I have had the Thanet Local Plan follow-up email, of course
like so many things related to local politics I only have a vague idea of what
the plan is and how it impacts on our lives here in Thanet.
The local plan sets out local planning policies and
identifies how land is used, determining what will be built where, says IT. So
this is an important document. Here in Thanet I think part of the plan has been
that we should have air and sea transport hubs. To a greater or lesser extent
this hasn’t entirely worked out and the tangled web goes on, both with The Port
of Ramsgate and Manston Airport.
I think the vision here was a busy passenger ferry with day
trips and European holiday business combined with a busy passenger airport with
holiday and business flights, both employing lots of local people and enhancing
the local economy.
The down side of this is it opens the door to the side of
the transport business that no one else wants, animal exports being the most
high profile. Airport and port activity where the local environmental damage,
reduction in local people’s life expectancy and so on coming a close
second.
So the reality has been bankruptcies, unpaid debts to councils, people losing their holidays, much less positive impact on the local economy than one would have hoped for.
Underlying all of this was the tangle the council got into
over Manston Airport and trying to buy it using a compulsory purchase order
financed by a third party, complicated by many of the current councillors
getting elected on the remit of saving the airport.
Anyway the council commissioned an “independent” report
which concluded the airport was a non starter. This leaves the council with the
Parkway Station and The Port of Ramsgate, which I though all integrated with
the airport in some sort of transport plan.
I think the other very big factor in all of this is that
central government have told our local government that they have to allocate
parts of Thanet for building 17,140 dwellings.
This produces a bit of a strange edge to the “not in my back
yard” approach, inasmuch as they have to go somewhere in Thanet.
Anyway I did have a bit of a go at responding to the local
plan consultation so may have a bit of a go at responding to the revisions. I
suppose theoretically doing my civic duty could stop at voting in the council
elections, which I did although I am not sure now if anyone I voted for got
elected, or if I have any councillors who would represent – or even listen to
my views.
It tells me that there will be public engagement session in,
Thanet Gateway Meeting Room x, which I think means the council at Cecil Square
Margate, Kent innovation centre Broadstairs, which I think means near Asda on
Northwood Road and at Ramsgate Town Council, which I know means the Custom
House in Ramsgate.
A tricky business these online consultations as one
lacks confidence that what one is filling out is going somewhere and unlike a physical
form, it’s difficult to run through it first to see where it is leading.
Here is the table showing where the council think the seventeen thousand flats and houses should be allowed to go, or is it go.
Period
|
2011-2031
|
Strategic Sites (sites of 500+ dwellings)
|
|
Westwood
|
1,450
|
Birchington on Sea
|
1,000
|
Westgate on Sea
|
1,000
|
Manston Green
|
700
|
Land at Manston Court/Haine Road
|
700
|
Former Airport Site
|
2,500
|
Other Housing Sites/Areas
|
|
Land at Manston Road/Shottendane Road
|
250
|
Margate & Cliftonville
|
816
|
Ramsgate
|
793
|
Broadstairs & St Peters
|
304
|
Birchington on Sea
|
101
|
Westgate on Sea
|
36
|
Rural Settlements
|
375
|
Windfall Sites (based on 225 units per year, discounted for years 1-3 to avoid double counting)
|
2,700
|
Completed since 2011
|
1,555
|
Extant planning permissions
|
3,017
|
Empty Properties
|
540
|
Total
|
17,837
|
So do I try to persuade blog readers to take part in the
consultation? Will it make any difference to the outcome? The whole business of local council
consultations is a strange one, for one thing I don’t think you have to live in
the area, be a council taxpayer or business ratepayer to contribute to them.
I have never been able to find out from the council if
and how locals input to their petition scheme and consultations are weighted.
The national government seems to think local council’s will consult local
people and it’s the local’s views that should be important. The council seems
to think anyone anywhere in the world should be able to take part and the
internet makes this very easy.
I have sneaky feeling that the council are looking for anything to justify the way they think they want to go and a lot of this is more about them keeping up appearances than improving the lot of Thanet.
I think on the whole the answer is yes please
have a go at the council consultations, I think local government is slowly
moving towards consulting and while they have a long way to go in making the
online consultation work effectively and properly, but I also think we the
locals need practice with this consultation process. So if you come away from doing the online consultation with the feeling that you messed it up I wouldn't worry too much and see it as part of the learning
curve.
My own feelings are that we are probably in the very early
stages of something to do with the way what we call democracy works. We have
had what we now regard as democracy for a relatively short time, remembering
that it is less that 100 years since the right to vote was granted to women
over the age of 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers
of property with an annual rent of £5 and less than 90 years women were granted
votes on the same terms as men and most of the property qualifications were
dropped for both sexes.
This is all down to various bits of representation of
the people legislation, which is in some sense to do with us not being able to
have a referendum about every issue, but with the internet there is also some
sense that we don’t need representatives to engage in the decision making
process particularly at a local level.
I find that apart from the ongoing conversations about local
history in the bookshop, there is much more interest amongst my customers about
the whole business of physical books and bookshops.
I think there is a certain amount of concern that leisure is
becoming so focused on either social media or eating and drinking. I also think
I am detecting another shift in what people are choosing to read on the screen
and what people are choosing to read on paper. It’s a subtle business and
certainly not one I understand that well but it does nonetheless exist and I
think it will be years before it settles – if it ever does. If nothing else the
attempts mimicking paper by technology are an indicator of where I am coming
from.
On the whole my bookshop is doing fairly well at the
moment, with non fiction I think the focus is on areas where the information
just isn’t easily available online, this is partly a wood from the trees thing
but the main issue is still here. The main issue being the browse followed by
buying the information. With books in a bookshop this is straightforward, you
decide to take up woodturning, so you go to the bookshop, look at the books on
woodturning, where you can see the whole content of each book by looking
through it, you then either decide to buy one of the books or you don’t. with
the internet there is the information which is just there for free, which you
can just look at, then there are the e-books and other downloads for technology
and of course you can’t look at all of them – the whole book – or it wouldn’t be
possible to sell them. With the fiction it’s much more a lose toys in the attic
thing, some people’s brains only being able to handle some things in some
formats and paper is very much still one of the formats. As most people are
still learning to read using paper books I see this one running and running.
It was a long old ramble wasn't it, so here are the old Ramsgate fishing industry pictures
Ramsgate from the West Pier with fishing smacks I think this is about 1900
Ramsgate Clockhouse with the buildings still on the back but the Millitary Road arches showing in the distance so again around 1900
once again Ramsgate sailing fishing smacks and not steam trawlers but the Military Road arches that were built in the 1890s so around 1900
"former" airport site - yeah, dream on TDC.
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