1 Granville Marina Ramsgate 2nd floor goes in and a day off ramble

After taking the children to school today I noticed considerable activity on Marina Esplanade, this was due to another floor going into the Marina Restaurant project.

There are a few pros and cons to this project, on the positive side there has been a flood risk assessment and this has caused the ground floor level to be raised up by about a metre than the Pleasurama development ground floor level.

This should make the building reasonably protected from a combination of high tides and storms, the negative side to this is that there is no emergency escape for the people inside to the cliff road above, so if there is a big storm they remain inside the building until the storm is over.

Also on the positive side the quality of the building work seems to be of a high standard, I have been keeping an eye on this one and haven’t seen any nasties going on there, no covered up shoddy workmanship, building waste dumped in building voids and so on.

My main concern relates to the part of the building that wasn’t there before and the cliff behind it, this is a large concrete covered lump of chalk, as far as I can tell, the top of which is in a bad state.

Here are the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/netbook211/id9.htm published using my small netbook so I didn’t get a chance to look at them before publication.

Another reservation I have is the heavy lorries using the Marina Road viaduct, I am not sure it is really up to taking the weight, the signs at the top saying NO CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC are all very well, but there really isn’t another way of accessing the site, because of the way the Pleasurama site hoardings make the promenade too narrow.

I will add to this post as the day continues and if I get a WiFi connection also add some more pictures, uploading a hundred or so pictures via a mobile phone connection isn’t really viable.

You can also see the work on the Pleasurama site from above, the concrete pads could conceivably be for a tower crane, I have asked the contractor to tell us what they are up to and am hopeful that I will get a reply.

Herne Bay today, interesting if you live in Ramsgate or Margate as like Deal it's a very close about 14 miles town centre to town centre.

Taking photographs as I do the first thing one notices is the absence of dog's mess on the promenade, this can be a major problem when looking at the world through a viewfinder.

Here’s the first batch of Deal pictures, published in the café while eating my lunch http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/netbook211/id10.htm

Another thing I noticed was the parking, the first 2 hours on the seafront was free and when I moved the to a car park nearer to a shop I had bought a lot of heavy books from, the parking charge was £1.10 for all day.

Not as many pictures after lunch as I would have liked, due to the amount of books I had bought, combined with the problem of getting back to collect the children from school.

Café brunch, very fast service and good value at £4.99, right in the middle of the town centre, green blinds, I think it was called Greenfields, good WiFi connection too, I was in a hurry and published the previous lot of pictures while eating.


Anyway here are the rest of the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/netbook211/id11.htm

I don’t know exactly where the problem lies here in Thanet, the truth is that both Ramsgate and Margate both had town centres at least as good as Herne Bay’s or Deal’s, when I first opened the bookshop in Ramsgate 23 years ago, and not all of the shops that have closed in Ramsgate Margate have any competition in Westwood Cross.

Something I notice particularly is the independent antique and junk shops that have mostly closed in Ramsgate still seem to be thriving in Herne Bay have mostly gone in Thanet.

1 Granville Marina restoration work starts again.

This is one of those only in Thanet sagas all the information below for those of you unfamiliar with it, the picture above is of the new development that they have just started on, I think, click on it to enlarge.

First the link to the Planning Inspectorates decision allowing the development that the council turned down:http://www.pcs.planningportal.gov.uk/pcsportal/fscdav/READONLY?OBJ=COO.2036.300.12.1781107&NAME=/Decision.pdf

This link takes you to the planning inspectors decision to award costs against the council.http://www.pcs.planningportal.gov.uk/pcsportal/fscdav/READONLY?OBJ=COO.2036.300.12.1781128&NAME=/Costs.pdfIt only goes to show what you can get away with when it comes to listed buildings.

The links below take you some of my previous posts about the matter.

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/02/goody-goes-bananas.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/02/goody-outlawed-httpwwwmichaelsbookshopc.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/12/congratulations-to-tdc-planning.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/06/restoration-ramsgate-style.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/10/1granville-marina-when-is-planning.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/10/plans-for-marina-restaurant.html

More pictures of the restoration work.

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

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/cafe/id2.htm

these pictures taken today http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id16.htm

Killing Ramsgate’s café culture

As you will have noticed from the papers this week TDC have said that they intend to go ahead with the Pleasurama development without a flood risk assessment, against the advice of the environment agency.

This means that the building work will start soon and that heavy construction lorries will be bringing in the building materials through the heart of or café culture. Building dust on you cappuccino and all over your dinner.

I suggested that the building materials be brought in down the old mainline railway tunnel, which would mean that none of the heavy construction materials came into the town at all, I don’t believe that they bothered to look at the idea seriously.

That means that there are only two routes to the building site right through the café culture that is thriving and expanding, and appears to be what is stopping the towns economy collapsing in the way Margate’s has, or down the arched slope and along Marina Esplanade.

I had previously been lead to believe that the arches were not strong enough to take the weight of the lorries, however when I pointed out that the main sands car park had been removed for a roundabout for busses to turn and that busses were also heavy, I was assured by TDC that the slope was able to take 40 tones.

So they can’t have it both ways and although it may be a little unpleasant for the people in the few remaining buildings left on Marina Esplanade, when the alternative is damaging the whole towns economy it is obvious that the building material should come in that way provided it’s safe.

The pictures were taken last summer and I find it difficult to see how construction vehicles would fit in.