The Thanet South Nigel Farage Equation.

Personally I am very pleased that Nigel Farage has been selected to stand in Thanet South, frankly it’s time that the political spotlight was shone on us and some of the local issues here came to the attention of the politicians and the media.

My main area of interest and understanding in this constituency is Ramsgate and as far as I can see looking a previous election results it is in Ramsgate where the political swing mostly occurs that makes Thanet South into a winnable marginal.

I will be kicking off by writing to the main candidates asking for their views on the main local issues, asking them what they see as being solutions and whether they feel that they are in a position to implement or influence the implementation of their solutions.

The issues I have thought of are:

Manston Airport and the complex balance between any means of saving the airport, noise pollution to Ramsgate particularly with respect to night flights and particulate air pollution caused by an airfreight hub in upwind parts of Thanet South.  

Port Ramsgate, its possible short, medium and long term uses.

Pleasurama and if there is any way to speed this problem to resolution and of course what they see as a viable future use for the site.

The Pavillion and the associated problems related to turning it into the largest pub in Europe or even if the feel that there could actually be some grant funding to turn this publicly owned grade 2 listed building into a public venue of leisure attraction.    

Ramsgate being the main non supermarket food shopping centre and the council trying to reduce this by buying up shops in fully let and occupied shopping parades in the town with the intention of turning them into social housing.

As with any open letter for publication here, I will put some thought into it before writing it and any suggestions from readers would be appreciated.

I think the main issue is really one of focus, with most of the focus at all levels of government being directed on Thanet North and particularly Margate, with KCC focused on Turner Contemporary and TDC focused on Dreamland.

Obviously UKIP and the Conservatives have considerable influence at KCC and Labour and the Conservatives having considerable influence at TDC but all of them wanting to win the Thanet South seat I think we may be in with a chance of directing some of the focus on Ramsgate.

    

Age & Sons in Ramsgate close, Manston Airport and the Sacrificial Ram Tweet and any other rambles that come up.

First this sign has appeared on Age & Sons.

Next in as much as anything goes viral in, this screenshot is doing the local Facebook Twitter rounds in Thanet.

I am back to work in my bookshop after the bank holiday weekend and have some catching up to do so I will add to this post as and when I get the time. 

Mike Trim at the York Street Gallery in Ramsgate,

 The current Exhibition is by  Mike Trim
Chislet based artist Mike brings to the gallery over 30 paintings in Mixed Media.
Famed for his artwork on "Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds" rock album, Mike now paints land & seascapes.

The exhibition runs -  20th August - 27th August
Open Studios - 9/10/16/17/23/24 & 25 August daily 10-4

The day starts with a fire in Ramsgate and I ramble on about bears chickens roundabouts, the summer squall and Manston Airport.

Not an auspicious start to the bank holiday weekend, however I don't believe anyone was hurt and the boys in brown soon had things under control.

The Lights were already back on on The Belgian Cafe when I left, so while guess things in there may a little on the damp side for a while I would guess it will soon be business as usual.

From the point of view of a showman the chickens and ostriches must be a right pain as the heads  and steps are separate and would all have to bolted on after the animal is hooked onto the ride.

I guess this all made perfect sense in the 1880s when squeals of “I want a pony daddy” were a bit pointless as any aspiring lass probably already a pony and so would have wanted something not found on other roundabouts. I wana go on a bear or an ostrich makes some sense to me, but a chicken, well I guess that needs some working out. 

Next comes The Great Wall of Ramsgate, Cllr Ian Driver once lambasted for inciting the vandalism – although as it was carried out using a paint roller – so how that worked exactly I don’t know, has done. What?

Well found the paintings although not the missing £3k according to the video below.  


Click on this link http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20Great%20Wall%20of%20Ramsgate for more about The Great Wall of Ramsgate and contemplate the vandals out with their paint pot and paint roller, like so much relating to the Pleasurama site the surreal of even the outright bonkers takes over. 

On to Manston Airport and my rather strange encounter with The Save Manston Airport Group in the middle of Ramsgate town centre.

This involved a bloke with a tannoy getting his message across very loudly, which was “Jobs for your children, save Manston Airport, sign the new petition” anyway eventually he paused for breath and asked who the petition was aimed at and what was its objective? Aimed at TDC and KCC apparently. Anyway I said that I was interested in the objective before I considered signing it, as far as I know you can only petition the council to either make them discuss something or to make them hold a public consultation about something, this type of thinking seemed to cause some degree of confusion for chap with the megaphone. Then I said to him that while I was for saving the airport I was very much against turning it into a freight hub, rather in the same way that while I supported Ramsgate having a railway station I would be against Ramsgate having Clapham junction. This all proved too much for the tannoy man and he started yelling was “Jobs for your children, save Manston Airport, sign the new petition” into his megaphone.

This encounter set me thinking as to who it is that is doing most to damage any chances of saving the airport and just what it was that the locals wanted with respect to the airport.

I think we all know and understand what the local politicians want out of the airport closure and I don’t suppose I need to draw a diagram, I know what I want which is a reasonable balance between jobs, prosperity and environmental damage from the Manston site, preferably a strong aviation museum and historic aircraft facility combined with passenger flights that I can actually fly somewhere on, failing that any use for the site that produces some jobs and prosperity without too much environmental cost.

So anyway apart from this there is a real and substantial update on the Manston Airport front, RiverOak have finally put their intentions in writing and in the public domain with a new page on their website, see http://www.riveroakic.com/aviation.html

For me as ever the sceptic this raises some interesting questions, the key one being about their previous experience in aviation, obviously from their submission it is now apparent that they have no previous experience in aviation and haven’t funded or run any other airports. 

There has been a significant change in RiverOak’s position since august 6^th , see http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/firm-pledge-stop-auction-airport-assets/story-22084937-detail/story.html which says:

“The company [RiverOak] says it believes Manston could be viable for air freight, aviation services including maintenance, recycling, private charter and commercial passenger services. It claims the experience of one of its senior team members in refinancing Alliance Fort Worth Airport in Texas had proved the case.”

To august 20^th see http://www.riveroakic.com/pdfs/DP6%20response%20-%20RiverOak%20-%207-31-14%20SENT%20COPY%20TO%20TF.pdf which says:

“Rather they are based broadly on the model developed at Alliance Fort Worth airport in Texas, with which we [RiverOak] are very familiar, but tailored to reflect Manston’s unique facets and its potential strategic role in the wider South East airport’s system.”

Now I don’t have much of a problem with RiverOak having no experience in aviation, but I do have a very big problem with either RiverOak claiming to local media to have experience in aviation that they just haven’t got or the local media suggesting that a potential airport operator has aviation experience when it hasn’t got it. 

I guess the problem I have here is that our council have got themselves into some deals with foreign companies, the ferry finances and Pleasurama being examples, and this wound up costing us the council taxpayers very dearly indeed.

Now when this particular foreign company appeared on the scene the BBC ran this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-27411419 and I have been on my guard ever since.   

Tony Freudmann was the Senior Vice President of PlaneStation and in 2005 Infratil, the New Zealand-listed infrastructure fund agreed to take over London Manston airport for £17m from the administrator of the bankrupt Planestation group.

very busy today so will add to this as I can.

Preparations underway for Ramsgate’s Summer Squall

Here is the link to the Summer Squall website http://ramsgatearts.org/squall/summer-squall-programme 

Response to my complaint to Thanet District Council about their E-petition scheme, a sketch of Deal High Street and a few photos of Walmer Castle.

First here is my complaint to the council:

Hi I wish to complain about the council’s online petition facility.

I am concerned that no effort is made by the council to separate or identify petitioners and those starting a petition, into Thanet Residents and non-Thanet residents or restrict the number of times someone can sign an online petition.

Please see the Manston airport cpo issue as being unrelated to this complaint and as only being used by me because it the most recent TDC online petition and helps me to illustrate areas of possible improvement.   

Although I am not against saving Manston airport, I did note that the petition was started by a non UK resident and that it had been signed both by other non UK residents and by people living within the UK who were protesting against airport expansion elsewhere in the UK, usually where they live. 

All of this meant that when councillors had to decide this important local issue it wasn’t possible for them to gauge the support for the cpo among Thanet residents, who are now funding the various legal stages in investigating the issue.

The norm (that used by KCC and the UK government) appears to be only members of the electoral roll (councils) or UK residents (UK gov) can start petitions or sign them, either online or on paper.

My suggestion would be that when members of the public join the council’s website they have to supply their names and addresses so that the council could verify them. Obviously once the names had been verified they wouldn’t subsequently need to be verified for every petition, which would save the council money. 

People who have already joined the council’s website would need to be emailed asking them to update their details. My understanding is that it is possible to join the council’s website, to sign petitions as many times as one has email addresses at the moment, so this would be an opportune moment to resolve the multiple signing issue too.

I would also refer you to your own document pack from when the council decided on how online petitions should function, which states that the rules for online petition should be the same as those for paper petitions and that the names and addresses for signatories of paper petitions should be verified. 

I believe the situation is generally different for online consultation, where people from outside the area are allowed to take part but their responses are weighted to reflect their geographical location.    

Best regards Michael

Here is the council’s response:

Dear Mr Child

Customer Feedback Reference: 67697/2756315

Thank you for your recent communication which was received on 11/08/2014.

I will endeavour to answer the points that you have raised in your email to us one at a time.

1) The petition was not started by a Thanet resident. - Under the Council's existing petition scheme there are no rules surrounding where a petitioner may be from.

2) The petition was signed by non-UK residents. - The Council's petition scheme currently allows for non UK residents to sign a petition or an Epetition.

3) The norm is that only UK residents can sign a petition to the UK government and only those on the electoral role may sign a petition to a Council. -  Whilst I cannot comment on UK government policy, the current government introduced the Localism Act 2011 which repealed the section of the Local Government, Local Development and Construction Act 2009 that required all local authorities to have a petitions scheme. Therefore no Council is required to have a petitions scheme and if it does have a scheme then it would be up to the Council as to how it would verify signatories to a petition.

4) Those signing an epetition should provide their addresses. - Whilst not currently required by the petition scheme, this issue will be discussed at a forthcoming meeting of the Constitutional Review Working Party on 2 September.

5) I would also refer you to your own document pack from when the council decided on how online petitions should function, which states that the rules for online petition should be the same as those for paper petitions. - I believe the document pack you refer to is the one for the Council meeting of the 10 July 2014, - however if this is not the case then please say. In it does state the prayer for both the Epetition and the paper petition should be exactly the same. I can confirm that they were the same. In addition, clarifications to the rules surrounding whether an Epetition and a paper petition can be run concurrently are also due to the discussed at the Constitutional Review Working Party on 2 September.

Separately I can also confirm that all signatories to a paper petition are verified - officers ensure that a name, address and signature are present in order for it to be considered as a valid entry.

We hope that this resolves the matter to your satisfaction.

If you are not happy with our response, you may write to us with your reasons within the next ten working days, requesting a further review.

In order for us to respond as efficiently as possible, please ensure that you quote the above reference number and address your communication to Amanda Buckingham - Customer Contact Officer.

Yours sincerely

***** ******

Committee Services Manager

My feelings are that the complaint, which I submitted after some discussions with officers and councillors should fit the bill and allow them the resources to rectify the problems with the petition system.

Here is the sketch of Deal High Street today, from outside Costa Coffee, sorry it didn’t get finished, but the shopping finished before I did.

And finally a few photos of Walmer Castle. All the pictures should expand if clicked on

The Churchill Tavern in Ramsgate the art of eating, a sad road accident and something of a ramble.

My children stayed with relations last night which meant that we decided to do something we seldom do, which is to eat out in Ramsgate.

On the whole an evening meal is likely to set one back at least £15 per head with drinks and while the occasional £30 or so is reasonable for an adult couple the inevitable £60 plus if you always have two school age children in tow is beyond us shop assistants.

 Sorry we started eating before I thought to take the pictures.

Thinking to get the last of the sunshine we opted for The Churchill Tavern in Ramsgate, very good it was too.

I did the inevitable pen and watercolour sketch, I am making various experiments in to the way one incorporates people into sketches, this is a bit like spicing food inasmuch as it is very easy to overdo it.

As we arrived at The Churchill Tavern in Ramsgate the air ambulance landed and later we learned that a motorcyclist had died in a traffic accident, see http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Motorcyclist-dies-Ramsgate-accident/story-22783780-detail/story.html

At the moment I am trying to get together a Facebook group at the moment I am trying to get together a Facebook group to try an highlight a potential Ramsgate problem which I think may ultimately be far more damaging to Ramsgate than even the Pleasurama fiasco, see https://www.facebook.com/groups/815158441850840/

My main problem here is to get across the point that if the council set about deliberately contracting Ramsgate Shopping Centre by buying up any empty shops in otherwise fully let shopping padres and turning the ground floor shops into social housing, then soon the middle of Ramsgate will have turned into a housing estate.

I think in the current climate where all of the other council’s are trying to regenerate town centres there is the possibility of national media interest, but first the problem of uniting local people in opposing this action.

Facebook and twitter are areas where I have little experience, up until now and for the most part my posts there are automatically generated on thos sites when I post on this blog and with the school holidays I frankly have very little time to pursue the council, so any help with this one would be much appreciated.