On Tuesday and as I hadn’t heard anything further after hearing
that the customer feed back questions about Pleasurama would be dealt with
early last week I sent the council the email below.
From: michaelchild@aol.com [mailto:michaelchild@aol.com]
Sent: 30 June 2015 13:06
To: Edwina Crowley; cllr-Chris Wells;
casework@ico.gsi.gov.uk; TDC Customer Services; TDC FOI; Cllr-Helen Smith;
Cllr-John Townend; Cllr-Suzanne Brimm; Cllr-Hunter Stummer-Schmertzing;
Cllr-Lin Fairbrass
Subject: Re: Pleasurama update
Hi Edwina I think the 10 working days for the customer
feedback response must be up about now, sorry to be a pain but a reply would be
nice.
Best regards Michael
The reply I got said that there would be even more delays,
email below.
-----Original Message-----
From: Edwina Crowley
To: 'michaelchild@aol.com' ;
cllr-Chris Wells ; casework
; TDC Customer Services
; TDC FOI ;
Cllr-Helen Smith ; Cllr-John Townend
; Cllr-Suzanne Brimm
; Cllr-Hunter Stummer-Schmertzing
; Cllr-Lin Fairbrass
Sent: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 11:32
Subject: RE: Pleasurama update
Dear Mr Childs
We are preparing a press release to be published so that we
can keep members of the public fully informed of the current situation, this
will give details of the project timeline, contact information, an estimate of the business rates and
council tax income that will be received once it is developed and confirm again
the positive effect this development will have on the local economy. This should be on our web site early next
week and will give you more information.
In the meantime I answer your customer feedback questions below.
We will deal with all other requests through the FOI system
which will be returned to you direct, although I note that you have received
significant information before, so it will only be updates.
Regards
Edwina
To be honest my patience is running out on this one, so I bunged
off the reply below, redacted, for legal reasons;
From:
michaelchild
To: Edwina.Crowley
; cllr-Chris.Wells
; casework
; Customer.Services ;
FOI ; Cllr-Helen.Smith
; Cllr-John.Townend
; Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm
; Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing
; Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass
; mstannard
; lgo
Sent: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 16:44
Subject: Re: Pleasurama update
Thank you Edwina, I look forward
to reading the press release, latest doing the rounds on Facebook sic, we love
Ramsgate – was friends of Ramsgate seafront, is. “The overage payment of £***
is being paid to TDC minus the cost of Cardy doing the work on the Cliff Face.
As this point of payment the Freehold then changes hands and becomes Cardy's as
simultaneously they will have bought out SFP. So SFP will not be a Company
Registered at Companies House in the very near future..........or so we hope.”
Accurate rumour, something you
have already published, something leaked from the council, I don’t know, you
may wish to send mw any corrections so I can quash any unfounded rumours there.
On the foi front, I should like to
stress here that the complete list of the documents (part of my request) is important
to me, so I can draw a line at this point and not request documents that I have
already got, it also makes it much easier for me to review documents I have
been refused. I should like also to stress that I will not accept the refusal
of information based on the grounds that I am asking for an opinion, which
isn’t available under foi and should have been supplied as customer feedback.
Where
this puts me in a difficult situation is that your opinions on the Pleasurama
situation that you haven’t supplied within the 10 working days customer
feedback best practice, has now been shifted to a 20 working days foi response,
and in view of you previous email promising me you would deal with the customer
feedback aspect in a timely manner, I am now asking for a further review of the
customer feedback part of the request, as I will need this to take any issues
up with the LGO.
Best regards Michael
Anyway there is load more email correspondence related
to this I have pasted some of it below, and as it’s email the oldest is at the bottom.
From: michaelchild
To: michaelchild ;
cllr-Chris.Wells
CC: Cllr-John.Townend
; Cllr-Helen.Smith
; Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm
; Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing
; Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass
Sent: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 14:22
Subject: King Street Refuse Collection
To TDC Cabinet Members, open letter for publication on the
internet today, any replies of acknowledgments you care to make will also be
published in full without any editing, unless you expressly say "Not For
Publication" in the email subject field.
OK guys, it seems you don't want to say anything about
converting the ground floor of a shop in Ramsgate Town Centre to social
housing, and as your administration seems to be saying that you won't comment
on local issues, I can't actually tell if you are doing anything about it or
intend to do anything about it. I guess my only course now it to put in a
complaint to the council about it, which I will do.
One of the more peculiar actions of the previous Labour
administrations was to move the domestic rubbish collection here in King Street
Ramsgate, where I am trading, or at least trying to trade, from early on a
Tuesday morning (6 or 7 am) to around about lunchtime on Friday, which is
market day and theoretically the busiest trading day of the week.
Perhaps it was something I said to them and they hoped that
this sort of action would cause me to go bankrupt and therefore stop writing
them emails like this one and publishing their replies, if any, on the
internet. Possibly they had so much running on Margate succeeding, that they
thought anything they could do to damage Ramsgate town shopping centre, would
divert people to Margate and help regeneration there. Perhaps they were just
bonkers, what do you think?
Now one delight of housing people on the ground floor in a
street where the takeaways are licensed until 4am, is that people regurgitate
their kebabs and pizzas on your bedroom windows in the early hours of the morning,
or if they are very high on whatever the have drunk or taken, they occasional
put a brick through your window.
Strangely enough this results in the type of tenants that
have difficulty getting accommodation elsewhere and in tern, difficult to
believe I know, as the entrance to all of the apartments is on the ground
floor, soon the tenants upstairs decide, that what the tenants downstairs leave
in hall, means that they move out leaving the whole building full of people who
can't get accommodation elsewhere.
Something endemic in tenants who have difficulty getting
accommodation is that they don't bother to use their seagull proof rubbish
sacks, photos attached, before and after the street cleaners who keep clearing
it up (which means they can't clean up elsewhere in Ramsgate) the seagulls have
a different approach to the black sack full of half eaten convenience
food.
I guess if you are familiar with Ramsgate you know the joke
about nude buxom sculptures which adorn The Royal Victoria Pavilion. One night
they come to life and rush round the back into the darkness for the fulfilment
of their desirers, having stared - unable to move - at each other's fulsome and
unadorned bodies since 1904. A few grunts and an irate squawk are heard coming
from behind the Pav, followed by a voice saying. "OK, it's my turn. You
hold the seagull down and I'll do it, on it."
Anyway as the UKIP shop is further up the road, you may have
views on this one, perhaps one of the UKIP party members said something during
the previous Labour administration that they didn’t like or didn’t agree with
and this could be the reason.
So where are we going on this one guys, are you going to
send out some sort of signal that you will look into the matter or even do
something about it? Would it be better for me to bypass councillors altogether
and use the two weeks for a reply, customer feedback system, where experience
tells me that this will probably result in getting a response saying that it
will be dealt with as an foi request which takes a month?
I do see that there is an inherent danger in discussing
anything to do with seagulls, in case you say anything politically or
environmentally incorrect, or I guess just damnright rude.
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
http://www.thanetonline.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: michaelchild
To: cllr-Chris.Wells
CC: Cllr-John.Townend
; Cllr-Helen.Smith
; Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm
; Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing
; Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass
Sent: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 10:54
Subject: Re: Pleasurama update
Mornin Chris, I guess nothing would give me more pleasure
than a strong silent council with a decisive and reasonable plan, where we had
confidence that councillors had a real grip on local issues and were quietly
improving the situation.
My take is that this doesn’t appear to be happening, that
councillors in the successful councils around the uk are behaving like elected
representatives and not paid officers, particularly in terms of using social
media to communicate with the electorate.
So say looking on your facebook page, where I would expect
to find information about the new administration, links to other councillor's
social media and some idea of the direction the council is hoping to move in,
what I actually find is pictures of your gardening activities.
The point with my blog is that it already has a considerable
local readership and I have a very good history of deleting abusive, libellous
and spam comments there, so the situation where you say something and the
comment becomes abusive is overcome because I delete it and there is no.
"You have deleted my comment because you disagreed with it" etc for
you to deal with.
This makes it a useful tool for councillors in some
instances, particularly as councillors can send me information and I can
publish it, saying that the information came from a councillor, without naming
that councillor, which can take the personal conflicts out of the situation.
When I say that I am concerned that the councillors have
gone into hiding, this isn't because of you all going very quiet, so much as
the council's actions and inactions since the change of administration.
The demolition of a shop in the town centre, I would say is
an action that we can all see and send out a clear message.
With the airport, as you know I have long supported a
regional passenger airport at Manston, however building and airfreight hub and
aircraft scrap yard under the banner of saving the airport, is another matter
altogether.
My take is that where the previous Labour administration
really screwed up on this one, was not holding a public consultation, with the
results weighted towards TDC taxpayers. Even something simple like, do you
want; passenger airport - freight hub - scrapyard - housing - light industry,
would give the council some sort of mandate, to at least do their best, to do
what the electorate actually want.
With Pleasurama, it's the unexplained inaction that I think
is most damaging to the council. When you were in the Conservative cabinet the
conservative administration issued a press release recommending a flood risk
assessment be carried out. Now the foundations for the new development there
are resting on the old sand beach held in place by the 1860 council owned sea
defence (I have it in writing from the council's engineer that there is no
maintenance record for the sea defence). Obviously as the councils owns the sea
defence, you could get a reputable firm to do a flood risk assessment there,
you were a KCC councillor, so you know about doing this well or badly, when the
first Turner Centre model was washed away KCC called in the top firm in the
country, HR Wallingford to produce a decent flood risk assessment, why not use
them, doing so would immediately resolve half the Pleasurama safety issues.
Conversely if following a Labour administration you have
discovered that they have blown the kitty, then publicly announce that you are
endeavouring to transfer the sea defence to the Environment Agency, I guess
they would at least offer an opinion on it as the have already strongly
recommend the action be taken on this one see
http://michaelsbookshop.com/ea/id2.htm
Yours is the first UKIP council in the country, there is
really only one direction that councils can go in should they wish to be seen
as good in today's environment - openness, communication, transparency are the
watchwords.
It does occur to me that you could set up a leaders blog and
I could help you with the settings for dealing with adverse comment, so you
would have total control over it, obviously I would be happy to help with this
in any way I can, always the main problem though is either finding something to
post about every day, or a new picture, which isn't of your lunch or gardening
to accompany it, oh and of course dealing with the comment.
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
http://www.thanetonline.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: cllr-Chris Wells <
cllr-Chris.Wells@THANET.GOV.UK>
To: michaelchild < michaelchild@aol.com>
CC: Cllr-John Townend <
Cllr-John.Townend@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Helen Smith <
Cllr-Helen.Smith@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Suzanne Brimm <
Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Hunter Stummer-Schmertzing <
Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Lin Fairbrass <
Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass@THANET.GOV.UK>
Sent: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 23:24
Subject: Re: Pleasurama update
Dear Michael
You are right, the old ways of enmity and traded favours are
indeed history. And that of course includes the access your good self had to
information from Councillors who popped into your shop for a cup of tea, or
wanted you to push a particular line in your blog.
You will hear answers when everyone else does, and not by
other means.
Regards
Chris Wells
Sent from my iPad
On 30 Jun 2015, at 18:48, " michaelchild@aol.com"
< michaelchild@aol.com> wrote:
John, pardon me querying this, but I am just checking that
your reply was intended for publication, as I pretty sure Pleasurama comes
under your portfolio.
I will be frank here, when UKIP was first elected I thought
that finally the old TDC history of enmities and favours had been broken.
I became slightly worried when you elected Chris Wells as
leader, partly because he was a member of the Ezekiel cabinet, partly because
he appears in The Gazette bankruptcy listing which I use in my business to
check potential creditors
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/L-60774-1991026 and partly because of his poor attendance record.
Anyway I held back on this issue to see how the council
progressed, I guess my main measurement of this was to see how the shop
opposite mine progressed, as before the election Trevor Shonk was saying that
this particularly piece Orwellian Labour lunacy would be resolved by the new
UKIP administration if they got into power.
I guess you know that under the Labour administration the
council purchased the largest and only empty shop in an otherwise fully let
shopping parade which includes Ramsgate’s highest ranking restaurant on
Tripadvisor, and is opposite the newly opened microbrewery pub. It is very
close to the main shopping car park and the only substantial town centre car park
that most women will use, the multi-storey smells of urine and certainly none
of the women in my family would use it.
We expected a farmers market, but the council gave
themselves planning consent to turn all of it into social housing, including
bedrooms on the ground floor, with windows facing onto the pavement, in a town
centre street where the same council have licensed the takeaways until 4am.
It’s hard to say if the Labour council most disliked
Ramsgate or the people they intend to house there, I asked both Liz and David
Green to speak against it at the planning committee, but they refused so I
assumed it was a done deal.
Now the demolition continues there a pace and I haven’t seen
Trevor recently, so I don’t know if anything is going on.
On Friday I opened the paper and was initially please to see
that Chris Wells had a column there, until I discovered that it was about KCC
the council that he failed to get elected to.
We have now reached such a point of silence from the
councillors that I am beginning to wonder what, if anything is going on, when
the main local employer Discovery Park recently held a presentation, there
didn’t seem to be any representation from councillors, and it seems that the
main priority is to engage in buying the airport using the cpo process, so that
an American company fronted by a solicitor who was struck off for
misappropriating clients funds, can build an airfreight hub we can’t fly from.
I guess that I should thank you as the only cabinet member
who responded to my email, but frankly it just doesn’t inspire confidence that
that our new councillors have done anything more than gone into hiding in case
one of them should say anything politically incorrect.
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
http://www.thanetonline.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: Cllr-John Townend <
Cllr-John.Townend@THANET.GOV.UK>
To: michaelchild < michaelchild@aol.com>
CC: cllr-Chris Wells < cllr-Chris.Wells@THANET.GOV.UK>;
Cllr-Helen Smith < Cllr-Helen.Smith@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Suzanne Brimm
< Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Hunter Stummer-Schmertzing <
Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Lin Fairbrass <
Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass@THANET.GOV.UK>
Sent: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 16:52
Subject: Re: Pleasurama update
Michael
I am in receipt of your email and will follow this up with
Edwina Crowley.
Regards
John Townend
Sent from my iPad
On 30 Jun 2015, at 13:46, " michaelchild@aol.com"
< michaelchild@aol.com> wrote:
To all TDC cabinet members, I am just wondering what is
going on here, in the past council emails for publication on my blog, which
gets about 1,000 reads a day that were CCd to cabinet members always elicited
numerous responses from cabinet members, some for publication and some marked
as not for publication.
Obviously this is a reasonable request about a significant
local issue that is the result of various failings by previous administrations,
so I am wondering why I haven't heard anything from any of you
Could you at least kindly acknowledge the receipt of this
email so I can be sure your email accounts are actually working?
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
http://www.thanetonline.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: michaelchild < michaelchild@aol.com>
To: Edwina.Crowley < Edwina.Crowley@THANET.GOV.UK>;
cllr-Chris.Wells < cllr-Chris.Wells@THANET.GOV.UK>; casework < casework@ico.gsi.gov.uk>;
Customer.Services < Customer.Services@THANET.GOV.UK>; FOI <
FOI@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Helen.Smith <
Cllr-Helen.Smith@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-John.Townend <
Cllr-John.Townend@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm <
Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing <
Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass <
Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass@THANET.GOV.UK>
Sent: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:06
Subject: Re: Pleasurama update
Hi Edwina I think the 10 working days for the customer
feedback response must be up about now, sorry to be a pain but a reply would be
nice.
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
http://www.thanetonline.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: Edwina Crowley < Edwina.Crowley@THANET.GOV.UK>
To: ' michaelchild@aol.com' < michaelchild@aol.com>;
cllr-Chris Wells < cllr-Chris.Wells@THANET.GOV.UK>; casework <
casework@ico.gsi.gov.uk>; TDC Customer Services <
Customer.Services@THANET.GOV.UK>; TDC FOI < FOI@THANET.GOV.UK>;
Cllr-Helen Smith < Cllr-Helen.Smith@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-John Townend
< Cllr-John.Townend@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Suzanne Brimm <
Cllr-Suzanne.Brimm@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Hunter Stummer-Schmertzing <
Cllr-Hunter.Stummer-Schmertzing@THANET.GOV.UK>; Cllr-Lin Fairbrass <
Cllr-Lin.Fairbrass@THANET.GOV.UK>
Sent: Wed, 17 Jun 2015 14:05
Subject: RE: Pleasurama update
Dear Mr Childs,
We confirm receipt of your email.
This request will be considered under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 and uploaded through our system to deal with this, we will provide a
response through this system to you within the 20 day period.
Im caught up most of this week but will respond on the other matters early next
week.
Regards
Edwina
Edwina Crowley MRICS
Head of Economic Development and Asset Management
Thanet District Council
PO Box 9, Cecil Street
Margate
Kent CT9 1XZ
Tel: 01843 577646
Mob: 07810 507140
From: michaelchild@aol.com [mailto:michaelchild@aol.com]
Sent: 17 June 2015 13:52
To: Edwina Crowley; cllr-Chris Wells;
casework@ico.gsi.gov.uk; TDC Customer Services; TDC FOI; Cllr-Helen Smith;
Cllr-John Townend; Cllr-Suzanne Brimm; Cllr-Hunter Stummer-Schmertzing;
Cllr-Lin Fairbrass
Subject: Pleasurama update
Hi Edwina, please ensure I receive conformation of your
receipt of this email today.
This email is a request for an update on the situation with
the Pleasurama development in Ramsgate, as I don’t know what the current
situation is apart from there having been no activity on the site, when I guess
activity was expected, it will have to be a fairly general request.
Under foi legislation:
1 Could you please send me any documents relating to the
Pleasurama development that have become available since you last email below?
2 As I don’t know what documents have been withheld from me
and why and what documents would be available to me if I knew what to ask for,
could you please send me a complete list of the Pleasurama Royal Sands
documents that the council have on file?
As a customer feedback request:
1 Could you please explain to me the councils opinion as to
where we stand with this project, especially: a Is it perceived as being on
schedule, b Is it perceived as deliverable, c Is it perceived as economically
and environmentally viable.
2 With reference to your statement in the email below,
relating to ongoing cliff façade maintenance for the life of the development
"and the access is considered satisfactory for maintenance purposes."
Is this based on any concrete information e.g. survey or engineers report? I am
particularly concerned here about the council's liability to maintain this
structure for what is likely to a period of around 100 years i.e. the life of
the development and whether the council would have some form of redress if it
proved impossible or prohibitively expensive to maintain the cliff façade from
the three metre gap below. As we know from the 2005 engineers report a tower
crane can't be used from above.
3 With reference to your statement in the email below:
"We are currently considering the recent report, and are planning other
investigations but have not completed these yet which is why you have no
information on them." Is there any progress and have there been other
investigations?
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: Edwina Crowley
To: 'Michael Child' ;
iris.johnston ; cllr-Elizabeth Green
CC: TDC Customer Services
; cllr-David Green
; cllr-Simon Moores
; cllr-Richard Everitt ;
cllr-Mike Harrison ; Paul Cook
; Ged Lucas ;
Steven Boyle
Sent: Fri, 6 Feb 2015 16:45
Subject: RE: customer feedback request
Dear Mr Childs,
I understand I missed your call but understand that you are
asking for a response in connection with your email below.
We have sent you all the reports we have in connection with
the cliff wall. We are currently
considering the recent report, and are planning other investigations but have
not completed these yet which is why you have no information on them.
I don’t have anything further to add at this stage, it is
all work in progress and there really is nothing new to report.
Regards
Edwina
Edwina Crowley MRICS
Head of Economic Development and Asset Management
Thanet District Council
PO Box 9, Cecil Street
Margate
Kent CT9 1XZ
Tel: 01843 577646
Mob: 07810 507140
From: Michael Child
[mailto:michaelchild@aol.com]
Sent: 26 January 2015 14:36
To: Edwina Crowley; iris.johnston@btinternet.com;
cllr-Elizabeth Green
Cc: TDC Customer Services; cllr-David Green; cllr-Simon
Moores; cllr-Richard Everitt; cllr-Mike Harrison; Paul Cook; Ged Lucas
Subject: Re: customer feedback request
Hi Edwina
Thank you for the report you sent me.
I am sorry to say I am not entirely happy with your response
and am therefore seeking a further review.
With respect to the flood risk, three factors have occurred
since planning consent, one is that Ramsgate sands have become significantly
denuded greatly reducing the protection to the 1860 sea defence fronting the
site, the second being the change from pile bored foundations to the
development to pad foundations on sand held in place by the sea defence and
third the EA letterhttp://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ea/id2.htm
I does occur to me that I could make economic sense for the
council to have an independent fra made of the area as it is the council and
not the developer that liable for maintaining the sea defence. The company
usually used by local authorities for this is http://www.hrwallingford.com/
they did the fra for Turner Contemporary.
When I spoke to you on the telephone you told me that there
would be a seismic survey and I haven’t received the results of this from
you.
You also said that this would be an independent survey,
however what you sent me is a survey by East Kent Engineering Partnership,
essentially the same council officers who signed off the main repair contract
that has proved to have been faulty. [Coating badly applied, significant panel
failure within a couple of months of the contract ending]
I also note that the report you have sent me seems to be
saying by omission, inasmuch as it describes the condition of the foundations
for the arched part of the façade, that the foundations for the portal part of
the façade shown on the design drawings do not in fact exist in reality and
this would appear to need underpinning.
There are several other significant and observable issues
that the report has omitted covering, these include the surface of the cliff
top above the brick and render part of the façade, the foundation of the
centre balustrade the brick and render part of the façade which has been
exposed and appears to be on made ground and in need of underpinning.
Can you please confirm the position regarding an independent
structural engineers report on the condition of the cliff façade?
My understanding is that Cardy Construction commissioned an
independent report when they started work on the foundations back in 2009/10
and that this report resulted in site workers examining the façade for
movement prior to starting work each day for signs of movement, can you please
send me a copy of this report and any other reports on the cliff that I
haven’t got?
All of the reports I have got are published here in a series
of linked pages links at the top http://thanetonline.com/cliff/
Your point that the gap between the development of the cliff
façade (4 metres) is sufficient to allow for maintained of the cliff façade
for the life of the development is “considered satisfactory†requires
further clarification.
Can you please send me the report stating how much space is
need between the development and the cliff to allow for future maintenance of
the cliff façade?
Obviously during the expected life of the development [80 to
100 years] parts of the façade will have to be removed and replaced and the
cost of doing so is most likely to fall on the local authority. I assume that
the viability and cost of these repairs are a matter of public interest.
Your point on the withholding information for legal reasons,
can you please confirm that this would cover issues relating to the civil
engineering of the site infrastructure and the structural integrity of the
cliff façade?
Regards Michael.
On 20/01/2015 07:47, Edwina Crowley wrote:
Dear Michael,
Thank you for this, we have only just received the final
report back and it is attached for your information. Our Engineers are reviewing and will be taking action as
necessary.
The scheme has full planning permission to be built out,
there is no legal requirement to do a flood risk assessment, and the access is
considered satisfactory for maintenance purposes.
At present we are still undertaking a mediation process the
details cannot be shared due to legal reasons, however please rest assured that
we have informed the HSE of our negotiations and they will be kept informed and
asked to visit should the legal’s complete satisfactorily. We would also ensure a rigorous programme of
works that would take into account access and egress limitations and work with
the developer to ensure adequate flood risk protection.
I trust this answers your questions.
Regards
Edwina
Edwina Crowley MRICS
Head of Economic Development and Asset Management
Thanet District Council
PO Box 9, Cecil Street
Margate
Kent CT9 1XZ
Tel: 01843 577646
Mob: 07810 507140
From:
michaelchild@aol.com [mailto:michaelchild@aol.com]
Sent: 19 January 2015 19:33
To: iris.johnston@btinternet.com; cllr-Elizabeth Green
Cc: TDC Customer Services; Edwina Crowley; cllr-David Green;
cllr-Simon Moores; cllr-Richard Everitt; cllr-Mike Harrison; Paul Cook
Subject: Re: customer feedback request
Thanks Iris, I think the questions were simple, relevant and
as most of the cost of maintaining the infrastructure surrounding the
development is likely to fall to the council after is built need
answering.
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
http://www.thanetonline.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: Iris johnston
To: cllr-Elizabeth Green
CC: michaelchild
; TDC Customer
Services ; Edwina Crowley
; cllr-David Green
; cllr-Simon Moores
; cllr-Richard Everitt
; cllr-Mike Harrison
; Paul Cook
Sent: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 18:17
Subject: Re: customer feedback request
Thank you and sincere apologies Michael,
Liz thank you also for following up.
Please let me know why the delay.
Regards,
Iris
Sent from my iPad
On 19 Jan 2015, at 15:36, cllr-Elizabeth Green
wrote:
Hi Michael
Thanks for your email and I can promise you I will look into
this immediately and get back to you.
Kind regards
Liz
Sent from my iPad
On 19 Jan 2015, at 14:40, "michaelchild@aol.com"
wrote:
Ok chaps my patience has run out on this one, as you can see
the initial email on 15 th December 2014 was ccd to the information
commissioners office who confirmed they had received it.
Frankly now it doesn’t matter if you are treating it as a
foi request or the customer feedback request I originally asked for the time
has run out.
I am expecting confirmation of your receipt of this email
and some sort of definite time scale as to when a reply will be forthcoming by
return.
The alternative is the adverse publicity, which I know you
can do without and my taking up the request with the information commissioner
which wastes both your time and mine.
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
http://www.thanetonline.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: TDC Customer Services
To: michaelchild
Sent: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 11:03
Subject: RE: customer feedback request
Good morning
Thank you for your email. I have passed the details through
to Edwina Crowley for you today who will respond to you directly.
Kind regards
Customer Services
Thanet District Council
Telephone : 01843 577000
Fax: 01843 577593
www.thanet.gov.uk
email customer.services@thanet.gov.uk
From:
michaelchild@aol.com [mailto:michaelchild@aol.com]
Sent: 07 January 2015 14:39
To: TDC Customer Services
Subject: Fwd: customer feedback request
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
http://www.thanetonline.com/
-----Original Message-----
From: michaelchild
To: customer.services
; casework
Sent: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 11:37
Subject: customer feedback request
I am writing to you
for an update on the Pleasurama site, mainly as there is a certain amount of
rumour circulating on the internet.
There are four main areas of interest relating to the civil
engineering infrastructure of the project and updates on any of them would be
useful at this time.
1 The cliff façade condition survey; is there any progress
on this? And if there are any reports that are in the public domain can you
please send them to me by email?
2 The flood risk and structural integrity of the sea
defence, has any investigation been made into this? The latest information I
have on this that the EA strongly recommended a flood risk assessment. Mike
Humber emailed me telling me that the sea defence dated from 1860 and the
council while being responsible for the maintenance of the sea defence hold no
plans or maintenance record for it. This is particularly important now the
construction method has been changed from bored piles to pad foundations
sitting on sand held in place by the sea defence.
3 Cliff maintenance access, has any assessment been made to
ascertain if there is enough space between the proposed development and the
cliff façade to maintain the cliff façade for the life of the development?
Important as the various surveys of the façade describe it as having a short
serviceable life.
4 Road access, has any investigation been made into the psv
and hgv access for the development? Mostly this relates to the Marina Road
inclined viaduct, which as far as I can see from the plans is to be used for
psv and hgv access for the development, once the development is built, despite
KCC signing it as unsuitable for construction hgvs.
Please note I have also sent the above directly to Edwina
Crowley.
Best regards Michael
Websites
http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/
http://www.thanetonline.com/
Just remembered and added this picture from 1968
