanagement TDC are not in a position to make an offer for my garden shed let
alone an airfield, the fact that River Oak made several written offers, up to
and including the full asking price and were brusquely rejectef is surely an
indication that the woman doesn't want to enter into negotiations.
Like · Reply · 1 · 5 hrs
Michael Child
Michael Child ///// //// as you probably know I am a shop
assistant and not one of the worlds great legal minds, however my guess is that
it depends what “practicable” means in this context.
I am assuming it means where the acquiring authority can’t contact
the owner, which is the case with some of the derelict buildings that local
authorities buy, mainly to sort out and put back into use.
With this sort of thing where you have two expert lawyers
involved, the council’s and RiverOak’s, in most cases they both already know
the probable outcome, but with £2m in legal fees expected, there are bound to
be lots opposing arguments.
So in a sense it can help to keep calm and try and decode what
they say combined with what usually happens in the case of a major cpo.
With a site as big as Manston it is usually farmland which
averages across the uk at around £10,000 so with a 600 acre site they would
probably offer something in the £6m ball park.
Both threads ended with my final reply.
Next the business over the Chris Wells messages into the void, I think
the emails are self-explanatory.
-----Original
Message-----
From: michaelchild
To: cllr-chris.wells; bobbreggub ;
Iris.johnston
Sent: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 14:20
Subject: Customer.Services@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-Helen.Smith@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-John.Townend@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass@THANET.GOV.UK,
From: michaelchild
To: cllr-chris.wells
Sent: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 14:20
Subject: Customer.Services@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-Helen.Smith@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-John.Townend@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing@THANET.GOV.UK, Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass@THANET.GOV.UK,
Hi guys and gals
I used to work on various funfairs including Dreamland and
although I wasn’t responsible for the scenic railway there, I have been for
other rollercoasters all of which are controlled, i.e. the ride speed and
safety, by brakes that can be seriously compromised in wet weather.
Anyway I tried to contact the leader to make sure there wasn’t an
council pressure to run it this very wet weekend if the speed of the cars can't
be properly controlled.
I tried phoning Chris Wells, land line "sorry this mailbox is
full it can't accept any messages" mobile, answerphone, where I have left
a message.
I tried emailing the info to cllr-Chris.Wells@THANET.GOV.UK didn’t get any confirmation that the
email had been received read or anything at all.
So the question is are there any councillors left who respond to
emails or is the council email sever down like Chris’s phone?
Best regards Michael
I'm here!
Regards
Bob
Sent from my iPad
From: michaelchild
To: bobbreggub
Sent: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 14:56
Subject: Re: Customer.Services
Sent from my iPad
From: michaelchild
To: bobbreggub
Sent: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 14:56
Subject: Re: Customer.Services
Perhaps the council’s email server is down Bob, any chance you could pass the message on and confirm someone has read it and checked the brakes work in wet weather? Just one confirmation, from someone senior in the current administration that they are on the case would be enough for me.
Best regards Michael
I will add to this as or if I get any more replies.
I will add to this as or if I get any more replies.
The former Manston Airport, now Stone Hill Park, is not
ReplyDelete'farmland'. It is a 800 acre 'brownfield' site and hence worth considerably more
than the £7m quoted for the airport. I would suggest it is now worth 10's of
millions and possibly 100's of millions, especially if we are talking 'housing
development'....precisely why RiverOak want to get their hands on it......they
are a Real Estate company and see a huge potential profit as does Anne Gloag.
RiverOak are not in the slightest interested in running an airport it is the
potential value of the land they are interested in. The 'compensation payment'
would reflect its potential value. Anyway, RiverOak has absolutely no chance of
CPOing the land so it's a bit academic!
Alan Poole
Alan my best guess would be around £350m
ReplyDeleteIn my view a CPO defies logic anyway. Usually CPOs are when local authorities want to build large infrastructure and need to be able to bulldoze a building in the way. In fact the only CPO I've ever heard of which was not like that is when TDC forced the sale of the Dreamland site.
ReplyDeleteHere the convoluted argument seems to be that a third party should be able to use the powers of a local authority to take an asset from a legal owner to prevent them (the owner) developing it in a perfectly legal way. That's like you, Michael Child, deciding that you want to convert your bookshop into a micropub and me go to TDC to try to use their powers to allow me to buy it and continue running it as a bookshop. You might not, possibly should not, get permission to change use, but what right do I have to try to take your asset off you? Madness.
At the very least, I'd expect the owners of the asset to get full market rate for their land - which as you say would be as prime development land as per the plans of the owners - which would be impossible to fund from TDC coffers and would likely Kibosh any plans anyone else might have for getting a cheap bit of land they can bank and build on later.
I am not a lawyer etc.
I would be happy to see TDC using its compulsory purchase powers to ensure that Michael's premises remained a bookshop. The key difference between this example and the airport is that Michael's shop makes enough money to allow him to eat out frequently, as evidenced by the contents of his blog. By contrast, the airport lost over £100 million. It failed, miserably, to achieve any of the predictions made for it. The same people who made those predictions are the people who have been driving the campaign to CPO it. Why would you listen to them twice? I think the vast majority of people in Thanet think that it's time to move on.
DeleteI still cant understand what the fuss is about. Someone on TDC gave the impression planning permission would be granted and from that point on Manston was doomed. Even though we have had a change of administration at TDC and are set for even more non-administration or as spellcheck wants tto call it maladministration the airport is never going to function again. I supported the airport all the time it was there but it has gone and we need to look to the future. Housing seems to be the only option and it needs to be supervised in a proper manner so as to benefit Thanet and not become a London overspill.
ReplyDeleteTime to move on I think. Manston was only ever viable all the time the MoD were paying for the infrastructure maintenance. It's a dead duck. No axe to grind here, I've lived smack under the flight path for thirty years. It was there when I brought the house and I served out my RAF time on the Wessex flight. Aircraft noise worries me and mine not one bit, but I admit I don't miss it. Let's concentrate on getting the most amenity use we can out of the resulting mess.
ReplyDeleteArjun, ups and downs with the bookshop, the monopolisation of the book world by Amazon and the Kindle reader produced a rough patch and I subsidised the shop for a bit. Things seem to have swung the other way now and the bookshop is doing better, the main UK bookshop chain Waterstones had similar issues and were it not for Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut, would have gone under.
ReplyDeleteI think the real problem here is that TDC have a remit to reduce the size of Ramsgate town centre, what is actually says is something along the lines of; centralising the shops in the town to reduce the number of empty shops, what it actually is doing is destroying the town. This was last evidenced by them buying the largest shop in King Street, in a shopping parade that was fully let and will be again very soon, to convert it into social housing.
That said I live fairly modestly and the eating out is the only way I can manage to get the positions to paint in, I am prepared to pay for this and am also trying to buy a cheap camper van for the same purpose.
Learning to paint and draw our local townscapes from reality rather than photographs is an expensive business and from a café is really the only way I have managed so far, any ideas on this front would be welcome.
I need a comfortable seat, a reasonable temperature, a convivial atmosphere, sufficient food, drink and a loo close at hand, which is fairly easy, finding these with a good uninterrupted view worth painting and with the sun not shining straight into my eyes is another matter altogether.