Sunday morning reflections

It’s two weeks since I wrote the last one of these, just after the China Gateway plans were approved, if the approval was intended to support the company behind it, property speculator Commercial Group properties Plc it doesn’t appear to have worked their shares are still at 42p i.e. where they were before the approval.

Then there were the Rick Card revelations, I don’t think anyone had given much credence to what he has been saying, mainly I think because of the way he had been saying it. Another one of his assertions has been confirmed to me by someone totally independent from Rick. It concerns firearms something I know next to nothing about so I won’t post about it, I shall only say that the person who confirmed it will now take the matter forward.

However I now come to a matter I do know something about, and that is the electrical generators, I emailed Rick and asked him what was the matter with them explaining that I could possibly understand a technical answer, I got a precise technical answer that could only have come from a very competent engineer.

The accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station was caused by the failure of an emergency backup generator and Rick is saying that we may have some of these faulty generators in some of our nuclear power stations.

Another matter of some note in the last couple of weeks was that of deleting Sandy Ezekiel’s main email address leader@thanet.gov.uk now regardless of how you feel about the current leader of the council, he is still that. The main representative of us, the electorate and to make a fool of him in this way sends out a very clear message about what the council officers think of us. Also it means if you have emailed him or replied to one of his emails and he hasn’t responded, it is very probably because he hasn’t received it.

Plans for Marina Restaurant

You probably remember back in February when we learnt that listed building status didn’t necessarily protect our buildings. Click here for my previous posts on the subject.

You can providing you have the right software view the new plans for it at http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet the planning reference is L/TH/08/1197

Alternatively I have published the main elevations click here to view them, I can’t give you a link to the plans on the TDC planning website, as it appears to have written to make it as difficult to use as possible. The photographs of the building have been published in the wrong file format, so that they are as good as useless, and us yes we pay for this.

Mock Victorian mock Elizabethan stuck to mock 50s with flying saucer on top, the architect like the designer of the planning website will probably get an award, perhaps it’s attributable to something in the water.

If they want to rebuild it bigger can we have it all in mock Victorian mock Elizabethan please?

It was one of Ramsgate’s most charming and eccentric buildings and I for one think it should be replaced not desecrated.

Sericol Cyclohexanone leak

As the Isle of Thanet Gazette published a story about the leak I thought I ought to expand on it slightly, and answer as many questions as I can about it.

How dangerous is Cyclohexanone? The affects of exposure to this chemical are thought to cause neurological damage, damage to unborn children, altered immune system function, adverse effects on the respiratory system and affect the sensory system.

How much of the chemical would be dangerous? If you have to work in a contaminated environment in industry, you would have to wear a chemical protection suit and breathing apparatus where the concentration of the chemical exceeds 20 parts per million.

How much was spilt? No one really knows they have been extracting it from the chalk under Westwood since 2007 and have so far recovered about 500 tons of the chemical from the water pumped out of the chalk.

Has it got into our drinking water, water used for crop irrigation and washing or water used for industry? No one really seems to know the complete answer to this one, most of the water used in Thanet is pumped from the porous chalk underground, as the leak went undetected for nearly 30 years and as there seems to be little regulation of private boreholes, it’s a bit of a grey area.

Is the vapour coming out of the ground? I have asked the council and some of the local politicians, but haven’t yet received an answer

Have there been any surveys of the health of the people living and working in the effected area because of the spillage? Once again I have asked the council and some of the local politicians, but haven’t yet received an answer.

What is this information based on?

The freedom of information request response from the environment agency click here to read

The International Labour Organization, part of the UN that produces regulatory information for member states click here to read

Scorecard the web's most popular resource for information about pollution problems and toxic chemicals click here to read

The British Geographical survey’s internal report on the Thanet underground water reservoir click here to read

Ramsgate First Manifesto for 2009

Click here to read it Click here for the rest of the map

Loss leader

I don’t know how the Politburo is going to explain this one, it’s got to be one of the funnier emails I have had from TDC in a while.

Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details
Date: 10/23/2008 12:32:06 GMT Standard Time
From: MAILER-DAEMON@baldrick.thanet.gov.uk
Reply To:
To: MichaelChild@aol.com

The original message was received at Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:31:34 +0100from in-emit0.armourplate.net [195.167.168.84] ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----leader@thanet.gov.uk (reason: 550 No such recipient) ----- Transcript of session follows -----... while talking to [172.16.7.225]:>>> RCPT To: leader@thanet.gov.uk
leader@thanet.gov.uk ... User unknown

More pollution

I hadn’t realised how much pollution has occurred in Thanet until I looked at the pollution maps (previous post) and I would like to know about other incidents and people that have been effected.

Obviously I have been discussing local pollution issues with our politicians and Steve Ladyman mentioned one earlier today, he said.

You might want to investigate historic pollution of the site at Westwood were McDonalds is now. I have had reports in the past of chemical tanks on that site associated with old engineering works that were cleaned by workers who suffered chronic health conditions thereafter. I was never able to get proof but you may dig some thing up as when I heard about it many years ago we didn’t have a ‘blogsphere’ that could jog peoples memories and other than the recollections of a couple of workers from the site (one of whom had become very ill with symptoms that could possibly have been caused by chemicals but equally could have been caused by something else) I got no further.

Dreamland Zoo

Interesting article in Thanet Extra today http://www.thanetextra.co.uk/news/default.asp?article_id=50020&newspage=1 about the recently discovered animal cages. I remember there being a zoo there in the 1970s when I took some time out of engineering to spend a summer season working as a maintenance engineer on the arcade slot machines.

Does anyone else remember the zoo and the unusual things about it like taking lion cubs for a walk on Margate sands in the early mornings?

Has anyone got any photos?

Here are the photos re comments below

Captain Charles West’s Funeral 1915

Many thanks to Dave Richards and Don Dimond for the information about the pictures of the fireman’s funeral that I published the other day.

Captain Charles West’s Funeral took place on Saturday 20th march 1915 he died on Wednesday 17th March 1915 aged 64, he was our much respected chief fire officer. Ramsgate fireman acted as pallbearers, fire crews from all over the county sent representatives.

If you look carefully at the picture you can see the coffin cover with the union jack is being carried on a fire appliance.

Click here for the other pictures