Some old local pictures a few belated thoughts on the council and Manston

 The pictures of the pictures should expand if you click on them

 The only postcard that said anything on the back was this Ramsgate one

Fragments today, from stuff that came up, as it were. I have spent most of the day dealing with business correspondence so the other stuff has been by way of light relief 

It's one thing going along to the general election and voting Labour, Conservative or UKIP but quite another finding ballot papers for councils you have only a very foggy idea about (is it county, district or town that does drains) containing the names of people you have never heard of. Let me see, was I voting for Gordon Brown, David Cameron wosisface Forrige, oh yes here he is on the ballot paper, and who is this?

Anyway I went onto the council website to check just who my councillors actually are, this is a far cry from the days when councillors used to come into the town centre shops and ask how things were going and what they could do to improve matters.

From: michaelchild
To: Customer.Services
Sent: Tue, 20 Feb 2018 14:22
Subject: vertically disadvantaged discrimination issues

Hi this is a council website related issue.

Browsing the council’s website, I know sad isn’t it, but someone has to, I noticed that where councillors appear in a table at https://democracy.thanet.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx?VW=TABLE&PIC=1&FN=ALPHA their pictures seem to be vertically disadvantaged.

I surmise that it is possible they have all gone to have a lie down after the resignation of their leader, however it also occurs to me that this could take the form of a joke, however common sense suggests it is just an error

Best regards Michael

I guess the Manston DCO that is integrated with politics and politicians locally just doesn't go away and probably won't go away for a long time. 

With the Manston DCO 2018 consultation  the main issue I covered in my response was the PM2.5 particulate air pollution, this is the new research findings that are making the government think about a diesel car scrappage scheme and when it comes to the legal side of airports it’s still all a bit of a grey area which I rightly figured the statuary consultees would have to miss out.

With the DCO at the moment Thanet District Council have the role of a statutory consultee, or in other words, you pay your taxes and if you didn’t read the last lot of RiverOak documents and respond to the 2018 consultation in some meaningful way, then the council had to read them for you and did their best to make a response that would shape a viable airfreight hub at Manston on your behalf. The council at the moment have a very important role in the DCO, but it is mostly a technical one done by unelected officers. The council response has now been published and here is the link https://www.thanet.gov.uk/media/4120216/TDC-Statutory-Pre-application-Consultation-response-Feb-18-1-.pdf

Something of an area where I think the penny hasn’t quite dropped among the save Manston groups is that the various consultation phases are as much about shaping any airport facility we may eventually get at Manston as objecting to it’s construction altogether, or saying that any aviation use of the site is good, whatever form it may take.

Once again what I can’t find after another round of consultation is a detailed response from anyone supporting the rsp airfreight hub.     

On the bookshop front there was a fair amount occult looking book went out this is the link to the pictures  

The new KCC draft budget is out this is the link