I try to sketch Neil Gaiman, Manston, the council, the leader's resignation, another fine mess we seem to be in ans some old local photos.

Well the leader's fallen on his wosisname, the fumes of cars and vapes drift into the bookshop and I wonder once again what on earth to write.

I honestly don't think Chris Wells did that badly as leader of our UKIP council, his big success is that we are now leaving the E.U. and his big failure was saving Manston Airport. Obviously neither of these things which our UKIP councillors stood on and got elected on are something the council could achieve. Although there are still people saying "the king is dead, long live the airport." 

In the previous post I asked who people would like for leader of the council, given that this person has to be chosen from the existing councillors, I didn't get a list of names despite linking the post to most of the popular local Facebook groups. 

Me well I think the only thing we have left to try with our council is the elected leader system, a sort of mini version of what London has with its mayor, not a ceremonial mayor eating big dinners and opening fetes but a political elected one running the council. 

Lets try some old local pictures next to relive the wosisname, well politics is a bit boring for some people. 

 I do love it when there is writing to decode on the back of a postcard form over 100 years ago, don't you?

 On the picture front I have gone back to painting pictures of authors from their photos on https://www.fantasticfiction.com/ I haven't tried to paint likenesses of faces from the screen photos for some time and there is a sense where this type of painting isn't like riding a bicycle - once you have done it, what? O yes you can. Anyway it's partly because of this that I choose authors, I figure they understand the pitfalls of creativity and will be more forgiving. 

Gaimanish? perhaps 

On the airport front I keep getting the old justify your comments comments on Facebook - as though I have the time to write the same stuff over and over. 

I wonder whether it would really be the answer - to kill off a lot of the local oaps that is, would certainly help with the housing crisis, what do you think? 

Here is one reply from today, from me:-

"I suppose the people who would be most likely to suffer mostly in terms of death and dementia would be oaps in the Thanet towns, so if you don’t fall into that bracket you haven’t got that much to worry about. The other category fairly hardly hit would be students in the two schools that are listed buildings and therefore almost impossible to insulate in terms of sound.  

This isn’t something that RiverOak/rsp disagree with, if you care to read their 2018 PEIR document it is pretty detailed on the subject.

In terms of documentary proof the IRAC EHO 2013 study involving 312,944 people in nine European countries revealed that there was no safe level of particulates and that for every increase of 10 μg/m3 in PM10, the lung cancer rate rose 22%. The smaller PM2.5 were particularly deadly, with a 36% increase in lung cancer per 10 μg/m3 as it can penetrate deeper into the lungs.

When it comes to airports the main study was done by the University of Southern California and showed that the particles from the fuel burn travelled further than was previously thought. I have added a picture from the study for your consideration.

I haven’t put lots of links to the evidence in as you have google and can look for yourself, from my point of view the research showing the connection between particulates and dementia is the most worrying and at the main sources are gas central heating, diesel and jet engines it does seem to fit with the time framework.

However like asbestos in schools and hospitals, I don’t believe this will result in a reduction in the amount of travel, but the research into alternative fuels for jet engines isn’t going well.

I think perhaps the issue with Manston is that in order to qualify for a DCO the freight hub has to be seen as a new project starting from an airport capacity of zero and while you can have something that you know is killing people and take action to mitigate this. Building a new airfreight facility upwind of a large concentration of people, particularly where the onshore breeze is likely to hold the pollution in the densely populated part around the coast seem a bit like building a new hospital or school out of asbestos.

For comparison the amount of fuel burnt unfiltered and without a catalytic converter on the ground at Manston for one freight movement would be significantly more that that burnt driving a family car three times around the equator."

This was to a sort of you're making it up comment, which was partly a quote from RSPs own documents which say something along the lines of- we will go off and see how many people and airfreight hub will kill and how many it will drive around the bend. 

On the bookshop front, here is the link to today's post Only restocking the local books that sold on Saturday I'm afraid, I know I should try harder, but you know how it is. 

And yes I am going to try to paint more authors, but this time only authors I have read a fair amount of, I can't paint them from life, but I sort of thought that the influence of having read their books would - well if not shine through, at least make the process of painting from a photo, which I don't like much, a bit more interesting all round. 

The whole business of painting people as opposed to buildings, I don't do natural history, trees, bunnies and stuff as it isn't my bag, give me architecture and people any day, I'm just not interested much in the other stuff.

I sent off the following email about the council:-

"From: michaelchild
To: sajid.javid.mp
Sent: Mon, 19 Feb 2018 16:34
Subject: Thanet District Council

Hi Sajid.

You may have noticed our council here in Thanet is in a state of leaderless disarray, the leader having stepped down and as the opportunity for a vote of no confidence didn't occur it points to a poisoned chalice situation. 

I wonder if you would consider changing Thanet to an elected leader constitution so us voters could have a go at electing a leader rather the councillors putting up a councillor into a no overall majority situation with a rejected local plan, in fact a horrible mess.

Perhaps it isn't in you gift, if not, any solutions gratefully accepted.

Best regards Michael
http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.co.uk/ Pictures of books going out on the shelves in my bookshop

http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/ My general pictures and writing 

Due to the nature of Clown Computing this email has been sent to you from some sort of fruit, it may make you more comfortable to know the following:- If it makes sense, it was sent by my PineApple Device, which has an ordinary keyboard. If it contains random wrong words, it was sent by my RaspBerry Device, which has predictive text and a small screen that I can’t always see properly. If it makes no sense whatsoever, it was sent by my new BaNana Device, with which I develop the persona of a chimpanzee and hit keys randomly hoping it will produce the works of Shakespeare, or at least something coherent."

The problem there is I don't think it is in his power to do this and I don't fancy some unelected civil servant - I'm sure they would do a very good job, save the airport get a good deal with the EU, but it's the principle of the thing - democracy being bad but considered to be the best there is.    

Where we go from here though I don't really know, I do know that our council has issues, one of the main ones being that a lot of good administratores don't want to work for it and officer morale is generally pretty low. I think the council has made a very poor job of the way they engage with local people online, especially social media, which they were very late in accepting had a place in the governing process.  

I am adding this link to the TDC response to the 2018 RSP consultation, lest I forget 

My own response focussed mostly on particulate air pollution as I think it is the most serious problem related to a large fuel burn at Manston 

Is Margate Harbour Arm coming apart? Why is the council press office telling a different story to Thanet Council Leader Chris Wells?

This is a bit of a strange one that begs the question, what's really going on? By this I mean has Chris Wells made up one story and the council officers made up another while in reality it was. What? A council balls up? Suggestions on a plate please.

Chris says The Waverley Paddle Steamer has dodgy insurance.

"Chris Wells said...

Perhaps I can help. It would appear that in previous years this vessel has been accepted in to Margate harbour without the necessary insurance or statutory requirements being fulfilled.

We have now made it clear to the operator the documentation and level of notice we require for them to berth in the harbour, none of this information has been provided, we have also offered them the use of Ramsgate Port at a reduced rate, but due to the nature of the vessel and the fact that it has two fixed paddles they would need a tug to manoeuvre, a cost they are not willing to incur.

October 07, 2015 6:28 p.m." (see his comment on http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/thanet-district-council-divert-tourists.html )

The council officers say that Margate Harbour Arm has got into such a bad state since The Waverley Paddle Steamer visited Margate last year that it would be dangerous to do so this year. 

" Hi Michael,

Please find our statement on this below:

The Harbour Arm at Margate is not in regular commercial use and unfortunately Waverley Excursion Ltd. did not allow sufficient time to notify us so that we could arrange the necessary works and processes to ensure a safe operation.

Waverley Excursions Ltd. was offered the use of Ramsgate Harbour, which could safely accommodate such a vessel; however the operator elected to coach their customers to join the vessel elsewhere.

The council is fully aware of the benefit that such vessels can bring to our district when the operation is appropriately managed to allow a safe entry and exit from the harbour. We are working with Waverley Excursions Ltd. to ensure that a safe process can be agreed to facilitate future use of the Margate Harbour Arm.

Many thanks,

**** *****

PR and Publicity Officer

Thanet District Council

PO Box 9 ¦ Cecil Street ¦ Margate ¦ Kent ¦ CT9 1XZ

Direct line: 01843 5770**

E-mail: *******@thanet.gov.uk

Visit our website – www.thanet.gov.uk

Follow us on Twitter – @ThanetCouncil 

Find us on Facebook – Thanet District Council" 

To be honest this is very like my experiences yesterday tying to buy a campervan, eg. the one on ebay is described as in good condition and nothing in the listing mentions the body of the thing being anything else. Having arranged insurance and turned up at the appointed time with the money the body is so rusty you can put your fingers through it, and yes it did have an MOT.    

 I have just checked the two fixed paddles business, as I am sure this couldn’t have been right and assumed all paddle steamers can reverse either set of paddles independently. I was also pretty sure that when we used to sail on her from Ramsgate no tug was used. She can indeed turn on her own axis and the paddles can be reversed independently.

Nethercourt Ward Ramsgate Residents Meet Nigel Farage and the TDC UKIP Candidates for the May Elections. Watch the Videos.

I guess this is the main local news item and as I have just finished work I am going to watch them, Thanks to Barry James for all the work involved in getting them onto YouTube.





Manston Airport Question at 17.30



The RiverOak question on this one at 17.30

Clive Hart Thanet District Council’s Leader Resigns, some further thoughts about this one.

First the why did he resign question. Well the last great fuss has been over the 1,000 houses planed on the disused bit of Manston Airport, as reported by the Gazette http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Plans-1-000-homes-Manston-airport-discussed/story-21083143-detail/story.html

My take here is that it really can’t have been this, it’s an old story and has been on the airport’s website since last July, see http://www.manstonairport.com/userfiles/files/planning/Airport-Commission/Manston-Airport-Response---Long-Term-Proposals-190713.pdf the relevant bit being:

“An Airport ‘Campus’ development sitting outside but adjacent to the Airport, potentially comprising: a mix of B1, B2 and B8 development of 1.0-1.5m sq ft, tertiary education facilities including an aviation/aerospace training academy, 2-3 hotels and possibly a modest conference/trade-hall/exhibition space and PFS; an integrated airport village incorporating a small village/campus centre of convenience shop units, a small ‘express’ style supermarket, pub, crèche, GP surgery/dentist and a combination of student accommodation – 500 units, 300 low cost houses for rent and 700 houses for sale; a factory outlet park offering up to 250,000 sq ft of units;”

I expect it has also been on the council website for all this time, but how anyone finds anything there is a mystery to me.

I guess it may be the EKO enquiry, cover-up attempt and so on.

I guess it could be all Ian Driver’s fault, which seem to be what Clive was saying on FaceBook.

It could the peer review.

It could be the independent standards committee.

I guess the next question is who next?

So what would I do if I was a member of either of the two main political groups.

Let’s start with the Conservatives, frankly I don’t think they have a cat in hells chance of getting one of their own elected as leader as the figures don’t stack up: There are 56 Councillors in total.   The political composition is:  26, Labour Group; 23 Conservative Group; 3, Independent Group; 2, Thanet Independent Group; and 2, UKIP.

This leaves something tactical, but what?

I think the answer here is for the Conservative Group to put up Will Scobie and vote for him, after all it would put Labour in a very difficult position and after Will had been leading TDC for a year I would guess that the Conservatives would have a reasonable chance of getting their candidate in at the general election.

Who will labour put up? Well the cabinet is made up of Clive Hart, Rick Everitt, Michelle Fenner, David Green, Iris Johnston and Alan Poole, Clive won’t be standing, so there are the probables.

I guess a big problem would be is there anyone who would either accept the existing chief executive or who would survive for any length of time if they did. I should point out here that the council’s leader doesn’t have to accept the chief executive and can select one from the other council officers.  

All this does really beg the question is there really any councillor at the council who is up to being leader and could get us out of this mess?

It further begs the question is there really any officer at the council who is up to being chief executive and could get us out of this mess?

Can the office for local government put a council into special measures and bring in some experts to sort the problem out.

There is of course the elected leader option, the council did hold a public consultation about this although they held it very secretly the few voters and local taxpayers who found it said unanimously that they would prefer to elect the leader themselves.

The pictures illustrating the post show what happens when someone opens the sluice gates too far.

Webwise the council seem to have just noticed that their leader has resigned and have put up a page on their website http://thanet.gov.uk/the-thanet-magazine/news-articles/2014/may/cllr-hart/ their communications team tweeted the resignation information at 4.50 pm, which seems to show how on the ball they are.    

I suppose that while on one hand the council goes on with the ordinary tasks of emptying the rubbish, sweeping the streets looking after the parks and public gardens and so on, on the other some peculiar detachment from reality has occurred.

It’s only about a week since the council’s solicitor and monitoring officer left under somewhat unusual circumstances, there has been no press release explaining this or how his replacement has been managed.

Then today the leader of the council resigns and the only press release the council issues is about an award they have won for Margate sea defence http://thanetpress.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/flood-defence-steps-capture-town-pride.html

It is as though at some level up the council officer ladder the officers have lost all sense of reality, all desire to communicate with the population they are supposed to serve and have gone into a clandestine conclave where they work out how they can maintain some sense of purpose divorced from normal reality.

I will endeavour to add to this post given time and a few more ideas.   

UKIP wins again and Ramsgate in the news

I am still wondering just what this means in terms of messages to local politicians, and yes there is an obvious message here to national government, a star aspect of which is European referendum or we just won’t vote for you.

Here are ward results for 2007

Election Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Martin Wise	Conservative Party	1381	24%	Elected
Brian Sullivan	Conservative Party	1240	22%	Elected
Sandy Ezekiel	Conservative Party	1225	21%	Elected
Sandy Hart	The Labour Party Candidate	574	10%	Not elected
Margaret Mary Main	The Labour Party Candidate	522	9%	Not elected
Patricia Moore	The Labour Party Candidate	452	8%	Not elected
Dennis Ernest Franklin	The Green Party	352	6%	Not elected

And for 2011

Election Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Sandy Ezekiel	Conservative Party Candidate	1187	18%	Elected
Martin Wise	Conservative Party	1165	18%	Elected
Brian Sullivan	Conservative Party Candidate	1155	18%	Elected
William Friend	Independent	601	9%	Not elected
Louise Friend	Independent	598	9%	Not elected
Elizabeth Poole	The Labour Party Candidate	515	8%	Not elected
Margaret Symonds	The Labour Party Candidate	490	8%	Not elected
Matthew Rowland Poole	The Labour Party Candidate	456	7%	Not elected
Timothy Peter Patrick Spencer	The Green Party	283	4%	Not elected

And for yesterday 2013

Rozanne Duncan	UKIP	699	41%	Elected
Wendy Chaplin	The Conservative Party Candidate	526	31%	Not elected
Alan Currie	Labour Party Candidate	352	20%	Not elected
Louise Elizabeth Oldfield	Independent	112	7%	Not elected
Seth Proctor	Liberal Democrat	32	2%	Not elected

2007

Con 67%

Lab  27%

Green 6%

2011

Con  54%

Lab 23%

Ind  18%

Green 4%

2013

UKIP 41%

Con 31%

Lab 20%

Ind 7%

Lib Den 2%         

This sort of maths is not my strong point, swings and voting trends and of course who came out worse.

One thing that interesting is Labour maintaining their share of the vote particularly if you take Louise Oldfield’s vote into account, it does look like most of the UKIP votes came from the 50% fall in Conservative votes.

Does this mean that the remaining Labour voters are broadly in favour of not having a referendum on Europe I wonder?  

It also makes on wonder about the Lib Dem position which is being presented as preventing the Conservatives form having a referendum on Europe.

I guess if there is one thing that politicians seem to want to do, it is to ignore the electorate, and although I am not so sure that the electorate would vote to come out of Europe, people seem to pretty much universally resent being promised a referendum on the matter and then not getting one.    

On a truly bizarre note and before I consider the Ramsgate Town Council results, Ramsgate is in the national news today, see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321841/Police-warn-girl-10-chalk-hopscotch-grid-pavement-outside-home-criminal-damage.html  or http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tenyearold-girl-warned-by-kent-police-that-hopscotch-lines-are-illegal-and-constitute-criminal-damage-claims-father-8610608.html

As someone who has children of around this age I encourage them to see police officers as being there to help them, a few recent experiences suggest that this may not be entirely the case. Although for me this has been incidences of the officers deal with adults in front of children and of course the general lack of policing where I live in the middle of Ramsgate. Our children are of course aware of the swearing, shouting and occasionally fighting drunks outside of where we live, that goes on until the early hours of the morning. I can well believe that police resources are diverted towards crimes like hopscotch.     

Here are the Ramsgate Town council results yesterday 2013 

Election Candidate	Party	Votes	%
Trevor Leslie Shonk	UKIP	224	40%	Elected
Scott Dumigan	Labour Party Candidate	217	39%	Not elected
Barbara Byne	The Conservative Party Candidate	94	17%	Not elected
Brian Urwin	Independent	22	4%	Not elected
Seth Proctor	Liberal Democrat	3	1%	Not elected

 

  Update: A Kent Police spokesperson said: "The officer concerned has been advised and accepted that it was wrong to advise the young girl that chalking a hopscotch grid was not criminal damage.

http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Officer-warned-Ramsgate-girl-hopscotch-lines/story-18948455-detail/story.html#axzz2SUtkkJEA

A ramble about art, shops, same sex marriage local politics

My attempts to paint Whistler’s mother, she is the one who has just let go of the young James Abbott McNeill’s pram, are still not going well.

  

I did also take some photographs during my day off yesterday, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop412/id14.htm

It was a shame to see the shop Time and Space has closed.

I guess like the others who didn’t attend the council meeting yesterday, I have tried to make some sense of it, on the one hand I received the ordinary press releases from the council, while on the other various reports are appearing on other blogs.

This is Thanet Life http://birchington.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/dark-and-unhappy-place.html it’s not far off two hysterical women have entered the chamber and want to stand as councillors. 

As far as I can make out there is some variance between the view on same sex marriage held by the national government and that held by some of our councillors.

I guess living in a first world country I have always expected it to be leading the way on equality issues and am frankly a bit nonplussed at the antics of these councillors. Obviously I can understand individuals of religious conviction who at some personal level view, see say women or homosexuals as inferior, and unsuitable to hold certain offices, but to bring this sort of prejudice forward as representative of their constituents is just frankly embarrassing.   

One wonders if one followed this through to a logical conclusion and the council were to debate other equal rites assumed in this country whether we would have councillors who would abstain or vote against them. I wonder where the line would be drawn, do we have councillors opposed or ambivalent to women voting, opposed to or ambivalent abolition of slavery, are there those who view homosexuality as a disease that needs curing or a crime requiring punishment?

The alternative to having equal marriage and we are talking here only about civil marriages, (the legislation proposed makes it illegal for religious organisations to be licensed for same sex marriages,) would be to have legal documentation that said civil partner or husband/wife on it. In other words we would have documentation, insurance forms, wills, employment documentation that specifically stated that people were homosexual or heterosexual.

I wonder how many of these individuals would want to live in a country where equality and human rights were behind ours and exactly how far historically they would wish to take this.

Considering that some people who enter politics of all parties have quite strong feelings about equality, I would think if the Conservative group continue along these lines there is a reasonable possibility that some of their number may cross the floor, the only thing I am really uncertain about is where they would cross to, because on this issue the only group that seem to be at odds with Conservative party policy is the Conservative group. Perhaps they will form the Conservative group, this rather begs the question, what would the existing Conservative group call themselves?    

I will ramble on as time affords.

The strange and peculiar story of Thanet District Council reorganisation

The council leaks information like some sort of giant sponge, both officers and councillors tend to be reluctant to say much about what really goes on in the council but somehow the information slowly leaks out.

One gets a sense of people desperately spinning plates to maintain or enhance their position. Despite all of this I am slowly forming the impression that the council – normally perceived as a bit dysfunctional – is reaching a point where it is unable to function properly at mid and higher management levels.

The main problem appears to emanate from government cuts, this has meant that some officers have been made redundant, some have left voluntarily due to the uncertainty of the stability of their continued employment and there are even some rumours of some being pushed rather than jumping ship in a way that could perhaps be contestable.

This means that some of the council departments are being run and staffed by officers on a temporary basis, with the added cloud hanging over them of uncertainties about the stability of their continued employment.

In many cases we are talking about officers with remuneration in the region of £1,000 per week or more, so what they are doing or not doing is costing us dear.

What appears to be happening is that important decisions, that are normally made at officer level, have often been postponed while departments wait to find out who will be running them and working in them.

There is a very real sense that officers don’t know where they stand and are just biding their time rather than achieving a properly run and efficient council, there is also a sense that some officers are having more in terms of work and responsibilities heaped on them that they could possibly cope with.

I am not sure how the new chief executive stands in all of this, nor do I understand how combining the position of chief executive and head of finance is supposed to work. My understanding is that a council chief executive should be the person with the innovative ideas and that the head of finance should complement this by applying the restraint of what is actually viable and affordable. This begs some questions about one person holding both posts.

I am also uncertain how other councils are coping with this situation and whether the situation is particularly bad here in Thanet, on thing is certain and that is that delays to making beneficial things happen locally and weak slow regulation of major local projects will cost us dear.

I am sending this one to the leader of the council and the chief executive the council in the form of an open letterof for any comments or corrections before I publish it at the end of the working day i.e. 5.30 pm. 

 This is what I said to them as well as sending the above:

“Hi Bob, Sue I am sending you the text of this blog post as a matter of courtesy before publishing it later today, please send me any comments or corrections for incorporation in the post.”

Here is the response to this post:

Dear Mr Child,

In response to your open letter sent to myself and the Leader today.

I am unable to respond to most of your comments as they lack any specific detail. 

The one specific issue you raise is regarding my combined role of Chief Executive and Chief Financial (S151) Officer. Prior to the restructure, an opinion was sought from the Council's External Auditors regarding combining these roles, who raised no objections and indeed there are other authorities where this combined role is currently working successfully.

I can tell you that the majority of the council restructure has been implemented successfully. There remain a couple of teams which have outstanding issues yet to be resolved due to changes in the circumstances in which their services are delivered but we expect these to be fully implemented within this calendar year.

In conclusion, we have not noticed any increase in formal complaints regarding any of the issues you have alluded to but would be pleased to address any specific complaints that you have through our formal complaints process.

Yours sincerely

Dr Sue McGonigal

Chief Executive & Chief Financial Officer

Thanet Election Special

Sitting on Westbrook beach yesterday I tried to read the Thanet Conservative Manifesto on my rather old mobile internet phone, this thing is known by my children as Dad’s RaspBerry and dates from when mobile internet was expensive and exclusive, all I got was a message saying “file type not supported”

This post is in an experimental stage at the moment, click on the image to enlarge it and you will notice the dog in the sky.

I will add to it once I have made sure I can read all three parties manifestos on my RaspBerry   

Conservative Manifesto 

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/411/id10.htm

Labour Manifesto

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/shop411/id3.htm

Liberal Democrat Manifesto

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/411/id8.htm 

List of candidates

http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2011/04/election-of-district-and-townparish.html

My postal voting form has now turned up and I am left with the problem that I have only had one flyer, that was from Gerry O’Donnell and spoken to two of the candidates, Gerry O’Donnell and David Green.

I am in the Eastcliff ward, run shop in the middle of it and have been asking everyone I know who lives in this ward if they know anything about any of the other candidates.

As a starting point local politicians who reply to reasonable questions about local issues get my vote.

Funny thing local democracy while all this is going on the real players in the game and the people who cost us the most are being switched around with no public input whatsoever. Richard Samuel replaced by Sue McGonigal, Brian White replaced by Glen Black and so on.

Even more ludicrous is the business of us electing the council leader, you will remember the council held what they called a public consultation about this and all the people who responded said they would rather elect a leader than have one chosen by one of the local political groups. The council decided they didn’t like this idea so didn’t even consider it. Well that’s public consultation for you. So ultimately I suppose the choice now is between Clive Hart and Bob Bayford.

I am usually pretty restrained about using names here but at the moment these names are all published elsewhere on the web.

What I am asking. Who? Myself really I suppose, is what are we engaging in here and why do so few people bother to vote, is it democracy? You can chose between these two leaders.

Obviously the election is going to be a pretty close run thing, suppose the balance of power is held by the independents, frankly with most of my candidates being unknowns and some of the independents being very well known, there is certainly a chance.

On the one day of the year when crucifying our leaders is in some of our minds, perhaps humanity need to do this sort of thing from time to time, I wonder if we should investigate some of our historical methods of leadership.

At some time before the conquest there has been a suggestion that it was the person who could pee furthest up the mast of a longship who was destined to rule.

This seemed to be a bit jumbled up with the best fighters, local lords often went out into the middle east to fight for a bit, it was the crusades then, perhaps now the grail could be substituted for the oil supply.

I think here in Thanet a local Knight, the prior or abbess of the local monastery, slowly moved to the prominent figures in the local trades guilds the burgers ruling, of course the bishop would have been involved too.

Foundations Found at Royal Sands Ramsgate Pleasurama. An Apology and Thanks from Me

It’s all too easy to publish to the internet, unless Conroy Maddox has been using your keyboard as I am sure all of the art lovers who attended the Turner Contemporary will understand.

Many thanks to the contractor Cardy Construction for chipping the chalk off of one of the foundations to a support pillar, that is part of the concrete structure of the arches, part of the Pleasurama cliff façade and sending me a picture.

I genuinely think that it is safe to walk on the cliff top footpath now, something I will be doing again.

Here is the picture and this is what they have to say about it.

“Dear Michael

As recently discussed please find the attached photograph of the exposed column foundation.  The location of concrete highlighted in red extending below the excavation level passed the dotted line would indicate the foundations are built as described within the historic drawings.  It would appear that the concrete was originally cast against chalk and not shuttered therefore causing the surface of the concrete to appear uneven.  We have washed the concrete off as much as possible and driven steel rods into the foundation which appears to be of sound construction.

Regards,
Michael”

This, like so many historical engineering puzzles, has a solution that probably involves practices that wouldn’t occur today.

What happened in this case was that having cut a slot about three feet wide and about three feet deep, going up the seventy foot high bare chalk cliff above, they got some poor chap to get in the bottom of the slot and dig a hole eight and a half feet deep in solid chalk.

I think this picture (I have put coloured lines on the original 1930s plan and sorry about the drawing of the bloke, my children are better at using MS Paint) explains what this is about.

Viewed from the side on.

The red line is the outline of the concrete pillar.

The green line the original line of the ground before the contractor dug out the ground next to the cliff about a fortnight ago.

The brown line about where they have dug the ground down to now.

The blue bit shows where the concrete block walls between the arches are.

Having solved one problem that is a mixture of industrial archaeology and civil engineering, like so many other things in life that leaves us with another problem and more questions.

Can anyone think of a way that they could have got the foundations in for the infill walls between the arches? The most they could be are nine inches thick, I think, not room enough for a man to get inside.

You can see from on the right hand side of Cardy’s photo that the virgin chalk seems to go right up to the bottom of the block wall.

Are there any foundations under the concrete block infills? If there are, do they extend down as far as the contractor has dug down? Are the concrete block infills tied to the pillars either side? In the simplest terms, is there a danger of block infill walls falling on the people working on the building site next to them?

I don’t know how far down you can dig a nine inch wide foundation trench in solid chalk with a shovel, but would doubt it is as far as the chalk has been dug down next to bottom of the block wall.

The pictures should all expand if you click on them.