The children’s book section in the bookshop gets bigger, I complain to the council and a bit of a ramble.

My work on the children’s section continues, so we now have four bookcases of children’s fiction instead of two, which I think is a lot better.

The next part of the job is to expand the children’s non-fiction which means moving the humour books to another part of the shop.

The idea eventually is to have a much bigger children’s section, but that may take some time.

On to my complaint to the council, here it is:

“Hi I wish to complain about the council’s online petition facility.

I am concerned that no effort is made by the council to separate or identify petitioners and those starting a petition, into Thanet Residents and non-Thanet residents or restrict the number of times someone can sign an online petition.

Please see the Manston airport cpo issue as being unrelated to this complaint and as only being used by me because it the most recent TDC online petition and helps me to illustrate areas of possible improvement.   

Although I am not against saving Manston airport, I did note that the petition was started by a non UK resident and that it had been signed both by other non UK residents and by people living within the UK who were protesting against airport expansion elsewhere in the UK, usually where they live. 

All of this meant that when councillors had to decide this important local issue it wasn’t possible for them to gauge the support for the cpo among Thanet residents, who are now funding the various legal stages in investigating the issue.

The norm (that used by KCC and the UK government) appears to be only members of the electoral roll (councils) or UK residents (UK gov) can start petitions or sign them, either online or on paper.

My suggestion would be that when members of the public join the council’s website they have to supply their names and addresses so that the council could verify them. Obviously once the names had been verified they wouldn’t subsequently need to be verified for every petition, which would save the council money. 

People who have already joined the council’s website would need to be emailed asking them to update their details. My understanding is that it is possible to join the council’s website, to sign petitions as many times as one has email addresses at the moment, so this would be an opportune moment to resolve the multiple signing issue too.

I would also refer you to your own document pack from when the council decided on how online petitions should function, which states that the rules for online petition should be the same as those for paper petitions and that the names and addresses for signatories of paper petitions should be verified. 

I believe the situation is generally different for online consultation, where people from outside the area are allowed to take part but their responses are weighted to reflect their geographical location.    

Best regards Michael”

The world of council complaints is a strange one, I think the council officers are as unhappy about the petition system as I am, but they can’t of course justify the officer time they would need to sort it out unless a member of the public complains to them.     

So first I phoned them up and discussed what would be the most useful content of the complaint, to them, to them. 

What do you do when Thanet District Council wastes our money on internet resources that don’t work properly?

I have had a reply to my complaint to the council about their various events websites, they don’t seem to want to sort the issue out, so I am now going down the road that wastes everyone’s time including their own and will probably eventually lead to The Local Government Ombudsman.

The correspondence is below and if anyone has any better ideas, please put them in the blog comments. 

Here is my initial complaint


 This complaint relates to the council’s events sites and results from my trying to get information about the New Year fireworks events in Thanet.

From Christmas 2011 until New Years day I tried to find information about New Years events using the councils three information websites and I have tried subsequently to use these websites to find information about what’s on in the three main Thanet towns in January.

None of the three council events websites mentioned either the fireworks event in Ramsgate that did take place or the cancellation of the one in Broadstairs and event coverage on all three sites for January is very poor.

Warming Words has no events listed for January see http://www.warmingwords.org.uk/january.aspx

Thanet District Council Community Information Portal has one event listed for January, see http://communityportal.thanet.gov.uk/home/

Visit Thanet while slightly better than the others shows only on event for Ramsgate for the whole of January comparing this with the amount of events listed in the local papers local papers, it seems that something has gone radically wrong with the way the council tourist information is ensuring that local events appear on the internet.

Below is one days listings of events from one local paper.

Saturday January 7

Bradstow Mill, Broadstairs, JEDWOOD

Port and Anchor, Ramsgate, EYELASH GUILT

Britannia, Margate, BARKIN’ MAD

Wrotham Arms, Broadstairs, STEVE MORRISON

Birchington United Services Club, Station Road, Birchington, OUTCOME

Margate Museum, Old Town Hall, Market Place, Margate, A GEORGIAN CHRISTMAS, 11am-5pm

Ramsgate Sports Centre, ROLLER DISCO, family session from 6-7.30pm, 8 years and upwards from 8-9.30pm

Club Caprice, Cliff Terrace, Cliftonville, DJ MASTER G, 8pm until late, chart, R & B etc

Harbour Street Bar, Ramsgate, KARAOKE

Revolution Skate Park, Dane Valley Road, St Peters, BEGINNERS CLIMBING CLUB, 5-6.30pm, 01843 866707/866706

Staffordshire Street Car Park, Ramsgate, MARKET

The Albert, Ramsgate, DISCO WITH DJ BLACK ICE, 8pm until late

The Pride of Ramsgate, Turner Street, GAY NIGHT CLUB, 10pm-3am

TDCCOM1860 ref supplied 10.01.2012

Best regards Michael

 Their response


In a message dated 25/01/2012 08:22:36 GMT Standard Time, *******@Thanet.gov.uk writes:

Dear Mr Child

Customer Feedback Reference:33343/1962152
Regarding Firework displays over the Christmas and New Year period.

Thank you for your recent communication which was received on 11/01/2012.

The council’s main website, www.thanet.gov.uk offers community groups and event organisers the facility to publish information about events, and these websites rely on this information being generated and published.

The warming words website is a literacy project and only features literacy based events. However, events have not been updated for January as there have been no events organised.

Unfortunately, the Council and Visit Thanet were not informed about the fireworks event in Ramsgate which took place and this is why this event wasn’t published on our websites.

The fireworks event in Broadstairs was not published because the decision to cancel the event was taken over the Christmas period and the council’s offices were closed.

We hope that this resolves the matter to your satisfaction.

If you are not happy with our response, you may write to us with your reasons within the next ten working days, requesting a further review. 

In order for us to respond as efficiently as possible, please ensure that you quote the above reference number and address your communication to Amanda Buckingham - Customer Feedback Co-ordinator, Business Services.

Yours sincerely

**** ***
Corporate Information and Improvement Manager

My reply to their response.

******, */****, I am requesting further review on this one.

At the moment we have three events information websites, all of which are using our limited council resources and none of them appear to be performing properly.

What I am trying to get you to do is to sort this issue out not excuse it, hopefully with one functional events website which shows the events that the various Thanet tourist information offices know about and the events that are sent to the council for inclusion, automatically or manually.

For the council’s main website homepage to be promoting only one church quiz in February one in March, a church tour in February and a gang show in March, as it is at the moment, is preposterous.     

I should point out here that a major exhibition of international significance, Turner and the Elements, opened in Margate this weekend.

To say that there are no literary events in January to put on the Warming Words website is equally preposterous, an example would be the Lemn Sissay Poetry Projection, this involves poetry about fifty feet high being projected onto the building immediately opposite the tourist information office.

The failure to promote or to make any notification of the cancellation of the fireworks events also seems to be inexcusable, these are both significant annual events with council notification being mandatory. Unless of course you are saying that the Ramsgate event was held on council property without the council being notified.

In these times of public cuts I find it wholly unacceptable that the council should waste their limited funds on three separate events sites, none of which function properly in representing the events, that the tourist information officers are aware of, on the internet.     

Best regards Michael

Royal Sands Development Ramsgate, Pleasurama Cliff, is it Safe?

Once again this development has problems, a minor symptom here is that small bits of the cliff façade have been falling onto the site from above for some time.

You can see the problem in the picture above, click on it to enlarge and then click on it to enlarge some more.

This is a close up of the problem, this is not such a worrying problem – the bits falling off that is – as you may think, cliff safety to an extent is governed by the laws of chance, there really isn’t another economic way of dealing with the problem.

We overcome this problem by having signs saying don’t sit under the cliff. Lets say for example we have a bit cliff where bits fall off about four times a year, there are 525600 minutes in a year, let us also say that the danger posed from a fall lasts for 15 seconds so that in the course of a year there is a minute where you could get hurt being under this bit of cliff.

You can see that the danger of getting hurt is relative to the time you spend under the bit of cliff, walk under it occasionally and the chances of being hurt are thousands to one. Sit under the cliff every day during the summer and you start to get to something like a 1 in 4 chance of being hit by a bit of falling cliff.

Build your house under the cliff, or start on a 4 year contract to work under the cliff and you can see that a serious problem emerges.

With the Pleasurama site we have a situation where parts of the cliff wall have visible problems and parts periodically drop off, in fact a classic do not sit under the cliff situation.

The bit in the pictures above with the masonry falling off is part of the old railway tunnel entrance, bridge and steps, built in the 1840s.

The picture above shows the fire brigade digging through the rubble looking people buried when part of this 1840s structure collapsed in 1967.

There are several factors that cause large collapses, one being building cliff walls as they hold back smaller falls until there is sufficient weight of chalk to cause the wall to fail.

Another factor is surfacing the top of the cliff, as when the surface cracks the rainwater is concentrated in one place, the crack, causing localised damage to the chalk below.
The main cause of cliff falls though is poor drainage of the surface above the cliff.

You can just see the edge of the cast iron drain grill in the bottom right hand corner of the picture above, the drain in question is completely full of earth and I had to push some of the weeds growing in it, out of the way to expose the grill for the photograph.

This is the same drain viewed from further away, unfortunately it is at the edge of the top of the cliff above the 1840s part of the cliff wall, in the photographs above.

The other bit of the cliff wall, that has problems that are visible, is at the other end of the Pleasurama site

You can see from the picture above that the bit of the cliff wall in the middle at least looks like a reasonable piece of civil engineering, it is a series of arches with an infill. It all slopes towards the cliff by the same amount, hasn’t got many cracks in it or weed growing out of it.

You can also see from the picture above that the other bit of the cliff wall, the bit I am concerned about that runs between the middle of the site and the lift is a bit of a mess.

It doesn’t have the look of being designed and is all different angles and shapes, jerry built is the term that comes to mind.

The picture above was taken this time last year and was one of a series that I sent the council then and that I believe was instrumental in getting the repairs to the repairs done.

The right hand of the two block panels in the picture above is the one that the council had replaced after they had sent about £1m on having most of the cliff wall repaired. This picture was taken before the repair to the repair and you can clearly see the vertical crack that was filled, painted and then opened up again.

The picture above shows the council’s contractor replacing the panel. The other thing that the council had done at this time was to remove the weeds. This is important as their roots damage the cliff wall even more.

The picture above shows the same two panels now, as you can see the weed growth on the left hand panel is appreciably worse, considering that all of the weeds were removed at the end of last year, around the time the panel on the right was replaced and I would say that the condition of this part of the cliff needs assessing.

The right hand panel is the new one and serves as a control in this instance.

Now we have a situation where work has started on the site and people are regularly working beneath the cliff wall.

I was, as some of you will know an engineer before I became a shop assistant and over the years I worked in engineering it was constantly drummed into me that safety was paramount.

I was also told that safety was everyone’s responsibility and so I felt obliged to report the situation on this site to the Health and Safety Executive.

On Monday I telephoned the HSE and asked them to go and have a look at the situation there as I thought aspects of it were potentially dangerous.

On Wednesday they phoned me up and told me that they had telephoned the council and Cardy Construction whose workers are on site and had been assured by both of them that the cliff was safe.

I am afraid at this point I became rather annoyed and I discussed the matter further with them.

I am also afraid that they assume that I am some sort of nutcase, who knows they may be right.

My point here though is that if someone reports something they consider may be dangerous to the HSE and asks them to go and investigate it, then instead telephoning the organisations reported as having something potentially dangerous and asking them if they thought it was dangerous, they perhaps ought to have considered some sort of alternative action.

There is always the possibility that possibility that the person phoning them wasn’t a nutcase.

Anyway after further discussion the HSE told me that Cardy Construction had also voiced concerns about the stability of the cliff with the council and that the council had assured them that there was nothing wrong with the cliff or the cliff wall.

Now either there is nothing wrong with the cliff wall or there isn’t, if there is there is a good chance that part of it will collapse once again, if there isn’t then it won’t.

There is a problem here though and that is the council’s consulting engineers, that is the engineers who do their cliff inspections, are the same engineers who supervised the £1m cliff wall repair, that is the repair that has already been repaired.

Over the years I have produced many blog posts and internet pages about the Pleasurama site and clicking on the links below should get you to them, for those of you in a hurry, but wanting to know more about what happened last year when I had a close look at the site and found the problems with the cliff wall, here is the link to that post http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/11/royal-sands-development-how-dangerous.html

Thanet District Council, don’t jump! Ramsgate’s beach hut revealed.

The picture above taken today (click on it to enlarge) shows our one and only new beach hut in use, the council officer sitting in it is being paid out of our council tax to stop people from jumping from the fish quay into the harbour.

What is wrong with this?

Firstly as you can clearly see in the picture someone is jumping into the harbour, from the fish quay, behind the hut.

Secondly they have put one young female council officer on her own in the beach hut, with no authority to enforce anyone from doing anything they want, the youf don’t seem to like being told not to do what they want to do, at the moment their reaction is limited giving her verbal abuse. My own opinion is that the person in most danger here is the council officer.

Thirdly the beach hut is facing away from the fish quay, so she can’t even see what is going on properly.

The proper solution here is to encourage our youf in this healthy activity by putting up a proper diving board supervised by a lifeguard and offer them proper training in the sport.

Now I come back to the problem of what to do when the council has evidently done something completely crazy, this young women is from one of the European countries Poland of Hungary I would guess from her accent, she is sitting in this hut in the middle of Ramsgate periodically having verbal abuse shouted at her, obscenities, threats and racial abuse.

This isn’t like the Thanet Pride thing yesterday, where accusing the council of homophobia appears to have the desired result i.e. getting the event publicised on the councils homepage. I say this as I also asked them to publicise Ramsgate Carnival in the same way and as they didn’t I can only assume that it was because I couldn’t accuse them of political incorrectness.

I am afraid that this one is one of those insane actions by our council that really annoys me, my take on it is that the council at some high officer or cabinet level has identified that there could be some council liability here if someone is injured jumping in the harbour.

I don’t think there is any sense of the council wishing to protect local people or the wouldn’t have put this officer in an invidious position, much more a case of that they have given someone and impossible job to cover their own backs.

Oh and a few pictures from the camera these are yesterday afternoon http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id5.htm these this morning before the fun fair had opened http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id6.htm and these this afternoon http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id8.htm

Royal Sands Development and Ramsgate cliff safety issues desperate measures.

I sent the following email of to the council officers in the TDC building control department this morning and am about to forward it to all the councillors, local MPs etc in the hope that someone will address the safety issues involved here.

I will ask the councillors et al for some response for publication here, as this is about the council’s attitude to public safety I am expecting some replies.

Hi ****, ***, ****, I don’t know how up to speed you are on this one, but would appreciate it if you could take a few moments to look at it and possibly even respond.

I made an foi request back on the 23.10.2009 and have had a response from **** **** which said that there was no intention to inspect the cliff façade behind the Pleasurama site until 2011, this lead me to make my own inspection, what else could I do?
Now having discovered a large bulge in the façade with a crack down the middle of it and sent the details of it to him, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/foi/id14.htm I would expect at the very least the area above the bulge to be cordoned off, while it is investigated, can you tell me as a matter of some urgency why this hasn’t happened?
I also made a complaint about the state of the cliff supporting the upper part of the Marina Esplanade incline see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/foi/id13.htm and have just added to this web page another picture showing the movement of one of the columns more clearly, can you tell me why a temporary weight limit hasn’t been imposed on the road there, while this is investigated?

Best regards Michael

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Royal Sands Development Ramsgate another years delay.

I have now been told officially by the council that work on the construction of the development won’t start until 2011.

This means once again I will be lobbying the councillors for temporary leisure and parking use of the site next summer.

I have had the same excuse that I had last year, that was the that the developer will need the site next year to lay pipework and groundworks, well it didn’t happen this year and even if it does next year it would seem unlikely that they will need the whole of the site for the whole of the summer.

The pipework also runs along much of Harbour Parade and I wouldn’t like to think that there will be no public access to Harbour Parade for the whole of the summer.

Finding information about the Royal Sands Development during the last month is a bit of a long story, it is as much a story about trying to extract information from Thanet District Council, as it is a story about the development’s arduous progress.

The most important part of my freedom of information requests and official complaint to the council relate to the weight limits on the eastcliff here in Ramsgate.

Put quite simply if I am wrong about this then I have made a fool of myself, but if I am right, as I fear I am, then lives are being put at risk now.

Not at some future date when the development is built but now, every time a coach full of people drives down the Marina Esplanade incline road and every time a maintenance or emergency vehicle drives onto the cliff top footpath above the site.

Progress so far is not good, my first request for a document has been answered with an explanation of a delay while the legal position is resolved, this seems to me to be quite reasonable and I am happy with its progress, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/foi/id3.htm

My second request has passed the date by which it should have been answered, I am uncertain what action I should take in this instance, I know what to do if I am refused the documents that I ask for, or told they don’t exist, but what to do when there is no reply eludes me, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/foi/id5.htm

My third request has resulted in a request for pictures from me, this is quite reasonable as I offered them within the text of the request. There is however a rather bizarre twist to these pictures as they are of something that doesn’t exist, namely the cliff façade foundations.

As the officer concerned is obviously giving some time and thought to this request, I have considerable hopes that some documents will come of it, after all one wouldn’t expect after a months delay and the return request for photographs to end in nothing, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/foi/id4.htm

Finally we come to my complaint, I have had a response and I have to say that I find aspects of it unsatisfactory, unfortunately this will probably mean raising my complaint to local government ombudsman level.

I am reluctant to do this, as I know it puts pressure on our already hard pressed council, but at the moment I see no alternative.

One area that I am most concerned about here is that the developer closed part of the public highway, without notification and it would seem from the council’s response without gaining permission from the council to do so.

Why this concerns me so much is that it would appear that the developer seems to feel that they are above the law, the information I have is that acting in the way they did is illegal.

Obviously the hoardings that they erected illegally are not permanent and as such not crucially important, what worries me though is that with this being such a large and significant development, with so many questionable aspects that starting in this way may set a trend.

One problem for me here is that on the one hand there is no planning agreement because this is a council owned property. You have to appreciate that if the site was owned by anyone else, one would be mandatory and it would have to be in the public domain. While on the other hand having opted out of this important document because it is a council owned site, the council then say that they have no obligation to provide basic information about the development.

This really is a case of they can’t have it both ways, by that I mean that if they are going to treat the development as though the developer owns the site and not the council then there should be a development agreement.

Obviously the answer that they won’t actually start to build anything until 2011 leaves me petty much speechless.

Last year when the five year period that the planning permission was valid for expired, I was told that as the access road had been started within the period the planning permission stood in perpetuity, I was concerned that the developers main interest was to keep the site undeveloped, while retaining the option to use it for as long as it pleased them.

Essentially having fixed a price for the site with the council, they could then wait for the value of the site to rise to a point where the development was viable, despite the problems associated with building between an unsupported chalk cliff with stability problems and a history of collapses and on the foreshore, in a way that was against environment agency’s strong recommendations.

In many respects we would have been protected from this by the performance bond, which formed part of the original development agreement and that the council agreed to relinquish.

Here is the link to the council’s response to my complaint http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/foi/id6.htm

Thanet District Council’s Protocol on Blogging

Some of you will probably have noticed if you keep an eye on http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/ or regularly delve the TDC website that back on Thursday, 18th June there was an item about blogging on the standards committee meeting see http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/Published/C00000117/M00001611/$$$Agenda.doc.htm item 11. is a Draft Protocol on Blogging, it says “Report to follow” apparently it hasn’t followed yet, however councils are not noted for their speed of action so I will let that pass.

The “Minutes of the Standards Committee18 June 2009” have just appeared at http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/Published/C00000117/M00001611/$$$Minutes.doc.htm and here is what they have to say.

“R74 Draft Protocol on Blogging
The Monitoring Officer reported that a draft protocol was with Group Leaders. The protocol would be for guidance only. If a Councillor byeline is used on a blog then the code is engaged; so advice is required to blog within the Code of Conduct. A protocol will be produced after consultation with councillors.

Miriam Sarrafan reported that Harlow LA has produced a protocol which is in the public domain.

Resolved: the Monitoring Officer would report on progress at the next meeting in September.”

Anyway following the true Thanet spirit of plagiarism I suspect when they eventually appear there will be some similarities with what Harlow Council have produced, so here is what Harlow have to say, I should warn you that the following link takes you to a pdf file that may not agree with your computer’s digestion.

At http://www.harlow.gov.uk/pdf/communications%20protocol%20revised%20-%20item%209.pdf where they they say:

“2.4.4 Blogs
Staff are reminded that blogs are governed by the provisions of this protocol as they are any other medium of communication. Consequently any communication in work time regarding the Council or an individual’s role as an officer through the blog will be regarded as being a statement to the press or general public. Also Officers must consider whether any blog updated in a private capacity (that is in an Officer’s own time) contains information that could be considered to bring the Council (including Members and colleagues) into disrepute or divulging confidential information.

Members are entitled to maintain their own blogs and are responsible for their content. Any blog that is linked to the Council website must comply with the Council’s Code of Publicity Practice and media related legislation. During the purdah period prior to normal elections these blogs will be disconnected from the Council website. However at times of by-elections such connection may be retained depending on the individuals non-engagement in the election process. The blog author is responsible for ensuring compliance and for moderating comments posted on to the blog.”

I suppose my point here is that with the Labour group saying that this is a ploy to gag Labour councillors and the Conservative group saying it isn’t, why don’t they just publish the draft protocol on the internet so everyone knows where they stand.

Thanet District Council Complaint

I have raised my concerns about legal aspects of the planning consent bond and financing of the Pleasurama development as a formal complaint to Thanet District Council. Click here to read it. It almost seems that they prefer to answerer questions via the complaints procedure than in the normal way.

The problem though is that all this sort of thing costs so much, most of the information that people want could easily be put online where people could access it, the documentation that relates to this large development can hardly be a secret, the value of the bond is already in the public domain, the relevant documents should be published with the plans.

While I was submitting my complaint online I noticed that the complaint about webcasting council meetings that I submitted on 19th Feb. doesn’t appear in the list of complaints on the councils website, so it would appear that the council are massaging their complaints figures.

One way or another I am determined that Ramsgate doesn’t get another five years of deserted building site while the developer, architect and contractor mess around submitting more plans that are not compliant with Environment Agency advice on fundamental safety issues.

TDCTV

I have been making some progress with the issue of making the videos of council meetings available on the internet. My concern here is that the council may be trying to cloud the issue with live streaming council meetings, this would be both very expensive and far less useful than a library of council meetings that we could access when convenient.

As this is an official complaint a fair amount of correspondence is developing click here should you wish to read it.

Complaint to the council about webcatsing council meetings

I have just made the following complaint using TDCs online complaints form.

“This complaint is that TDC are both failing in transparency of government and failing to use facilities to enable transparency in government, which have already paid for by the taxpayer and installed. By this I mean the failure to webcast council meetings.

I brought this matter to Richard Samuels’s attention back in October of last year and apart from vague promises to address the issue, there has been no actual discernable progress.

I also pointed out that Kent TV paid for by the taxpayer, hosts webcasts for nothing, and as the council meetings are already filmed and put onto dvd, the dvds could be sent to Kent TV by post for hosting at a negligible cost to the taxpayer.

I will forward this to the LGO with any comment you have made tomorrow.”

Ed. I should point out that I am very reluctant to make official complaints and try to explore every other avenue first, I should also like to point out that I have discussed this matter with several councillors of both parties and that all of those who replied were for the idea.

Complaining to Thanet District Council update

When communicating with council officers one is sometimes reminded of surrealism, perhaps it’s me, what do you think?

Subject:
Re: Complaint against Thanet District Council
Date:
02/09/2008 13:21:54 GMT Standard Time
From:
Michael Child
Reply To:
To:
richard.samuel@thanet.gov.uk

Hi Richard

Thanks for your letter (below) received today, unfortunately it doesn't actually address my complaint.

Can I reiterate that my complaint is: Thanet District Council has chosen to restrict access to comments on the UKPlanning website, that is on the public facing part of the website only.

As I have pointed out before I can't complain about which documents are missing until the public access restrictions are lifted, as I can't see what is missing.

I have just looked at the planning website and public access is still restricted, why?




Mr M Child
72 King Street
Ramsgate
Kent
0Th 8NY
Our ref: RS/vwYour ref:Date: 29 August 2008Call Direct (01843) 577002


Richard Samuel
Chief Executive

Direct line:
01843 577002
thanet
district council

Thank you for your email of 15th August indicating that you wished me to review the Councils responses to your complaint.

Your complaint was that the Council had in the past chosen to not provide full functionality on the UK planning portal in that certain documents are not automatically available on line.

I regret that the senior officers who took the original decision some 6 or 7 years ago are no longer employed by the Council so it has not been possible to verify the precise details of the discussions and options considered at the time. I am therefore unable to determine whether the decision was taken for financial or technical reasons. However I can concede that access to the UK planning portal on Thanet planning applications is limited to some degree. I believe that better on line facilities are possible to achieve and we are working towards that objective. I have instructed all services to move towards full electronic data management of their activities and a programme of work is in development to achieve this aim. I am pleased to say that the planning service is at the forefront of the programme as we recognise the importance of this service to the public.

Having made my comments above I must point out that full public access is and always has been available on all planning records at all times and the Council fully complies with the law in this regard. There is no legal requirement to provide electronic access to planning records although it is of course good practice to do so. I do not consider therefore that the Council’s approach is created any disadvantage to you or any other resident as the records you were interested in have always been open to inspection by you. I do accept however that you may have been inconvenienced.

I have confirmed to you that it is my intention to ensure in due course that members of the public should be able to view all planning documents whether current or historic via the Council’s web site. The Council will however offer a service to residents who do not have access to the internet and a facility to view electronic files will be available at Thanet Gateway Plus.

I am grateful to you for highlighting this matter and I hope you now understand that it was already the Council’s intention to move in the direction you have suggested to improve our service.

Yours sincerely

Richard Samuel Chief Executive


Click here for some of the previous correspondence

Complaining to Thanet District Council

Back at the beginning of June I complained to the council that they had restricted access to some documents, that I knew to be in the public domain, on their planning website.

I also attached a letter to this complaint explaining that once they had removed this restriction so that I could see all the documents that were there, I would further complain if any of the documents in the planning folder were missing, as obviously I couldn’t complain before I could see everything that was there.

I am coming to the conclusion that the council are delaying dealing with this complaint for some reason, and as the China Gateway application was the one I was trying to view, I am becoming concerned that this relates in some way to the unseemly haste the application appears to be coming before full council.

There is a lot of correspondence about this with the council, so I have only published the most recent, as it is emails you have to read the bottom one first and work your way up click here to read it