Parking in the Thanet towns

I went to the Turner Contemporary yesterday afternoon.

The weather was very cold so I parked in the car park between the old town and the high street, new machine there that was confusing people. I wanted three hours parking and I think two was about £1.20 so I put £2 in and it only allowed me 2 hours, this meant that I didn’t have time to visit the small shops.

There were two parking attendants on Sunday afternoon in the freezing wind giving visitors to the gallery parking tickets to enhance their Thanet leisure experience.

I wonder how cost effective this is.

I am mastering the camera on my mobile phone and was pleased with the one of The Kiss, I wanted to take a picture of the sculpture, that could only be achieved in The Turner Contemporary, for the chap who works at The Tate and allowed us to take pictures of The Kiss here.   

I believe it was Victoria Pomery who was mainly responsible for getting The Kiss in Thanet an I am working up to producing a watercolour that incorporates her in a picture of the sculpture as a thank you too.

I don’t have much difficulty with face on and quarter profile likenesses but the total profiles needed when there faces share two eyes I find difficult so I wanted a lot of shots of the sculpture.  

Back to the parking issue. The bit of Ramsgate I trade in used to be on a very busy road until Ramsgate town centre was pedestrianised and since then there is very little traffic flow as King Street and the surrounding streets only leads to the car park. However since the reduction in traffic, there has been a considerable increase in double yellows on this area.

Conversely where there is much more traffic near one of the local schools and the new Tesco, some aspects of the parking appear fairly dangerous.

The road behind my bookshop where I used to park my van across my own garage gates, is a dead end and now has double yellow lines, I certainly wonder why

The most extraordinary application of the parking rules that I have ever seen is the road to nowhere behind Ramsgate Sands, the combination of no loading and double yellow lines on this quiet road with no through traffic, suggests a degree of malice directed towards tourism in Ramsgate of maniac proportions, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/06/yellow-peril-at-ramsgate-main-sands.html

Incidentally the main Thanet blogs sem to have gone parking mad today see:

http://bignewsmargate.blogspot.com/2011/12/information-for-cllr-worrow.html

http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/12/parking-matters.html

great minds thinking alike? 

I will ramble on here.

Beach parking

Obviously the key to the amount of tourism a seaside town attracts is either related to the amount of leisure facilities it has, or if as is the case in Ramsgate where the leisure facilities have closed, the amount of parking close to the beaches.

In the case of the main sands where the majority of the parking has been removed to make way for various schemes to use the Pleasurama site, I have asked the senior councillors and council officers to let people park on the site until work begins.

It should be understood that work can’t really start on the site until plans that address the concerns raised by the environment agency about flood, storm and emergency escape issues have been approved by the council and the environment agency, this is yet to happen, so the main leisure and parking site there remains deserted but the council seems loathe to let us use it.

Then there is the western undercliff, the beach there was awarded the highest levels of water purity available, however the council has failed to stop lorries parking illegally in the car parking spaces there. As you can see from the pictures taken yesterday one lorry and trailer is even parked on the pavement. One of the worst effects of this is that the lorry drivers use the beach as a toilet.

Now here all we are asking for is bollards that allow cars to park but prevent lorries, not much to ask really.

Roundabout Madness

Of all the crazy things that happen when Thanet District Council and developers get together for the benefit of the local community this one takes the cake.

Just about everyone in Ramsgate is aware of the enormous amount of construction work and destruction on Marina Esplanade in the vicinity of the old Pleasurama site and frankly I am finding that I am now getting considerably more cooperation than I expected both with regard to the demolition of The Marina Restaurant and the flood risk assessment with regard to building new homes down there.

But what no one seems to be able to answer is the riddle of the roundabout, why would anyone build a huge roundabout for busses and large vehicles to turn at then of a road where the weight restriction prevents busses and large vehicles getting to it?

You have to appreciate that this means the permanent removal of most of the main sands car parking, I can’t think of a more effective method of crippling Ramsgate’s economy and all for something that will never be needed as the only vehicles light enough to be allowed there can comfortably turn in the car park.