Manston deadline extended, Isle of Thanet Gazette and Council Lease Clive Hart at daggers over council trashing community skate park, a Friday Ramble.

While on the one hand Gatwick are starting the process of getting another runway here in Thanet Unite, the trade union representing 40 staff at the airport and members of staff there who have come up with their own business plans to save the airport from closure have been granted a stay of execution.

The airport owners say that they will extend the consultation period until the end of the month and promise to give ten days notice when the close the airport.

On to the council, I never know where to start on this one, how a Labour led council could trash a community built youth facility in Cliftonville takes a bit of explaining.

Here is the link to the petition about Little Oasis Skate Park https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-little-oasis-diy-skate-park

The rumour on the street (which I think is unlikely) is that the council’s chief executive is negotiating a severance package, probably another six figure sum out of the council tax.

The council have apparently now appointed the independent expert to have a look at The Royal Sands foundations on the Pleasurama site in Ramsgate (let’s hope he looks at the structural integrity of the sea defence that hold the sand in place that the foundations sit on) and prepare the works schedule, which should lead to the termination of the development agreement with SFP Ventures.  

Once that is done the council can start the process of dissolving the site leaseholds and perhaps by about summer 2016 we could get the site cleared and put to some temporary leisure and parking use while permanent site use is considered.

I think it will have to be tarmaced  over as the salt spray down there means nothing much will grow there.

On the blog comment front I am now taking a tighter line on comments, I think that while on the one hand there are obviously some commentators with mental health problems on the other hand we now seem to have developed a group of people who seem to derive pleasure form baiting these disabled people.   

My take on this one is that comments where the information appears barmy and misleading get deleted out of hand as will those comments where the commentator appears to baiting someone they obviously consider to have mental health issues. 

Anyway my take is that this all goes in the bin with ageist, sexist, homophobic and racist comments.

On to The Race of the Classics 2014, The Tall Ships, this will evidently not now be coming to Ramsgate tomorrow as they are sailing towards Amsterdam, see

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3Drace%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bclassics%26safe%3Doff%26espv%3D210%26es_sm%3D93&rurl=translate.google.co.uk&sl=nl&u=http://www.rotc.nl/index.php/live&usg=ALkJrhgCuWCXlSBhEfwKPV4tdzqaQVUbTw

My guess would be this is because the wind is blowing the wrong way for Ramsgate. 

Needless to say I will ramble on here as I get the chance. 

Ferry Interesting but Stupid, a midweek ramble

Having read The Lawyers Tale in The Gazette, see http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Council-missed-Half-hour-window-impound/story-20494019-detail/story.html#axzz2rkF3MudT and noticing that our very own ECR seemed to be going along with it http://eastcliffrichard.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/spectacular-end-for-ostend-spirit.html I have to admit to having some reservations.

No one seems to have asked the obvious question. Which senior officers did the harbour master phone after Harvey failed to pick up. Which raises the question. Which senior officer or officers gave the OK for the ferry to sail. Which raises the further question. Why would thy do that? What would be the incentives for handing out our money in this way?

With the chief executive and the editor of The Gazette I am reminded of something from Alice in Wonderland here about the red queen and the black queen, did they have tea together before or after the Queen of Hearts started saying “off with his head”?

I wonder if when choosing a fall guy a lawyer is the best choice? Could this be expensive? 

Anyway this morning I phoned the council’s press department and put my thoughts to them. And yes they did say they had other enquiries along these lines. And yes I put my take on the situation to them and although they didn’t say much in reply, there wasn’t any of the usual “Michael you have got it completely wrongs” associated with my having got something completely wrong. 

So the answer from the council’s press office was that they would send me a written statement about this by email by 1pm. I will add it to this post when/if it arrives.

No statement from the council but this instead:

-----Original Message-----
From:**** ***** <*****@THANET.GOV.UK>
To: MichaelChild
Sent: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 17:07
Subject: Transeuropa statement

Hi Michael,

Apologies for not coming back to you until now. I’ll send you a copy of the minutes taken at the meeting once they are available which will probably be the most helpful way to address this.

Thanks

**** ****

WhatEver Happened to the Isle of Thanet Gazette?

Their website that is usually at www.thisiskent.co.uk/thanet seems to have gone, I asked Mr Google who usually seems to know where websites have moved to but he doesn’t know either, nor does Mrs Bing.

Can one lose a newspaper’s website on the internet, does this sort of thing happen to The Fun Loving Sun? I ask myself.

This is my fault really, I usually buy a copy on Fridays, but I forgot this week, I do sometimes and then I cheat by looking online.

The http://www.thisiskent.co.uk website has a section called “Where I Live” this lists Canterbury Cranbrook Faversham Rochester Sevenoaks Tonbridge Tunbridge Wells Whitstable and Crowborough. No sign of Thanet, perhaps we have vanished and not the newspaper.

Roger Gale Gags Gazette at Thanet College

Don’t quite know what this is all about, click on the link to read http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=195196673841254&id=130587156970738#!/pages/Isle-of-Thanet-Gazette/130587156970738 or click on the picture to enlarge.

I don’t really understand Facebook so I didn’t know how to link to this so it won’t vanish, hence the pageshot.

I think this may be about “Education Maintenance Allowance” EMA this is a payment made to students to help them stay in education that the government is abolishing.

£30 per week for those whose household income is under £20,817 p.a.;
£20 per week for those whose household income is between £20,818 and £25,521 p.a.;
£10 per week for those whose household income is between £25,522 and £30,810 p.a.

Understandably students are pretty annoyed about this.

Along the lines of you budget your life to do some sort of educational course and then the government remove all of your independent income, before the course is finished.

It just wasn’t a fair decision, if the government had cut their money in proportion with all the other cuts I don’t think this would have been unreasonable, but to take the group in society aged from 16 to 19 and remove their entire benefit seems just crass.

I can fully understand why Roger doesn’t want the press there when he tries to tackle the students questions about this.

One does wonder though about freedom of the press and democracy in Thanet it seems that Ken Gregory thinks that Hosni Mubarak has suffered some sort of injustice, that has caused him to resign.

Well what he actually says is “it seems that somewhat less than 7% of the made a fuss and the President was forced into exile.” See http://villagevoices.blogspot.com/2011/02/egyptian-democracy.html

After the rigging of the leadership consultation I suppose we should expect some of our local politicians to be concerned about press freedom and democracy. It’s certainly good to see Roger and Ken taking an interest.