Development at the arches, Granville Marina or Marina Esplanade Ramsgate.

The council planning committee turned this one down recently, it has been to the planning inspector for appeal, here is the link to their decision http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop212/id4.htm which was to allow the development to go ahead. 
 I didn’t oppose this development as I guess almost anything would be better than what is there now, I would have preferred something in the style of the original Granville Marina but planning in this country doesn’t work that way.

I do have some concerns about developing this site, one relates to the drain in the arch behind it. 

The other relates to the condition of the arched inclined viaduct behind it and access to this structure for maintenance.  

My understanding of the drain, which may be inaccurate, is that this is a mixed surface water and sewage pipe that comes down the cliff here and is connected to an emergency outfall pipe into the sea, this has a pressure relief valve on the seaward end that has a tendency to get stuck.

What is supposed to happen here is that in normal circumstances, the sewage and surface water is piped down the cliff, goes along the frontage of Granville Marina, through the Pleasurama site and along Harbour Parade. During heavy rainfall the system can’t cope with the flow of water and the pressure relief valve opens discharging the excess into the sea.

What appears to happen in practice is that when we have heavy rain the valve gets stuck and the force of sewage and water lifts the manhole cover, under one of the arches, in the picture. Harbour Parade also floods although this may be purely coincidental.      

The other problem is the structural integrity of the arched viaduct, this one is a bit complicated, but I will do my best to explain it, there may be some errors in this explanation as the local councils haven’t been very forthcoming in sharing information.  

Granville Marina was built by JT Wimperis in 1877 as a development of a beach resort for Edward Pugin's Granville Hotel. As originally devised, the development consisted of shops, houses, shell grottos, tea rooms and a 'wintergardens'.

The basic structure is in the form of an inclined brick arched viaduct against the chalk cliff, most of the original frontage was a timber framed façade, covering what is effectively a line of short tunnels in the front of the cliff.

The underlying problem here is that the structure wasn’t built for modern vehicles and has suffered various minor collapses over the years.    

The road on top of the viaduct is to be the main vehicle access to The Royal Sands development including the public service vehicle (bus) access.

My understanding is that after the big cliff collapse at the top of the incline in the 1960s, the then borough surveyor decided it wasn’t safe to allow traffic to go down the hill, because of the stresses cased by a line of vehicles breaking hard down the hill.

So this was turned into a one-way road, up hill only.

Normally an arched brick structure like this would be constructed with engineering bricks of uniform hardness and it would be easy to calculate the loads and stresses it could withstand.

The inclined arches on the waterfront of Ramsgate Harbour are a good example of this, these arches also have the advantage of concrete infill between the arches and under the road above.

The Granville Marina arches are made of Victorian house bricks with varying hardness’s and has a loose chalk infill.

There is no weight limit imposed on this structure at the moment, so it is perfectly legal to drive 38 tonne lorries up and down it.

Anyway I did some calculations and came to the conclusion that the point at which the structure would be likely to fail would be around ten tonnes per axel and pointed this out to KCCs engineer.

He responded to me that the structure was safe with no weigh limit on it, but wouldn’t tell me what he calculated the maximum axel weight to be, the safety margin he had used, or what program he had used to calculate it.

My main concern however is about the stresses cased by a train of vehicles travelling down the hill and having to brake hard in an emergency. The whole structure vibrates when one lorry does this.

Now we come to the planning references and the planning history of Granville Marina, the planning reference for this application is Planning ref F/TH/11/0244

Because of the peculiarities of the council’s planning website I can’t link to the application, you have to go to the planning website http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet and paste the application into the search box.

You can find the various planning applications for Granville Marina by doing an alphabetical street search on the same website, some are listed under Marina Esplanade and some under Granville Marina.    

 Anyway this is what this area used to look like. In case you are wondering the picture was taken from Ramsgate pier.

1Granville Marina when is a planning application not a planning application

Update on Plans for Marina Restaurant posted 25th October.

As this building is in an area designated as high flood risk and so I assumed a flood risk assessment would be mandatory I sought advice from TDC planning on the application.

“This is an application for listed building consent I assume there will also be an application for planning permission upon which the views of the Environment Agency will be required. I would expect they would require some form of flood risk assessment, which includes consideration of overtopping.”

It is I believe at this point that we should object on the grounds that the proposed rebuild and extension doesn’t retain the character and setting of the listed building.

I should remind anyone interested that it was part of a beach resort built by J T Wimperis in 1877 click here for a bit more info

Click here to enlarge the picture

Plans for Marina Restaurant

You probably remember back in February when we learnt that listed building status didn’t necessarily protect our buildings. Click here for my previous posts on the subject.

You can providing you have the right software view the new plans for it at http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet the planning reference is L/TH/08/1197

Alternatively I have published the main elevations click here to view them, I can’t give you a link to the plans on the TDC planning website, as it appears to have written to make it as difficult to use as possible. The photographs of the building have been published in the wrong file format, so that they are as good as useless, and us yes we pay for this.

Mock Victorian mock Elizabethan stuck to mock 50s with flying saucer on top, the architect like the designer of the planning website will probably get an award, perhaps it’s attributable to something in the water.

If they want to rebuild it bigger can we have it all in mock Victorian mock Elizabethan please?

It was one of Ramsgate’s most charming and eccentric buildings and I for one think it should be replaced not desecrated.

The King is Dead Long Live the King

22nd January 1936 the proclamation proclaiming King Edward 8 from top or old town hall, well that’s what it says on the back and I see no reason to disbelieve it.

I get the feeling looking at our local leaders in the picture that they were selected for being most able rather than most malleable, what do you think?

Looking at these people I suspect a developer wishing to asset strip Dreamland and Pleasurama for personal profit, or one wishing to build a sewage farm run by the
Chinese on top of our drinking water reservoir, would have met with some resistance.

It really is ridiculous you know, I live in one of the most beautiful towns in the world and here I am not discussing the improvements for this summer season with the council, but asking questions like:

How many people do the estimate will die of poisoning if a foreign lorry driver doesn’t realise that the drains in a lorry car park on an industrial estate leads not to the public sewer but to our drinking water supply?

How will the 1,500 people in the Pleasurama development escape if it collapses in the next tidal surge storm with the cliff behind and the storm in front?

How many fatalities would they estimate if several loaded busses brake at once in an emergency, on top of the frail old arches of the Marina Esplanade incline?

The Marina Esplanade

The Marina Esplanade was once an area of interesting Victorian buildings that complimented those above on the cliff most especially The Granville. From the Victorian railway (later to become Pleasurama) to the to the Marina Theatre and Electric Picture Palace (later to become Nero’s) the whole area had a special charm.

I returned to Ramsgate 20 years ago to open the bookshop and for some time I hade no dispute with the council or developers over the preservation of our heritage, until the day they decided to demolish the Marina Theatre. I found that my protests at loosing a significant Victorian building (significant both to the town the history of theatre and cinema) fell on deaf ears. I wonder if there are any plans to rebuild it, I am afraid the council performed this act of vandalism, so there won’t be any developer to force to pay for it.

The Victorian station that burnt down belonged to the council, was it insured? If so where did the insurance money go?

This area had then three major Victorian buildings of historical and architectural importance the station, theatre and restaurant, to lose one building may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness but to lose all three.
Click here for more historical detail and some pictures of the area.