Dreamland and the scenic Railway, The Bucket and Spade Run, Sketch of Westwood Cross from Sainsbury’s Café and ramble

I guess the main news of the day is that the restored Dreamland scenic railway won’t be ready for the grand opening.

The council's press release and notes at the bottom of the post as they are extensive.

The sketch of Westwood Cross should expand if clicked on and some of the detail may amuse some readers.

  

The main Thanet event this weekend will be The Bucket and Spade Run

Pictures of some previous bucket and spade runs at the links below

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/index.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/id3.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/id4.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/id5.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2011/id6.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id3.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id4.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id5.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id6.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/bs2010/id7.htm

Date: 05 June 2015 PR No: 3958 Status: For Immediate Release

NEWS RELEASE

Dreamland’s Scenic Railway Delayed

5 JUNE 2015:  Dreamland Margate, the UK’s original pleasure park will re-open its doors at 10am Friday 19 June 2015, marking phase one of the redevelopment of the park.
Although work to the timber-framed structure is near completion, the Scenic Railway will not open on 19 June due to continuing restoration to the trains.
All other rides and attractions due for phase one will be open as planned.
Existing ticket holders to Dreamland have been informed about the Scenic Railway and offered a free return visit to the Park at a date of their choosing. 
The timber-framed Scenic Railway first opened in the 1920’s. It is the UK’s oldest rollercoaster and the only Grade ll* listed rollercoaster in the world. Thanet District Council has contracted some of the UK’s leading specialists to oversee its restoration – their task is to protect the valuable heritage of the ride whilst bringing this up to the modern day.
Leader of Thanet District Council Cllr Chris Wells said: “Meticulous efforts are being made to create an authentic experience for visitors, in keeping with the original 1920’s design of the ride.
“Thanks to the dedication and hard work of contractors, the finishing touches are now being made to the timber framed structure and restoration of the trains is now well underway. We recognise that this is no easy task and appreciate delays can be unforeseeable with this type of project.
“I know it is disappointing the Scenic Railway will not be opening for rides on 19 June, we are confident that our commitment to the protection of its heritage will offer the best possible experience for visitors.”
CEO of Dreamland Eddie Kemsley, said:  “All other attractions due to open as part of phase one, are on track for 19 June. This launch represents a considerable achievement in bringing Dreamland to life once again and everyone in Margate and involved in the project should be very proud.  The opening night Hullabaloo party with special guest performances from Marina and the Diamonds and Chas and Dave is going to be fantastic and a great way to mark the start of Dreamland’s new future.  Tickets to the opening night are almost sold out.”
Phase one includes 17 restored rides, as well as the roller disco, pleasure gardens, restaurants, food stalls, arcades and amusements from the golden age of the British seaside.The second phase, scheduled for later in 2015 will include the Ballroom, outdoor event space, restaurant café, and dance studio. In 2016 the Hall By The Sea and the Buffet Building will be opened.
Dreamland’s phase one opening will create over 200 jobs to the local economy.
The reopening has been made possible by the work of the Dreamland Trust and investment from Thanet District Council, Sands Heritage LTD, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Department for Culture Media and Sport and many local benefactors.
Full information about Dreamland including its opening night can be found on its website www.dreamland.co.uk.

- END -

ABOUT DREAMLAND MARGATE 
The Dreamland site is owned by Thanet District Council. The council, working with The Dreamland Trust has secured a funding package of £18 million, which includes external funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Sea Change grant, to deliver the first phase of the project.
The council boldly compulsory purchased the Dreamland site because it had the vision to see that once again Dreamland could be a major economic driver for the area.  The council are managing the wider development of this massive multifaceted site of which the Dreamland Amusement Park is just one part.
Sands Heritage Ltd. have been appointed by the council as the operators of the Dreamland Amusement Park and will open its door on 19 June 2015.
The re-imagined Dreamland will be a world-class UK visitor attraction, providing entertainment for everyone through truly re-inventing the famous seaside amusement park experience.
Working in partnership with Sands Heritage Limited and Thanet District Council award winning multi-disciplinary designers HemingwayDesign led by Wayne Hemingway MBE, Gerardine Hemingway MBE and Jack Hemingway have been appointed to deliver the look, feel, smell, taste and sound of a re-imagined Dreamland. 
The new Dreamland will be a unique vintage-style amusement park with rides, classic side shows, eateries and evocative spaces set within a landscape capable of hosting national festivals, major events and visiting attractions.
The Dreamland project plays a significant role in community engagement, education, training, sustainable employment and boosting the local economy. It is also a major component in the continued regeneration of Margate, spearheaded by Turner Contemporary in 2011. 

TICKET PRICES & OPENING HOURS:
19th June Opening Day:
10am – 5pm

THE OPENING NIGHT HULLABALOO Friday 19 June 2015 19:00 -
Amusement park closes at 11pm
£24.95 Entry per adult
STANDARD OPENING HOURS:
10am – 5pm
Summer Weekends (26 June – 26 Sep)
10am – 8pm

EVENTS                                                        Times vary  
PRICES:
Under 3’s Go Free
Disabled Carers Go Free
Advance Adult    £14.95
Child    £12.95
On the Day
Adult £17.95
Child £14.95
Local On The Day Discount 
* Adult £13.95
Child £11.95
Tickets are available online at www.dreamland.co.uk/tickets

HULLABALOO LIST OF PERFORMERS:

Marina and the Diamonds
Chas n Dave
The Big Six
The Miniscule of Sound
Too Many T’s
The Shellac Collective

END TO ALL

Business expansion in Thanet

Thanet Earth have announced that they have made a profit for the first time and that demand for their produce is exceeding supply, as they have only built three of the planned seven huge greenhouses I would think we can expect the construction of another one soon. To put this in context, the made a loss of £5m the previous year, however in the trading year to April 2011 they made a profit of about a quarter of a million.

It does seem to me to be a great shame that this food factory that doesn’t use soil, takes its water from the water mains (apart from the rain collected from the roof) and produces liquid waste that has to go into the main sewer – in other words it could be built on a brownfield site – is built and will expand on prime agricultural land. It is however very fortunate that they were not allowed to pump water from the Thanet aquifer or drain their liquid waste into the ground or Pegwell Bay.

It is difficult to say how much Thanet Earth benefits the local economy or the environment, but at least it is now making a profit.

The other main business expansion in Thanet recently is the Marks and Spencer at Westwood Cross, what they have done here is to double the size of the shop by adding a second floor. This creates 70 jobs, which as far as I can see are part time and full time for local people and reduce local unemployment.

Once again though we have M&S at WC at a terrible cost to our town centres what the difference in the number of jobs would be between one big shop at WC and two smaller ones in Ramsgate and Margate I don’t really know.

There is of course a fine balance between what large companies are allowed to do in terms of damage to the local community and damage to the environment, and how they benefit the local community.

Whatever the answer to this one there is no doubt that for us as a family, buying a pair of trousers from M&S involves a motorised journey that is harmful to the environment.

I think another big problem here is how much money stays in the area, by this I mean if the higher paid, executive staff are living and spending their money outside Thanet and the majority of the company profit is going out of the area, we need to be careful in weighing the balances.

I know that this is partly down to the nasty modern world and it is not so very long ago that most people working in provincial towns lived in them too. I do wonder if the higher paid local government paid staff lived in the towns they are supposed to serve how much better things would be.          

Westwood Cross Thanet Town Centre Consolidation

Putting up the last weeks planning applications on my press release blog I noticed that one of them didn’t have a title, perhaps it’s too big.

Anyway there are pages and pages of this thing, because it’s on the council’s planning website I can’t link to it, but recommend that you have a look at the application.

Please follow these instructions to get there.

1 copy the following planning reference F/TH/11/0200

2 click on the link http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet to get to the council’s planning site

3 paste the planning reference in the application search number box and click on the search button

The council’s planning site is a very cantankerous bit if IT, documents often open reluctantly in difficult file formats only to have been scanned so badly as to be illegible. There are no linier scales on the plans most of which are scanned scale drawings, this means that you can’t actually tell how big anything is by looking at the drawing.    

I suppose that some of the councillors see my concerns about the way the council manages its internet presence as some sort of mischievous attack on them. I had a fairly long discussion with Simon Moores about the council’s failure to promote the opening of The Turner Contemporary, on the councils homepage, last week, see http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/03/wedding-bells.html

I think, although it is difficult to say, that Simon is saying, that this wasn’t some sort of dreadful error, or even an April fools joke, but something the council achieved deliberately. 

Well now we have plans for this huge development without even a title, so that it looks less significant than an application for a garden shed, this does the beg the question, was this also done deliberately?


This all leaves me with the problem, do I take the planning files for this huge project and convert them into ordinary web pages that can be viewed on any computer, found by the search engines and linked to in the normal way, or do I just leave the whole mess for the council and local people to try and get on with as best they can?

One to go at Westwood Cross ?

With Barretts shoe shops in administration, it looks like we will see the closure of their Westwood Cross shop.

I know that there has been a lot of concern over shops closing in the towns recently and I wonder how Westwood cross will fare in what looks like being an 18 month long recession.

I am wondering with there being so much spare retail capacity in Thanet, how the cards are going to fall on this one. Particularly I think how much of the out of town shopping expansion was reliant on credit will be a big factor.

Manchester Congestion Charge

The government offered the people £3bn to vote for what it thought was good for them and the people turned them down.

Here in Thanet we have created our own congestion by centralising all the large new retail and leisure developments in one place, based on the assumption that people will use public transport to get to them.

Now there just isn’t good enough road infrastructure or parking to cope with this situation.

The turnover and hence the profitability of the businesses at Westwood Cross is limited by the parking and infrastructure.

The sensible solution to people not wanting to use public transport is to keep the shopping and leisure facilities in the towns where most people live.

We haven’t so where do we go from here?

Something nasty in the water 2

I have published the environment agency’s letter to Rick click here to read it

The danger threshold limit value for Cyclohexanone is 20 parts per million, it can be absorbed through the skin, by inhalation or ingested, and we have a spillage involving 100s of tonnes of the stuff, which seems to have been covered up for years.

How on earth could such a large amount missing have gone unnoticed? Because of its nature you theoretically are not allowed to let it evaporate, I would hope that those people who advocate heavy industrial use on the source protection zones will reconsider their positions.

Property Business Recession

I was going to do a reflections from the book trade post and as a lot of this comes from talking to customers when I should be working, not gossiping.

The bookshop is doing much better at the moment which I put down the worsening economic climate, people who a month ago were happy to go to Westwood Cross and pay £30 for a large format illustrated book are now making the extra effort to come here, where they know it will be considerably cheaper.

One customer a landscape gardener told me that his customers, who for the most part are extremely wealthy, are cutting back on the work they are having done, many have lost large sums as the value of their shares has fallen others don’t have confidence in their economic future.

Another customer who is a contractor to the building trade said that many of the building firms are weatherproofing and securing partly finished developments with the intention of leaving them until the situation improves.

The big “real estate” problem is although lots of people have made a considerable amount of money out of property one way and another, mostly benefiting from the huge increase in prices, however for most ordinary working people this means that too large a proportion of the money they have made from producing goods and services goes into paying for their home, we are effectively engaged in buying our own country. For us in the retail trade, it means that because the values of the buildings we trade in have increased considerably, increasing rents absorbs a very large proportion of profit; this situation is particularly bad in Thanet at the moment where most shop’s sales have been reduced by the effect of Westwood Cross.

Click here for more pictures of Ramsgate shops in 1904

More Model village and shopping experience

I post with some trepidation as my last post on this subject prompted a senior councillor to comment that he thought Ramsgate was horrible place to shop, not particularly helpful in what are difficult times for town centre shops.

Perhaps some of you have thoughts on the local shopping experience both in the Thanet towns and the miracle that is Westwood Cross, yes of course I can sympathise I don’t imagine that the businesses in the ubiquitously abbreviated WC can be entirely happy with the infrastructure.

Car parking is an issue also raising some problems, free parking experiments for Margate, although not for Ramsgate as one would expect and at WC the shops not exactly teeming when all the parking spaces occupied.

Well enjoy the pictures of the model village

You can also avoid the whole business of shopping and buy our local history books online post free. However personally I consider a good browse in a bookshop a much more gratifying experience.

Confused ramblings from the secondhand book trade

Having been commenting on various blogs about retailing Westwood Cross and the problems that this poses for all the Thanet towns, with other retailers saying how bad the situation is.

Saturday’s sales in the bookshop were more than 50% up on both those of 2005 and 2006 looking at the sales analysis this was mostly ordinary secondhand books, I have to say I am totally miffed.

Now things are pretty bad in the secondhand book trade at the moment my brother has just closed his shop in St Albans that was established 45 years ago blaming the combined effects of out of town shopping and the internet.
The demise of the secondhand bookshops is particularly bad at this time because of the affect on the environment at the moment everywhere I go they seem to be closed or closing.