Turner Contemporary events and exhibitions for Easer and April.

After my rather downbeat posts about their activities during this month I wondered what they had planed for April and especially to draw tourists to Margate over the Easter holiday.

The school holidays this year run for about two thirds of April, so a lot of people in the southeast will be looking for events and days out during April.

As I pointed out on Monday Thanet’s largest all weather attraction the Powell Cotton Museum (This museum receives no public or government money) has events for all ages on over Easter, so I was interested to see what the publicly funded Turner Contemporary gallery in the Droit House was doing for Margate over this critical period.

Nothing on their website so I rang them, the answer was nothing the Droit House is closed for the whole of April including Easter.

Frankly with art galleries up and down the country holding events for adults and children and hosting exhibitions all through April and Easter, I don’t really know what to make of this information.

Tony Blair and the press blackout.

Quite by chance I had an early lunch break today and listened to Tony Blair extolling the virtues of Labour government, well to tell the truth a lot of it was why not to vote Conservative, after the war business I don’t trust the man.

The old question, would you buy a used car from this man? went through my head, although to be fair it also goes through my head when David Cameron speaks.

Frankly in terms of charisma and sincerity politicians don’t seem to be what they were, staying with the used car analogy I feel a bit like seeing two used cars in garages on either side of the road and the car dealers main selling points being that if I buy the one from the garage opposite it will breakdown just after the warranty has run out.

Here in Thanet South we don’t really have the option of going off and buying a car elsewhere, as it is likely to be a tightly fought marginal with only Labour and Conservative votes counting for much.

Anyway back to Blair, as his speech came to the end the BBC news commentator said he would next be answering questions from the audience, well as someone who voted Labour in the last two elections I thought there were a few questions that I would like to ask him. Would he have taken us into Vietnam if he had been prime minister at the time and the Americans had asked him to? Did he think that police crime figure targets actually made the police reluctant to prosecute people? Being examples.

Well the speech ended and I have to say that I was pretty much astonished when they threw all of the press out before the questions, the BBC camera went black, something that immediately made me think of the blank pages in the pre apartheid South African papers.

As public relations exercises go I really don’t think I have seen a major political speech end so badly.

The tree I believe may be a Politician Tree it’s twisty enough although I have been assured that it is Morus Nigra.

East Kent Access Road Archaeological Finds Video

Archaeologist David Crawford-White tells YourThanet reporter Tom Betts about what has been found while the building of the East Kent Access Road gets underway.

Pictures of the gardens at Quex in Thanet

We spent a couple of pleasant hours in the gardens at Quex Park yesterday afternoon, click on the link for the pictures.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/310/id22.htm

If you are looking for something to do in Thanet over Easter, you may consider what they have on at Quex.

Victorian Easter Event
Date: Good Friday 2 April, Easter Saturday 3 April,
Easter Sunday 4 April & Bank Holiday Monday 5 April 2010– 4 Days
Location: Powell-Cotton Museum Quex House and Gardens
Time: 11am-5 pm
Audience: All
Description: ‘Dining Room open, Victorian re-enactments, strongman, carriage rides, activity stall for children £2 to make a boater or bonnet with daily prizes, Easter egg hunt.
Price: AD £8, CHD £7, FAM £30
One ticket for the four days
Friends of Quex Half Price

Virtue alone remains and more Sunday ramblings.

I have heard that Tesco have bought Busy Bee’s shop in Ramsgate for one of their Metro stores, sounds like It will be a traffic and parking nightmare, it’s certainly a rather strange site as most people living in Ramsgate would have to pass several other convenience stores and supermarkets to get to it.

Nothing in the councils planning website so of course I may be wrong.

The hands have gone from the Montefiore Synagogue clock, this is not some randomised act of anti-Semitism I think but another case of stealing for scrap metal, like the brass band round the bandstand.

I did a post about this clock sometime ago here’s the link http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/09/ramsgate-in-clockwork-of-synagogue.html another case of now you see it now you don’t here in Ramsgate.

A few thoughts on the pictures they have closed the public footpath through the grounds of the synagogue, I arrived at large wooden board where a gate once was, it is always a bit strange when one is prevented from going where one has always gone before.

The Ostend Spirit was entering the harbour as I was walking along the cliff top, quite a tight fit and I would think fairly difficult in bad weather.

Much boarding down Marina Road I suppose had I been in a different mood I could have called the post look no hands crunch no teeth, although frankly I still consider driving coaches down this structure to far more dangerous than boarding down it.

Here is the link to the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/310/id21.htm

I have just noticed that my automated publishing program has muddled up the order the pictures published in, I will apologise for it, I have a horrible feeling that it wont be long before my computer starts apologising, with all the insincerity of a machine.

I will add some more and some pictures and ramble on a bit more if the opportunity presents itself.

Thanet District Council’s new leadership and a few other rambles.

Having been a bit tied up with the Pleasurama drama, Lady Montefiore’s Cookery Book and other things this week, I haven’t had a chance to comment on anything else much.

So first a few thoughts on the council’s new leadership, the first being that Bob will have to stop being chair of scrutiny as the two jobs are mutually exclusive.

I think one encouraging thing here is that Bob is a person who will be able to work well with the Labour group, as he has already done as chair of scrutiny, so we may see a bit less of the party wrangling that many of us find unpleasant and is damaging to constructive debate.

Knocking a few ideas around I do speculate as to why and wonder if the deal is that Bob will stand down as a Conservative KCC councillor so that Sandy can stand in his place.

One senior Conservative councillor I disused this with said that although he wasn’t aware of any deal, it would make sense for Sandy to offer his considerable experience to KCC.

One senior council officer I discussed this with who had read Bobs quote:

“Thanet faces unique challenges but it also offers equally unique opportunities, through its coastline, tourism, green energy, its airport, harbours and much more. I have a number of new ideas which I hope will contribute to making Thanet a better place for us all.”

Said he didn’t like the sound of a leader with new ideas and at least they all knew where they were with Sandy.

My understanding is that the thing that worries the senior officers the most is that Bob is capable of working with pretty much anyone and getting down to the job in hand so he would probably be able to unite the best talent from the councillors of all parties, meaning we would be effectively governed democratically, rather than by an elite of senior council officers.

One thing that is particularly damaging is the inter departmental wrangles within the council, the Maritime Museum is a case in point here, where the leisure department made an offer to Preston Steam Trust of a 99 year lease and then the estates department moved in and forced the council to renege on the offer.

Now we have a situation where no council officer appears to be dealing with the issue, or indeed knows how to and so Ramsgate looks like losing its museum because council officers have dug themselves a hole that they can’t get of, without someone admitting they have made mistakes.

This is very difficult when the administrations stance is that all senior officers are infallible.

The clock on Ramsgate’s Clock House has stopped, so I don’t know if this is in any significant of the ongoing situation, possibly a signal of some sort that the end is nigh.

My understanding of the Pleasurama cliff façade issue at the moment is that the developer can’t start boring for the piles until the structure has been underpinned, estimates in the region £4m to £6m would seem likely, looking on the bright side one could say that the council will be providing much need work for the construction industry.

Of course the council’s stance here is still that there is nothing wrong with the foundations, it will be interesting to see how long they can keep this up, I have made it abundantly clear to them that if they don’t do something about the heavy vehicles going near to edge of the top of the cliff by Monday, the HSE will become involved.

With Easter coming on an interesting question now is, who moved the stone? It obviously wouldn’t be in the developers interests to cover up defects in the council owned cliff façade, the thought of the council sending someone out to cover up the hole is interesting, I wonder if any paperwork was generated that would be available for an foi request.

While on the subject of foi requests, it would seem to be that the development agreement that I haven’t seen, so I wouldn’t know what it contains, in fact may contain a planning agreement that the council have been withholding from me, when perhaps the ought not to have done.

An interesting problem here is that you can’t request a document unless you know it exists, however concealing a document that in fact exists, by saying it doesn’t exist is a bit of a novel one, particularly when juxtapositioned with concealing foundations that don’t exist.

Perhaps the council’s rulebook was written by Edgar Allan Poe, when dealing with the council the words:

As I was going up the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today...
Oh how I wish he'd go away!

come to mind quite often.

An interesting observation about politics locally is that Steve Ladyman and Laura Sandys both are behaving in civil fashion to each other, and I am hoping that this grownup approach to politics will filter down into the rest of local politics.

I may ramble on as the day continues, please try to keep any comment civil and courteous.

The link is to today’s pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/310/id20.htm

Pleasurama foundations now you see it now you don’t and a few pictures of Ramsgate.

As you see from the picture above, taken today a large rock seems to fallen into the hole where I took the picture at the top of Tuesday’s post http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/03/pleasurama-cliff-facade-finally.html they have also been pretty quick to fill in the exploratory holes in the cliff façade.

It’s a case of spot the difference between the two pictures this one was taken on Wednesday afternoon.

Covering up the defects after I have photographed them seems a tad unprofessional to me, it immediately makes one wonder just what else has been covered up and how they intend to deal with defects and safety issues.

Here is the link to the pictures the first lot taken Wednesday afternoon and the rest this morning http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/310/id19.htm

Royal Sands Development the immediate cliff safety issues

I have spent most of today trying to get some sort of response from Thanet District Council over the safety of the cliff.

The main thing that I have been trying to achieve in the short term is to stop heavy vehicles going up onto the cliff top near the edge, until the cliff façade has been properly investigated and proven to be safe.

My obvious concern is that they are taking a considerable risk in not preventing vehicular access to the footpath above the site immediately.

My feelings are that a Catch 22 situation has developed in the council, whereby if the put up signs or barriers to prevent vehicles from going up there, they are admitting that all may not be well with the £1m contract repair that they have signed of as being done properly.

I have had an email from the council saying that the investigation work is being done by Cardy Construction the main contractor and developer’s partner in the project and that council officers were present at part of the investigation.

They have also told me that the council holds no report on the investigation work.

I have had no assurances from the council that the cliff is in fact safe, or that the façade has adequate foundations.

A big problem with man made cliff façades is that they often make the eventual collapse much worse as both enough unstable chalk has to build up behind them to cause the concrete barrier to fail and when it does the big lumps of concrete that fall tend to do a lot of damage.

The picture above is of a previous Ramsgate cliff collapse and the link leads to more pictures of collapses http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/collapse/