Will

This is something of an experiment in trying to share some of the larger format historical document that relate to Ramsgate, not perfect but just about legible. The questions are does anybody find this sort of document interesting? If so I can probably improve the quality. Can people manage to read it as it is?

Click on the image to enlarge

Thanet Earth

I went to Monkton nature reserve the other day where some of the volunteers there were expressing concern about Thanet Earth, you have to appreciate here that the nature reserve is in a disused chalk pit and that there is now a huge mountain of chalk towering above it, on which the massive greenhouses will eventually be built.

It seemed pretty obvious that many of the people in the vicinity of Thanet Earth had no idea of the colossal scale of this structure, especially in terms of the height of the earth works, it would seem that local consultation was abysmally inadequate.

One thing I noticed that made me chuckle, was the stupid comments by the supporters of Thanet Earth to the effect that much less of our underground water supply would consumed, because the water from its roofs would be used to irrigate the crops inside. What they failed to notice was that as the thing is on top of the drinking water reservoir, the water landing on the roofs would previously have soaked though the ground and into the reservoir.

Ramsgate Parish Council Elections.

Thanet District Council have announced that Ramsgate Parish Council Elections will be held early in 2009. I have just telephoned them to confirm this as there appears to be some confusion about this both in the press and on the blogs, what will happen is that a date will be set, candidates will apply, we will vote for them, those elected will become parish councillors and we get a parish council.

The parish council can then decide to turn itself into a town council, take over the charter trustees and elect a Mayor.

Montefiore Synagogue

As it’s European Day of Jewish Culture & Heritage this coming Sunday the Montefiore Synagogue will be open from 9.30am to 12.30pm click here for last years pictures

Maritime books

The other day I published some pictures of books on the shelves in the shop and several people said they found books they were looking for because of this, so I have photographed the maritime section today and will do the others as I get round to it, sorry the stock in it is a bit depleted, there have been a lot of boats visiting the harbour this summer and their crews have made off with much of it.

You may notice that some of the books are not actually secondhand, these are things like reps samples, publishers returns, review copies and remainders, however most are much cheaper their cover prices. I should also remind anyone who sees a book that the want that tomorrow being Thursday we will be closed.

Click here to look at the pictures of the books

Complaining to Thanet District Council update

When communicating with council officers one is sometimes reminded of surrealism, perhaps it’s me, what do you think?

Subject:
Re: Complaint against Thanet District Council
Date:
02/09/2008 13:21:54 GMT Standard Time
From:
Michael Child
Reply To:
To:
richard.samuel@thanet.gov.uk

Hi Richard

Thanks for your letter (below) received today, unfortunately it doesn't actually address my complaint.

Can I reiterate that my complaint is: Thanet District Council has chosen to restrict access to comments on the UKPlanning website, that is on the public facing part of the website only.

As I have pointed out before I can't complain about which documents are missing until the public access restrictions are lifted, as I can't see what is missing.

I have just looked at the planning website and public access is still restricted, why?




Mr M Child
72 King Street
Ramsgate
Kent
0Th 8NY
Our ref: RS/vwYour ref:Date: 29 August 2008Call Direct (01843) 577002


Richard Samuel
Chief Executive

Direct line:
01843 577002
thanet
district council

Thank you for your email of 15th August indicating that you wished me to review the Councils responses to your complaint.

Your complaint was that the Council had in the past chosen to not provide full functionality on the UK planning portal in that certain documents are not automatically available on line.

I regret that the senior officers who took the original decision some 6 or 7 years ago are no longer employed by the Council so it has not been possible to verify the precise details of the discussions and options considered at the time. I am therefore unable to determine whether the decision was taken for financial or technical reasons. However I can concede that access to the UK planning portal on Thanet planning applications is limited to some degree. I believe that better on line facilities are possible to achieve and we are working towards that objective. I have instructed all services to move towards full electronic data management of their activities and a programme of work is in development to achieve this aim. I am pleased to say that the planning service is at the forefront of the programme as we recognise the importance of this service to the public.

Having made my comments above I must point out that full public access is and always has been available on all planning records at all times and the Council fully complies with the law in this regard. There is no legal requirement to provide electronic access to planning records although it is of course good practice to do so. I do not consider therefore that the Council’s approach is created any disadvantage to you or any other resident as the records you were interested in have always been open to inspection by you. I do accept however that you may have been inconvenienced.

I have confirmed to you that it is my intention to ensure in due course that members of the public should be able to view all planning documents whether current or historic via the Council’s web site. The Council will however offer a service to residents who do not have access to the internet and a facility to view electronic files will be available at Thanet Gateway Plus.

I am grateful to you for highlighting this matter and I hope you now understand that it was already the Council’s intention to move in the direction you have suggested to improve our service.

Yours sincerely

Richard Samuel Chief Executive


Click here for some of the previous correspondence

Busman’s holiday

When we go out anywhere one of the things we pretty much always do is to buy books for shop stock and ourselves, yesterday was no exception and here is yesterdays haul click here to look at them see it as rough reflection of local people taste in reading.

A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month

It’s effectively the end of the summer season such as it was this year, one struggle I had with the council that failed, was to try and get some temporary use for the Pleasurama site this year.

Despite the efforts of myself and various councillors including Sandy Ezekiel nothing happened, we were assured that the work on the site would make it too dangerous for people to be allowed to use it. In fact no work was carried out on the site during the summer months and once again Ramsgate lost out.

Last I heard the work on the design for anchoring the cliff façade to the cliff (the unpainted bit with the big cracks in it) was nearing completion and the architects had submitted various plans to the planning department, in an attempt to resolve the issues raised by the environment agency, however none of these plans has been acceptable.

Now it appears that there is some doubt about whether the bond that the developer SFP, or their bankers, or any other associate company was supposed to give Thanet District Council before final permission to advance the development was given, has in fact been received.