Friday the thirteenth and Blogger goes pear shaped

Sorry if your comments have vanished so have some of mine, I do have them saved if blogger doesn’t sort itself out I will reinstate them manually.



I will add to this if I can, I don’t know if it will publish or stay published.

Thanet Blue Flags, some thoughts from Thanet District Council

To the council's Press and Media Manager in response to the press release 

Hi ****

I did try to stop this happening last year, posted about it wrote to officers and so on, no recriminations and I am prepared to have another go.

This situation wasn’t caused by pollution incidents but by the failure to have a pollution warning set-up in place.

This is about not understanding the blue flag criteria, most especially criterion 28, anyway if the council wants its blue flag beaches back please put me in touch with the right officer and I will help get the situation resolved.   

Best regards Michael

Their Reply

Hi Michael

I've passed your e-mail on and someone will be coming back to you about it.

Regards,

**** 

From their Commercial Services Manager

Michael
As **** indicated she asked me to respond to you on this issue.

You have made a series of statements on your Blog that are just not
correct and in no way reflect the reason why the area has had a number
of its Blue Flag beaches reduced to Quality Coast awards.

The reduction is entirely based on a very limited number of lower than
excellent results we got last year, which almost all occurred during the
almost continuous north easterly in August last year. None of these
results appear to be associated with situations where discharges may
have occurred based on information our Environmental Health section
receive from Southern Water and the Environment Agency. This factor was
not a consideration that formed any part of the decisions by the Keep
Britain Tidy group in making Blue Flag award decisions for us.

In fact, because of the sheer number of awards we have got in the past
and still have we have regular contact both with the KBT group and the
EA and we are often used as a test ground for the work they do. This
includes working as a partner with the EA in planning for the
introduction of the new water standards. The current signs going up for
this year have been adapted to reflect this partnership work in advance
of the statutory requirement to display more information, and include
the position of sewage outfalls around the coast.

Your Blog indicates that the reduction in Blue Flag numbers is based on
a failure to act by the council which is entirely incorrect and the
council looks forward these incorrect statements being removed from your
Blog, as obviously they are untrue and damaging to the council's
reputation. This includes the statements copied below:

"My understanding is that if on these occasions the council put up
signs notifying the public that the sea was contaminated then we would
be able to retain our blue flag status on the effected beaches. 

What happens instead is that nothing happens, by this I mean that after
Southern Water make an emergency discharge of sewage near to one of our
bathing beaches, this doesn't result in the council taking down the blue
flag and putting up warning signs telling people the sea is
contaminated.

I tried last year to get the council to set up a system to overcome
this problem, the result appears to have been inaction causing most of
our beaches to be stripped of their blue flag status."

It would perhaps be helpful for completion's sake to mention the 7 bays
for which we have achieved Quality Coast awards from KBT that measure
very much the same things, and give a clear indication that our water is
safe to swim in.

Your Blog also seems to give the view that in swimming around our coast
would involve encounters with sewage. This is just not the case and
gives entirely the wrong impression as the chances of this happening are
vanishingly small.

***

My reply

*****. I think it easiest to illustrate what I mean with one example.

This was the pollution on 12^th July 2010, this is what Southern Water’s senior engineer had to say about it.

“Pump failure 10 July Military Road pump station, engineer sent; wet well went to high level, 120 to 150 Litres per sec sent to Wetherlees.

Wet weather between 02.00 and 04.30 12th July 7.6mm rainfall. Pump No. 2 failed 02.00 resulting in emergency discharge early am.”

So on the morning of Monday 12^th July Southern Water made a considerable discharge which they recorded, I don’t think this information was passed on to the council, if it was no action was taken.

No warning notices appeared at entrances to both beaches and tourist information offices, as would be required by blue flag criterion 28.

Even more ludicrously on the same day the EA made their weekly test, as though nothing had happened, I would assume that the results of this test would have been completed by the Friday 16^th July 2010, so if the council were using these results to decide when to place warning notices, then I assume the unusually high levels of faecal coliforms 3,000 colonies per 100 ml, (this really is swimming in sewage) the council would have acted on this.

Once again no signs and during the weekend 17^th 18^th July the South East Region Beach Lifeguard Championships were held at Ramsgate main Sands.

This is a situation that suggests no system at all and my understanding is that it was the lack of any system that lead to Surfers Against Sewage putting pressure on the blue flag program to remove most of the Thanet beaches.

The solution to this problem is:

1 To have a proper system of communication with Southern Water that results in action being taken in the event of an emergency discharge. 

2 To engage in a serried of post discharge tests to ascertain how long after a discharge the signage needs to be in place.

3 To contact Surfers against sewage explaining that a proper system has been put in place.

4 To contact the EA and assure that their testing takes into account emergency discharges.

5 To explain the improves system to the people running the blue flag scheme.

Best regards Michael

His Reply to me.

Michael

Thanks for the email. No argument that the Council needs to get as

timely information as possible from Southern Water to allow it to make

decisions about signage and the flying of Blue Flags. However, I must

stress that this was not a factor in KBT's decision as this was

straightforwardly based on the results collected by the EA and run

through their normal criteria.

You seem to be reiterating your contention about this issue leading to

the loss of the Blue Flags to others but as indicated above this is just

not correct.

***

My reply to him

*** I think one major factor here is the SOS campaign and the marked similarity between the beaches dropped this year and the beaches they asked to be dropped during their campaign last year.

See http://www.sas.org.uk/news/2010/08/06/sas-call-for-35-blue-flags-to-be-withdrawn-from-beaches-around-the-uk/ I think there is a sense that the blue flag organisers look to be preparing to drop Thanet, which could be a bit of a nuisance factor in their three and half thousand beaches awarded world wide.

Underlying all of this is that the main issue for most people is being assured that the water they are swimming in is actually clean.

Very important here is that action needs to be taken now, at the beginning of the testing season, the most important of action being good clear public information following an emergency discharge.

Added to this I would think some clear information about the way recent periods of heavy rainfall can effect bathing water quality in areas with mixed drainage systems and emergency outfall pipes. Since this means most of Europe and all of the UK it shouldn’t be difficult to phrase that in a way that shows TDC is taking more care of bathers than most other places.

There have also been some recent changes to the EU bathing water directive that I think may be pertinent.

Yes I am saying that we lost at least one of our blue flags because of a poor system, mostly weak communication, in the instance I have mentioned, what actually happened was an emergency discharge caused by plant failure, followed by a test being made on the same day and adjacent to the emergency discharge that was then submitted as being representative of the bathing water quality. Adding up the rest of the results it would seem that this one error caused Ramsgate to lose its blue flag status.

Alternatively you are saying that we have an emergency spillage of some sort, something periodically happens on every beach in the world, then test in the middle of the spillage on the day of the spillage and submit that result.

I will publish this correspondence, with your name omitted, on the blog, which will hopefully clarify the situation; I understand that the whole blogging situation isn’t an easy one for the council. I do endeavour to obtain accurate information and present a clear picture and wish to thank you for replying promptly and constructively.   

Best regards Michael



There is also some comment about this on Thanet Life, see http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/05/interesting-times.html 

Blue Flag Disaster For Thanet’s Beaches.

Minnis Bay, St. Mildred’s Bay, West Bay in Westgate, Margate Main Sands, Stone Bay, Viking Bay and Ramsgate Main Sands, have all lost their blue flag status.

Botany Bay, Joss Bay and Westbrook Bay are the only Thanet beaches to receive Blue Flag awards.


What we have here is a government funded and large company funded award system that fails to cough up the basic criteria of stopping you swimming around in sewage, blue flag or no blue flag.

Right engineering hat as promised.

The problem here can best be summed up as, if you want a blue flag you need a brown flag too and some good communications so that the council know when to fly it.

The problem here is one of old drains mixed system drains that are too expensive to replace that cause problems when we get a heavy rainstorm.

These mixed system drains have sewage and rainwater runoff in them and most of the time everything in them goes off to the sewage plant and is properly processed so that the water that is discharged into the sea is safe and clean.

On occasions we have a large rainstorm or a pump failure, sometimes a combination of the two, meaning there is nowhere for all the waste water and sewage to go, in these instances an emergency discharge is made via one of the several outfall pipes into the sea.

These discharges are properly monitored and the water company has the information relating to the few occasions when the sea is contaminated.

My understanding is that if on these occasions the council put up signs notifying the public that the sea was contaminated then we would be able to retain our blue flag status on the effected beaches.  

What happens instead is that nothing happens, by this I mean that after Southern Water make an emergency discharge of sewage near to one of our bathing beaches, this doesn’t result in the council taking down the blue flag and putting up warning signs telling people the sea is contaminated.

I tried last year to get the council to set up a system to overcome this problem, the result appears to have been inaction causing most of our beaches to be stripped of their blue flag status.

See

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/08/blue-flags-summer-sewage-sand-and.html 


http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/08/sunday-ramble-councils-website-drains.html   

I will add to this one 

Thanet District Council Hung, Election Special

 The, were do we go from here? Question must be surfacing in the minds of several of our councillors.

Neither party has a clear mandate to run Thanet, nor do the independents have any real mandate as we have three independent councillors now the same number we had before the election.

I suspect that I am going to make some mistakes in this next bit, so any corrections or explanations in the comments please.  

 What comes next is the council elects a new style strong leader, because of the legislation laid down by the last government, the old weaker leader or leader for one year isn’t an option.

There is the new Localism Bill coming soon, probably about a years time, but I don’t think that this will make much difference to the new strong leader business.

 The new strong leader will then be responsible for:

Determining the size of the Cabinet;

Appointing the members of the Cabinet;

Allocating portfolios or areas of responsibility to the various Cabinet Members;

Allocating decision-making powers to the Cabinet and to individual Cabinet Members; and removing and replacing Cabinet Members.

When the council decided against the unanimous results of the public consultation to have a leader chosen by the other councillors and not a leader elected by the local voters, they made a definite decision between two leaders who were already in place.

The Labour councillors decided they would have Bob Bayford for leader if they lost and the Conservative councillors decided they would have Clive Hart for leader if they lost. Perhaps this was a case of better the devil you know.

 Now their decision has created a rather unusual position, the new stronger leader of the council won’t be chosen by the voters in an election, won’t be chosen by the majority party’s councillors, but will be chosen by three independent councillors, Jack Cohen, Robert Grove and Thomas King.

Hopefully, the three wise men.

This leads to the interesting thought that one or both of the two main parties may put up a different leader as candidate, one that would either be more acceptable to the other main party, or indeed the three wise men.

Looking at the national trend I wouldn’t say that the local Conservatives did that well and certainly they don’t seem to have any seats in the two main Thanet towns. When it comes to Ramsgate and Margate Labour do indeed seem to have a strong mandate.

In a general sense I think that both parties prospective leaders were chosen with that party having a strong mandate to govern in mind, a problem here is that the leadership job is really a full time one with low pay and really needs someone in their prime to do it. By this I mean someone who would already have a full time and reasonably well paid job, it isn’t really a job for someone in retirement.

With a strong mandate this can be overcome by having a figurehead leader supported by a group of councillors who are in their primes. Strong organisational and communication skills being required, in short a team effort. There is sense where this may not work so well where the leader hasn’t a strong mandate and may have to give out positions of responsibility to stay in power.

I should point out here that there is one way to remove a new strong leader and this is by a full council vote.

My recent experience of writing to the leader asking why the maritime museum hasn’t opened and getting no reply or even an acknowledgment of receipt, suggests that all is not quite well in terms normal organisations skills and keeping ones finger on the pulse.

It is in fact more suggestive of a muddled operation where council officers are expanding their own domains within Parkinson’s law, rather than a leadership ensuring timely and appropriate benefits to the area.

I intend to ramble on about this one today as thoughts occur to me, the results are in the post below and on the council’s website although the comprehensive breakdown of who got how many votes hasn’t appeared there yet.   

The detailed results are now published at http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/mgElectionElectionAreaResults.aspx?EID=49&RPID=1265874

An interesting one for me was that Payam Tamiz got 312 votes, was this based on the fact that it said, The Conservative Party Candidate, next to his name on the ballot paper?


Update the parish and town council results are out, with all of Ramsgate’s independents gone, the results hardly seem believable.  

Parish of Acol

Sheila Mary Patricia Bransfield No description


Jonathan Henry Inchley No description

Helen Mitchell No description

Bob Norris Other

Elizabeth O'Reilly Other

Parish of Birchington -

Birchington North

Ward Bill Furness Liberal Democrats

Steve Hayden Independent

Bernard Anthony La Roche Independent

Parish of Birchington - Birchington South Ward

Josh Coombs Other

Amelia Marie West Independent

Linda Ann Wright Other

Parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's - Bradstowe Ward

Bill Epps Conservative Party

Bill Hayton Conservative Party

David Saunders Conservative Party

Parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's - Kingsgate Ward

Robert William Bayford Conservative Party Candidate

Parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's - Viking Ward

Jo Gee Conservative Party


Mave Saunders Conservative Party

Timothy Bernard Seed Conservative Party

Chris Wells Conservative Party Candidate


Parish of Cliffsend

 Emma Louise Best No description

Maureen Fiander No description

Philip Griffiths No description

Beryl Florence Harrison No description

Vera Ellen Hovenden No description

Ratna Ratnasingham Other

Parish of Manston

William James Bell No description

Jennifer Mabel Fletcher No description

Linda Samme Other

Parish of Monkton

Gilly Brown No description

Nick Cole Independent

Tony Davies No description

David John Spillett No description

John Alexander Way No description

Parish of Ramsgate - Central Harbour Ward

Peter Campbell The Labour Party Candidate

Mary Dwyer The Labour Party Candidate

Tony Ovenden The Labour Party Candidate

Parish of Ramsgate - Eastcliff Ward

Rick Everitt The Labour Party Candidate

David Green The Labour Party Candidate

Corinna Huxley The Labour Party Candidate

Parish of Ramsgate - Nethercourt Ward

Steven Alexandrou The Labour Party Candidate

Kim Gibson The Labour Party Candidate

Parish of Ramsgate - Newington Ward

Pat Moore The Labour Party Candidate

Richard Russell Nicholson The Labour Party Candidate

Parish of Ramsgate - Northwood Ward

Kay Dark The Labour Party Candidate

Ian Driver The Labour Party Candidate

Elizabeth Green The Labour Party Candidate

Parish of Ramsgate - Pegwell Ward

Patrick Edward Doyle Conservative Party

Parish of Ramsgate - Sir Moses Montefiore Ward

Michelle Fenner The Labour Party Candidate

Alan Poole The Labour Party Candidate

Parish of St Nicholas at Wade and Sarre

Bernard Eric David Clayson No description

Richard Charles Garrett No description

Terry Robson No description

Terry Waterton No description

No Overall Control Result for TDC Election

Just heard result on the BBC

The full details of the newly elected Councillors are as follows:

Ward	Candidate(s) elected	Description	Gain or loss compared to 2007	Votes	Turnout
Beacon Road (two seats)	Rosalind Binks Jennifer Matterface	Conservative Labour	No change Labour gain from Conservatives	672 703
Birchington North (two seats)	Keith Coleman-Cooke Simon Day	Conservative Conservative	No change No change	787 835
Birchington South (three seats)	Alasdair Bruce Jack Cohen John Worrow	Conservative Independent Conservative	No change Independent gain from Conservatives No change	1079 1023 1171
Bradstowe (two seats)	William Hayton David Saunders	Conservative Conservative	No change Conservative from vacant	781 832
Central Harbour (three seats)	Peter Campbell Mary Dwyer Corinna Huxley	Labour Labour Labour	No change No change Labour gain from Conservatives	859 743 729
Cliffsend and Pegwell (two seats)	Joanna Gideon John Kirby	Conservative Conservative	No change No change	859 966
Cliftonville East (three seats)	Sandy Ezekiel Brian Sullivan Martin Wise	Conservative Conservative Conservative	No change No change No change	1187 1155 1165
Cliftonville West (three seats)	Louise Aldred Doug Clark Clive Hart	Labour Labour Labour	No change No change No change	800 822 875
Dane Valley (three seats)	John Edwards Sandra Hart William Scobie	Labour Labour Labour	Labour gain from Conservatives No change Labour gain from Independent	863 921 818
Eastcliff (three seats)	Richard Everitt David Green Patricia Moore	Labour Labour Labour	No change No change No change	651 767 622
Garlinge (two seats)	Ken Gregory Shirley Tomlinson	Conservative Conservative	No change No change	440 482
Kingsgate (one seat)	Bob Bayford	Conservative	No change	518
Margate Central (two seats)	Iris Johnston John Watkins	Labour Labour	No change No change	682 570
Nethercourt (two seats)	Stylianos Alexandrou Kim Gibson	Labour Labour	Labour gain from Conservatives Labour gain from Conservatives	669 628
Newington (two seats)	Mike Harrison Richard Nicholson	Labour Labour	No change No change	705 702
Northwood (three seats)	Kay Dark Ian Driver Elizabeth Green	Labour Labour Labour	No change No change No change	971 877 951
Salmestone (two seats)	Elaine Lodge-Pritchard Harry Scobie	Labour Labour	No change No change	557 579
Sir Moses Montefiore (two seats)	Michelle Fenner Alan Poole	Labour Labour	No change No change	872 858
St. Peter's (three seats)	Ian Gregory Jason Savage Zita Wiltshire	Conservative Conservative Conservative	No change No change No change	1385 1329 1330
Thanet Villages (three seats)	Robert Grove Michael Roberts Linda Wright	Independent Conservative Conservative	No change No change No change	1209 1011 837
Viking (three seats)	Julie Marson Mavanne Saunders Christopher Wells	Conservative Conservative Conservative	No change No change No change	1321 1487 1352
Westbrook (two seats)	Neil Hornus Michael Tomlinson	Conservative Conservative	No change No change	704 697
Westgate-on-Sea (three seats)	Brian Goodwin Thomas King Simon Moores	Conservative Independent Conservative	No change No change No change	751 853 793

.

Pictures of Northdown Road Cliftonville and Margate High Street

 Back in August 2009 I took a series of pictures of Northdown Road in Margate, below are the links to the pages of pictures I took then.

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

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

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

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

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/NorthdownRoad/id9.htm

 Sorry I didn’t do it quite so comprehensively today, I only did the middle bit, these links take you to today’s pictures.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/NorthdownRoad2/

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/NorthdownRoad2/id3.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/NorthdownRoad2/id4.htm

 My excuse is that last time I did it I did it very early in the morning, I got a certain amount of flack for this as people said taking the pictures when it was pretty much deserted made the situation look worse than it was.

Taking this many pictures in a shopping street during the middle of the day isn’t as easy as you would think.

I also took pictures of Margate High Street today, I think I covered this more comprehensively, here are the links to the High Street pictures.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/MargateHighStreetMay2011/

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/MargateHighStreetMay2011/id3.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/MargateHighStreetMay2011/id5.htm

The main idea of these series of pictures is as some sort of historical record of our towns, the shopping centres in particular, something is happening with our shopping streets that isn’t just as simple as a lot of shops closing.

I notice that Poundland is to open a shop at Westwood Cross and wonder if we will ever see charity shops and estate agents opening there too.

I am of the opinion that mobile internet use is going to have a considerable influence on shopping in a relatively short space of time, a much shorter time than the conventionally viewed internet did. Mainly because most of can use both the internet and mobile phones, so we haven’t really got anything much to learn.  

Election Special including the absolute duffers guide to AV

 After not having received anything from either the Labour or Conservative parties relating to tomorrows election, I emailed both parties yesterday saying that I was trying to fill out my postal vote wosisname and didn’t have any info on their candidates.

I got an email response from the Conservatives listing the names of their candidates standing in my ward, as they were already listed on the ballot paper I had told them I was trying to fill out, this wasn’t particularly helpful. It is this type of gormless logic that makes one wish one had a Monster Raving Loony Party candidate.

The Labour Party sent a candidate, so at least I got a response.

Next AV after a very uphill discussion about what this actually means, this is a best shot at a duffers explanation.

There are three candidates standing in the imaginary constituency of Fanit.

Ludicrous Lazyboy, standing for the Loony Left Party.

Ridiculous Roarer, standing for the Raving Right Party.

Mischievous Michael, standing for the Mad Middle Party.

So the three candidates are LL, RR and MM.

Under the present first past the post system 31 people vote for LL, 30 for RR and 30 for MM, LL gets elected.

Under AV 31 people vote for LL, 30 for RR and 30 for MM, as their first choice,

None of the Loony Left voters want the Raving Right Party to get in so they make their second choice MM.

None of the Raving Right voters want the Loony left to get in so they make their second choice MM, MM gets elected.

It does look as though the local elections here in Thanet are going to be a close run thing, so I would say it is worth making an extra effort to vote as every vote will probably count.

I have to admit that there seems to be a bit of a state of apathy about the whole thing here in Ramsgate neither party seems to have that much to offer us, with the main emphasis being on Margate. Certainly at the moment Margate needs all the help it can get so I don’t think anyone resents this, there is a bit of a things couldn’t get much worse feel to the whole thing, in terms of council owned assets there really isn’t that much left to close here.

Press releases in and published from Laura Sandys and Clive Hart, both asking us to vote tomorrow but nothing in from the Conservative candidates, do they want us to vote?

The turner contemptibles people pay to look at art and rotate in Margate

 This is not a wind turbine.

If you will for a moment imagine a funfair without art, or perhaps decorated by contemporary artists, perhaps minimalisticly, it therefore figures that one thing people are paying for at a funfair is fairground art.

 There is, as you may have noticed, a funfair in Margate, where there should be one on the Dreamland site, an eight quid armband allows you to ride on pretty much everything for a four hour session. Provided you are tall enough, a major consideration for my colleagues on this assignment.

Here are the links to the pictures

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Dreamland2511/id4.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Dreamland2511/id3.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Dreamland2511/index.htm

I may ramble on a bit.