Live animal exports return to Ramsgate on Monday.

Not a very auspicious start to Saturday morning, this is being reported on various internet news sites, here is The Gazette’s offering http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Live-exports-return-Ramsgate-port-Dover/story-20781653-detail/story.html   

I have to say I am surprised that Thanet District Council have issued no information about this, there is nothing on their website and as port operator one assumes they must have known about this.

One does wonder what the point of the council having a press department is if the don't keep local voters and taxpayers aware of significant things the council is involved in.  

My own feelings with Port Ramsgate, is that while the main channel crossings especially the Port of Dover are running below capacity and investing heavily in increasing their capacity, Ramsgate can’t compete economically as a port.

We are just in the wrong place geographically from the point of view of land and sea, on land Ramsgate can’t become a transport hub because three quarters of the land wheel is sea and on the sea the Goodwin Sands are between us and the closest part of Europe.

While Ramsgate leisure marina makes a healthy profit it doesn’t appear, looking at the convoluted accounts, that Port Ramsgate has ever made a profit.

Obviously if you sustain an open commercial port, which is doing no business, then if you get any business it will be both business that no one else wants and it will be loss making.

The real solution is to close Port Ramsgate and find a significant leisure use for the site. 

Live animal exports through Port Ramsgate

I have just put up Laura Sandys press release about today’s adjournment debate in parliament, see http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2011/10/outrageous-animal-exports-put-to.html

Ten days ago Thanet District Council promised to support the e-petition, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-15307905 but as yet there doesn’t seem to be anything about this on their website, something that seems a bit strange to me.

To sign the e-petition you need to go to http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/16024

I have just sent the following to Thanet District Council’s Chief Executive and the leader of the council.

Sue Bob this is an open letter relating to today’s blog post about live animal exports, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/10/live-animal-exports-through-port.html

Should you wish to reply I will publish your reply in full.

Could you please tell me if it is the council’s intention to support the e-petition http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/16024 on their website?

If the council intend to support this petition on their website can you tell answer the following questions.

When will the council do this?

Where on the councils website will they do this, will there be some significant notification on the council’s homepage?

Will the council be supporting this on their Facebook wall https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thanet-District-Council/83700846372?sk=wall ?

Will the council be using their twitter account http://twitter.com/#!/ThanetCouncil ?

Will the council be using their Youtube account http://www.youtube.com/user/ThanetCouncil ?

With today’s media interest and today’s adjournment debate will the council be responding to this on their various websites in any way?

Best regards Michael.

Anyway I suppose some of you may be wondering why I would bother to question the council’s leadership about this. I suppose the main reason was after hearing about the issue on the news this morning and then publishing Laura’s press release I though I would check the council’s position.

The press including the BBC certainly seem to be saying that the council voted to support the e-petition, the council’s minutes for the council meeting of 13^th October haven’t been published online yet and as the webcasting hasn’t happened due to technical reasons, I am taking the media reporting as accurate.

This is what the motion said:

"Council welcomes the setting up, by local people, of a Government e-petition which

calls on Parliament to reform laws regulating the export of live farm animals.

In light of this Council's public disapproval of the export of live animals from the port of

Ramsgate it is resolved that Council supports this Government e-petition and

a) publishes a link to this petition on its website

b) publishes a statement & press release on its website which encourages citizens of

Thanet and elsewhere to sign the Government e-petition."

I am pretty certain that the council had some mention of the live animal export issue on their homepage, but this seems to vanished. The council’s header banner is leading with “Advertise community events” which takes to a mysterious page http://communityportal.thanet.gov.uk/home/ a consultation that expires today, but nothing about the live animals. Perhaps the have secreted the promised link somewhere else on their various web places, I tried searching but no luck.

With this blog, as I have said before I am in a bit of difficult position, I feel that it is my duty on occasions to ask the council questions on behalf of the people who read it, as you may know I am not allowed to use the press department, a freedom of information request usually takes about a month, so this sort of open letter is the only option I can think of.  

Art Installation Animal Export Protest as The Turner Contemporary Margate gets Rodin’s Kiss.

I couldn't find a picture of Rodin turning up with his sculpture The Kiss so I have done a quick sketch.

I know the repositioning of the hand is an old joke in the art world, I am sorry I couldn’t resist it.


A bit of an overreaction from TDC I thought to about twenty people engaged in a peaceful protest, see http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2011/10/statement-on-live-animal-export-protest.html


I think the leaders comments that it is ok to protest in Ramsgate but not in Margate in case it effects business are open to some unfortunate interpretations. 

Here is some video footage of the protest

Live animals export petition

Click on the link to sign the petition http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/16024

Thanet District Council Meeting Tomorrow, Animal Exports, Airport, Webcasting, Standards.

It looks like this meeting will be covering a lot of issues and I will write something here later today about them if I get time.

The picture above is of a Ramsgate Council meeting, this presumably comes from a time when one was allowed to take pictures of council meetings.

First night flights, there are some night flights occurring around this point in time, my understanding is that these are to fly food to our troops in Afghanistan, I don’t think that anyone I know in Ramsgate objects to these flights.

But it does surprise me that the airport hasn’t taken advantage of this opertunity for positive publicity.

I don’t think the airport operator has any concept of taking the town of Ramsgate with them on anything at all, minor pr opportunities like announcing when the Red Arrows or some other interesting aircraft are likely to be flying over the town, so that residents have an opportunity to take a picture, seem to be something they have missed.

One of the noisest and most disruptive businesses in Ramsgate was the Sally Line and yet this business was well supported by Ramsgate residents. Infratil just don’t seem to have got the message and will fly a noisy plane at 7am on still Sunday morning low over the town when the obviously don’t need to or carry on endless low training flights over the town when they could obviously do this somewhere where hardly anyone lives. Well now the have got lot peoples backs up and they mostly have themselves to blame.

Night flights has become a party political issue, how daft can you get, well I suppose as flights over Ramsgate have even been a racist issue, anything goes.

Rumour is that there is Infratil are keen to sell Manston and that some other operators have been sniffing around, as Infratil lost £3m last year on their UK airport business this raises the interesting question of what anyone would pay for a business that loses that much a year. 


I suppose the only logical way forward for the airport is to expand the aspect of it that has been successful which mostly relates to aviation heritage, a base for air shows and short haul flights that don’t make much noise anyway.    

There will be a question for the leader I suppose like a mini PMQ, this is what it says:

“1.1       According to Council Procedure Rule 14, a Member of the Council may ask a Member of the Cabinet or the Chairman of any Committee or Sub-Committee, a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties or which affects the district, providing they have given at least five working days notice in writing of the question, limited to fifty words.

2.0       The Current Situation

2.1       On 4 July 2011, the Democratic Services & Scrutiny Manager received from Councillor Poole the following question addressed to Councillor Bayford:

2.2       “Substantial ERDF grants were given to a number of local businesses during the early 2000s, following a stringent process of selection.   Will you explain why, from 2003 onwards, there wasn’t an effective process to ensure the monies were spent according to the strict criteria used when the grants were agreed?”

I am not so sure what it means.

On to the business of webcasting council meetings, apparently at the moment it costs the council about £250 in staff costs to convert the DVD, that they already make, into the right file format and put it online.

Anyone who has ever put a dvd on Youtube will probably wonder if they paid an officer to sit there while the file converted and went up on the internet.

To me converting a video file means opening it in the right program and going off and doing something else while the computer gets on with the job and then coming back and finding the file in your Youtube account, clicking on upload and then going off and doing something else while it uploads.

When the idea was first suggested I told the council that if they sent me the dvd I would be happy to put it online for them, for nothing. The dvds get made anyway you understand.    

Then there is the live animal transport motion, this isn’t something you have to clean up with a shovel, but the following:

1.1.      Council Procedure Rule No. 16 governs the process for motions on notice being submitted to Council.  

1.2.1        The following motion on notice has been received from Councillor Fenner in accordance with the Council Procedure Rules:

“Council resolves to seek a legal opinion on whether TDC can lawfully ban the transportation of live farm animals from the Port of Ramsgate on the ground that they are ‘sentient beings’ and not ‘goods’.” 

Update, news of the council meeting is slowly filtering out, with Simon Moores rather bizarre tweet “After a very long day indeed, tonight's Council meeting was best viewed through the lens of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland'”

And this from the Labour group http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/711/id8.htm

Nothing from the council press and information department yet.    

Thanet District Council Issues New Statement on Live animal Exports From Ramsgate Harbour.

Here is the link http://www.thanet.gov.uk/news/latest_press_releases/animal_exports_legal_advice.aspx and here is the link to the legal advice http://www.thanet.gov.uk/pdf/84853%20Ramsgate%20Harbour%20Thanet%20District%20Council%20Advice%202306201.pdf

The point that they seem to have missed is any mention of the whether or not the council have an animal welfare policy and if it has what it says. I could foi them and would probably get an answer in about a month, does anyone else want to try?

I will write to some of the councillors and see if any of them reply.  

Live animal exports from Ramsgate response from Thanet District Council

The thing at the top of the picture above is not an animal as it may be a pig or a cow, possibly a pow, the animal at the bottom of the picture is probably a dog and therefore not allowed in Ramsgate Harbour.

I sent this query to the council:

Subject: the live animal export issue

Date: 18/05/2011 10:19:37 GMT Daylight Time

Hi ***** could you sort this one out soonest for me as if I have got it wrong then I think I ought to print a retraction, I think this is going to be very emotive issue and as you know I have a fairly high web presence, judging from the amount of comment recently possibly more than some of the local papers.

It relates to my blog post about the animal exports, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/05/import-and-export-of-live-animals.html 

Two councillors have commented publicly on the post and it think I recognise the comments of at least one other.

My questions relate to the repeal of harbour bylaw 44, if this had any relationship with the live animal export issue, if the proper procedures were followed in repealing it, if its repeal is completed, in fact any information you can give me that clarifies the issue.

There are some questions below, although as I don’t really fully understand the issue according to Ken Gregory and Simon Moores, so there may be other questions that I should have asked as well that would have helped clarify the issue.  

Did the bylaw cover the port or just the Royal harbour? Ken implies it didn’t.

Did any animal cargoes go through Ramsgate while the bylaw was in place?

Where did the proposal to repeal the bylaw come from?

Has the bylaw repeal process been completed?

I noted that the report recommending the repeal is dated the same date as the council meeting to decide if the bylaw repeal process was to be started, does this mean that the statutory notification period wasn’t followed correctly?

Probably whether the bylaw would have stopped live animal exports would only have been discovered when the council had instigated judicial action based on the bylaw to prevent live animal exports.

Not sure if you can expand on this one, possibly the export company has already successfully fought such an action, which is part of the reason for the repeal of the bylaw, as I said anything to expand on this would help.

Regards Michael.

Here is their reply:

Subject: Live animal exports from Ramsgate

Date: 20/05/2011 09:08:29 GMT Daylight Time

Hi Michael

We're aware that understandably there's been a lot of discussion on your site about the issue of live animal exports from Ramsgate, especially with reference to the repealing the byelaw at Ramsgate Harbour that bans dogs.

We're also aware that people have been keen to see a statement from the council and I'm happy to supply you with that, which hopefully clearly states the situation. As you will see, the repeal of the byelaw has no relation whatsoever to the commencement of live animal exports at the Port of Ramsgate:

"The byelaw has not yet been repealed, so the shipments taking place now are totally unrelated to that. The byelaw has nothing to do with livestock movements, as it was based on animals that could potentially transmit rabies. This is not the case with the livestock involved in the export.

Even if this was not the case, the byelaw is overridden by European law, adopted by Britain, guaranteeing free trade between member countries. As a result, the council is duty bound, as set out in law, to provide the Port of Ramsgate for the use of vessels for legal trade, including livestock movements."

This information will be appearing on our website shortly, as part of a series of frequently asked questions. I'd be grateful if you would also put this statement up on your site to set the record straight on this issue.

Regards,

*****

Press and Media Manager

Thanet District Council

www.thanet.gov.uk

This is Bylaw 44

PART VII - ANIMALS

44. (1) Save as hereinafter provided in paragraph (3) of the byelaw, no

person being in charge of an animal shall cause, permit or suffer

such animal to enter or remain in the harbour and, without

prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, no person shall take or

keep such animal on board, or land such animal from, any vessel

within the harbour.

(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1) of this byelaw, the owner of an

animal shall be deemed to be in charge thereof unless the owner shall

prove that, at the time the offence against this byelaw was committed,

the animal had been placed in or taken into the charge of some other

person.

(3) This byelaw shall not apply to the use by any constable, or member of

Her Majesty's Customs and Excise or any member of Her Majesty's

Armed Forces, of any dog or other animal in connection with the

detection of crime or the enforcement of the law.

This is my formal retraction of any misleading information I may have published about this issue. 

The import and export of live animals through Ramsgate Harbour

I did cover this recently in the comments and now the BBC have confirmed it I thought I ought to say a bit more about it.

A few weeks ago the council issued a seemingly innocuous press release saying that they were repealing the bylaw that prevented animals going into the harbour area.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that this seems to have opened the way for live animal imports and exports via Port Ramsgate.

Personally I am not at all keen on the business of transporting animals across Europe to the slaughterhouse.

However whatever your view on the subject, this will inevitably lead to animal rights protesters and although these people are probably not at the front of the queue when it comes to tipping paint over the leather jackets of Hells Angels, I suspect that they will see the small port of Ramsgate with its restricted access, either through the tunnel or along Military Parade as a softer target.

One is inclined to wonder what motivated the council to repeal such a useful bylaw.