A painting of Tesco Extra from Sainsbury’s at Westwood Cross Thanet and some thoughts.

Here is the painting of Tesco’s

and here the photo for any budding art critics.

An ocean of coloured gravel seems to be developing between Sainsbury’s and WC, with my children shopping in the one and me painting in the other I wondered if they would ever make it back.

Anyway in the end they were guided back by the Belisha Beacons.

Strangely there has been no sign on the pwc report on Manston due by the end of the month; perhaps they are working on it over the weekend.

Mamas and Papas are the latest shop to announce they are leaving the increasingly Titanic WC, perhaps given a little more time I may get a better view while the members of the fairer sex in my family engage in shopping. 

A new site has appeared which is endeavouring to get some idea of the proportion of people for and against the airport, vote at 
http://manstongrounded.com/ and results at https://twitter.com/manstongrounded  I should point out there that having voted you get an email that you have to click on to confirm your vote. In some cases this email takes several hours to appear of winds up in your spam folder.  

From a blogging point of view it's pretty much a case of no nes is good news today, I will endeavor to ramble on here if i think of anything else to say 

Arlington House Tesco High Court Challenge Fails.

Here is the story in The Gazette http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Arlington-House-Tesco-gets-ahead/story-20315373-detail/story.html

The pictures are the only artist’s impressions I know of and may not be exactly what will be built.

I have mixed feelings about this one as I had hoped that as the most iconic piece of modern architecture apart from perhaps the Turner Contemporary Arlington house would be protected and Tesco or any other developer would have to build in the same Brutalist style as the rest of the structure.

The Tesco Horse Burger situation

A quick cartoon sketch related to the Tesco horse, meat in their burgers story, my apologies but I couldn’t resist, as a shopkeeper seeing another retail business in the horseradish, particularly a very big one is something I find funny.

Acer et ad plamae per se cursurus honores, Si tamen horteris fortius ibit equus.

Hopefully none of the leather bindings in my bookshop are horse, but how would one know? 

Ah and here is a link to the Tesco Equestrian Range 

Arlington House Listed Building Status, turned down by English Heritage

Like it or hate it Arlington House is a significant piece of architecture representative of its time and as it is likely to be with us for some time then listed status would have had some advantages.

I know the picture above is extreme but in this instance I think it saves me some words to convey where I am coming from.

I guess listed status would have been difficult for some powerful and wealthy organisations, however I am sure this wouldn’t have influenced the English Heritage decision.      

This link takes you to the English Heritage report http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop412/id9.htm

New Tesco in Ramsgate High Street

I was a bit surprised to see this licensing notice on 19 Ramsgate High Street, click on it to enlarge it, the application appears to relate to 19 St Lawrence High Street and the shop doesn’t look big enough even for the smallest Tesco.

One of the problems here is Thanet District Council seems to naturally default to secrecy when it comes to publishing documents online, so that licensing applications are not published on their website.

Could it possibly be a mistake where either TDC or Tesco are confused about local geography, is it some sort of hoax, this seems unlikely as I don’t think people for the most part read these notices, apart from perhaps to find out why the shop has just closed, which is why I read it.      

Arlington House Margate, Tesco planning decision today

Update the planning committee have voted to send this to full council for decision.  

This application comes back to Thanet District Council’s planning committee for decision today.

Frankly this is a Margate issue and not something that I really understand, there is a certain amount of background information that some people may have missed, so here it is.

Dreamland Trust’s response to TDC ‘independent’ heritage report

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/arlington/id4.htm

Arlington House Residents Association letter to councillors

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/arlington/id3.htm

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIETY email to the council

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/arlington/index.htm

Personally my take on this is as a heritage issue, there is a sense that the council may be under pressure to make a decision before English Heritage has had time to assess whether Arlington House should be granted listed status. 

Tesco, Thanet District Council and The Isle of Thanet Gazette a view from the unaccredited media

Being part of the unaccredited media and feeling vaguely like the oppressed press, I duly went out and bought a copy of the Soaraway Isle of Thanet Gazette as our local soaraway councillor calls it.

The papers website has gone totally bananas, all their Thanet feeds seem to have died and their Thanet articles now appear in different places with no links to earlier articles about the same subject. I sometimes wonder if large organisations can make a sensible decision at all.

As you will all know, I, being unaccredited, no longer get the council press releases and as my computer seems to have a similar problems to the even bigger one at Goggle, to which my one is but “shallow thought” and not worthy to……., I don’t seem to be getting all the council’s press releases via RSS.

 Anyway my understanding is that the council have passed the plans for the Tesco at Arlington House by their usual majority 1, see http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Arlington-House-plans-met-anger/story-12788690-detail/story.html and http://www.thanet.gov.uk/news/latest_press_releases/arlington_planning_decision.aspx

Then things get really confusing as according to the Gazette there is already anew Tesco in Margate with traffic problems, see

http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Motorists-moved-PCSO/story-12788631-detail/story.html

The story starts:

“MOTORISTS illegally parking on zigzag lines outside a new Tesco were caught red-handed after a tip-off to the Isle of Thanet Gazette.”

Then goes on to say:

In just 45 minutes PCSO supervisor Andy Howe, 43, caught nine motorists parking illegally outside the store in Hereson Road, Margate.”

I think someone here may need breathalysing, perhaps me, as I thought Hereson Road is in Ramsgate.

Then it goes on to say:

He [PCSO supervisor Andy Howe] said: "I've spoken to management at Tesco and we are trying to figure out a long-term fix. My suggestion is Tesco pay for the removal of the zebra crossing and put in a traffic island to make a safe place to cross and slow traffic down. Hereson school is not here any more."

Is this just me again or wasn’t the School site, at the other end of Cecilia Road to the traffic lights, bought by St Ethelberts Infants and Junior School, perhaps the police see younger children as needing a zebra crossing even less, being. What? Expendable.

The pictures are courtesy of Thanet district Council and relate to a time before I was blacklisted.

Is the New Margate Tesco Going to be Brutal Enough?

Having bunged the council’s latest press release up on the Thanet Press Release blog at http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2011/02/plans-in-for-new-superstore-in-margate.html earlier, I have just had a chance to read the thing properly.

This was one of the very few occasions that the council also sent me the pictures that go with the press release. I can’t tell really, but it always seems when this happens there has been some sort of mistake and that they intended to withhold them. Pity really as the mixture of the pictures that they get sent by architects of new proposals and the excellent photographs the council take themselves appear to end up where us lot, the people who pay for them, never get to see them.

In terms of the brutalist movement in architecture Arlington House was thought in its time to be something a bit special, I think prizes were involved, possibly a bit of a gherkin in its day.

Anyway looking at the picture above, courtesy TDC what is being proposed looks like something out the 90s shopping mall school of architecture and I wondered if anyone else thought it out of keeping with Arlington House.
I have always thought that there was something Clockwork Orangeish about Arlington House, somewhere to take the devochka, better not go into that one, anyway I have to say that I am a bit disappointed.

Thanet Tesco and the human environment and a bit of a ramble

In Thanet at the moment there are plans for two new Tesco stores, one in Margate, the subject of some controversy on several of the other Thanet blogs and one in Ramsgate where Busy B’s is in Hereson Road.

The one in Margate needs planning permission, however I doubt that that will be an obstacle, as the one in Ramsgate is going into an existing shop building it only needs planning permission for ancillaries, like signs and air-conditioning fans.

The strangest aspect of this though is the parking in this area, this part of Hereson Road already has a school in it, very dense and often dangerous on street parking and frankly no available extra parking at all.

Anyway from my point of view here the main question is what are Tesco up to, here in Ramsgate they have a history of causing damage to the town, both architectural and commercial, so my feelings about their latest projects are filled with scepticism.

Back in about 1970 they built what was then the largest supermarket in Ramsgate (the building is now Wilkinsons) this along with the other supermarkets did considerable damage to the town, closing butchers, bakers, fishmongers and the small specialist shops that thrived among the more essential town centre shops.

Because of this Ramsgate town centre started to contract, what happened next was the movements of the supermarkets out of town, something that eventually closed down most of Tesco’s rival supermarkets in the town.

Sometime around about fifteen years ago Ramsgate town centre hit an all time low, two of the biggest multiples, Tesco and Marks & Spencer, moved out and I believe the feeling within the guiding management of the big multiples was that the town was ill enough to be left to die.

From the large multiples point of view, what they would like to achieve is to have all of the advantages the wholesaler and the retailer. By this I mean they would really like to trade in huge out of town industrial units and have the retail customers drive to these central distribution units. This had been largely successful in America where small town centres and the associated communities have often been destroyed, with all of the associated environmental damage caused by people driving to get their shopping.

However some towns in the UK seem to have bucked this trend, Ramsgate is a case in point, the large retail units within the town are for the most part occupied and even a new greengrocer and fishmonger has opened.

Margate as a trading centre seems to have collapsed and has moved into a state that appears to be beyond hope.

Now one has to consider Tesco’s strategy for dealing with the situation in both of these towns, in Margate this seems to be to try to create a new shopping centre away from the remains of the town centre, where Tesco control the parking.

Parking is a very big issue here as the more that can be achieved in terms of reducing and controlling the parking close to the town centre the more chance there is to force people out of town for their shopping. It should be noted here that one aspect of the new plans for Dreamland is to remove Margate’s largest car park.

In Ramsgate however they seem to be trying a different approach, that looks like a series of satellites stores in areas of high-density population in the suburbs of the town.

As I have said one needs to look carefully at the ultimate motives of the big chain retailers and remember that when you spend your money with them you are supporting their intent, which is to destroy your environment as a human being. Most of us have a habitat that is called a town, where that habitat is damaged, even to the point that it becomes uncomfortable or even dangerous to us our first though should be, who benefits?

Virtue alone remains and more Sunday ramblings.

I have heard that Tesco have bought Busy Bee’s shop in Ramsgate for one of their Metro stores, sounds like It will be a traffic and parking nightmare, it’s certainly a rather strange site as most people living in Ramsgate would have to pass several other convenience stores and supermarkets to get to it.

Nothing in the councils planning website so of course I may be wrong.

The hands have gone from the Montefiore Synagogue clock, this is not some randomised act of anti-Semitism I think but another case of stealing for scrap metal, like the brass band round the bandstand.

I did a post about this clock sometime ago here’s the link http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/09/ramsgate-in-clockwork-of-synagogue.html another case of now you see it now you don’t here in Ramsgate.

A few thoughts on the pictures they have closed the public footpath through the grounds of the synagogue, I arrived at large wooden board where a gate once was, it is always a bit strange when one is prevented from going where one has always gone before.

The Ostend Spirit was entering the harbour as I was walking along the cliff top, quite a tight fit and I would think fairly difficult in bad weather.

Much boarding down Marina Road I suppose had I been in a different mood I could have called the post look no hands crunch no teeth, although frankly I still consider driving coaches down this structure to far more dangerous than boarding down it.

Here is the link to the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/310/id21.htm

I have just noticed that my automated publishing program has muddled up the order the pictures published in, I will apologise for it, I have a horrible feeling that it wont be long before my computer starts apologising, with all the insincerity of a machine.

I will add some more and some pictures and ramble on a bit more if the opportunity presents itself.

Extra Tesco Extra

I see the council have approved plans for an extra 2,842 sqm of retail sales and storage at the Margate Road Tesco.

The Agenda and Draft Minutes Planning Committee Meeting Wednesday, 18th March, 2009 7.00 pm, have just appeared on the TDC websiteclick on the link for them http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=1165

The planning application ref is F/TH/08/1468 click on the link to go to the planning site http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet

My own thoughts here is that the continued expansion of out of town shopping is destroying the fabric of our society, I also think that we ought to be addressing at national government level the problem that travelling for every shopping and leisure facility is becoming les and less environmentally sustainable.

Huge shops with huge car parks have to be a bad idea there must come a point where large companies have to take a more responsible attitude.

Tesco rip-off

One of the problems when dealing with big companies is one often comes up against a total lack of common sense.

Tesco is one of the firms I normally boycott because of the damage they have done to Ramsgate both by building a hideous supermarket in the town, which caused a lot of small shops to close and then by closing and decamping out of town, once again damaging our town centre.

As a family we spend about £10,000 a year on shopping that we deliberately don’t do there and as over the years this builds up, my contention is that every little helps.

With the bookshop and the children it’s very difficult for us to go anywhere over Christmas so the rest of the family come to us, and it’s a large family.

We always have Tunis Cake at Christmas which none of the shops in Ramsgate sell so my wife ordered four from Tesco online, she also ordered tomato ketchup value £1.92 which we happened to be out of.

A cheery Tesco delivery man arrived today with the ketchup and said they were out of Tunis Cake but not to worry about the £6 delivery charge, he said just phone them and they are bound to see that it’s a stupid mistake and refund the delivery charge.

In the end they offered a £3 refund, one lives and learns.

Reflections from the book trade.

I was saddened to hear that Albion Bookshops in Broadstairs and Cliftonville are to close, this doesn’t effect Albion secondhand bookshop in Broadstairs which will remain open.

It has been said that for a town to be a proper town it has to have a bookshop, for me theatre, library, butcher, baker, grocer, green grocer, fishmonger and so on are all essential, however with the interminable yellow lines and the rising value of real estate and hence shop rents, the future doesn’t look very promising.

With bookshops there is another factor, it’s fairly complicated but I will bore you all with it anyway. In the UK we had a thing called the net book agreement, this meant that the publisher fixed the price of a book and it was illegal to sell the book new under that price. What this meant was that a supermarket couldn’t buy huge quantities of the new Harry Potter and sell it cheaper than the bookshops. This meant that the bookshops, an arts facility, didn’t need to be subsidised like other arts facilities because of the profits from mass-market bestsellers.

The overheads of bookshops were relatively low and the discounts to bookshops about 35% off of retail so that in the case of a book selling for £10 the bookseller got £3.50 the author £1 and the publisher £5.50 the overall effect of this was that books in the UK were the cheapest in the world.

The supermarkets and the big chain bookshops managed to end the net book agreement by saying that price fixing was unfair to the customer, so now most books are bought from publishers by a few very powerful retail chains that expect a minimum discount of 60% so with the same £10 book selling through Amazon Waterstones Tesco and so on the bookseller gets £6 The author £1 and the publisher £3.
Publishers have resolved this by increasing the price of books in real terms so that now apart from the promotional titles where the big chain retailer reduces their profit cut, books in the UK are now amongst the most expensive in the world.