Sunday ramble and a few reflections on the last week’s blogging

It was a week ago today that I posted about the core strategy response and the council seem to be still fighting with their IT on that one.

At the moment it says on their website: “197 responses were received via on-line questionnaire.

People were able to respond to this consultation by uploading a response document.

No response documents have been received for this consultation.”

See http://consult.thanet.gov.uk/inovem/consult.ti/core.strategy/listRespondents

It really isn’t that surprising that they didn’t receive any responses from people who uploaded the response document as the document that TDC provided online was in the form of a pdf file so that it wasn’t actually possible to write on it with ones computer.

It now says 197 people used the online questionnaire, as this conflicts with what the council has already said I can only assume that this is another TDCIT problem, by this I mean that the person putting the information on their website doesn’t understand the information they are publishing.

I haven’t had a chance to count the names on the council website and see if there are 197 of them, this should be simple as there are 20 pages of names 19 of which have 11 names on them, however as many of the names are repeated it is all a bit of a mess.

The whole thing is typical of the councils approach to IT which seems to be to use the most complicated expensive and difficult method, by this I mean that instead of just publishing a page with all of the names on it in alphabetical order they have used this strange method of putting 11 names on 20 interlinked pages some of the list of names is in alphabetical order and some of it isn’t.

The wretched Pleasurama saga still goes on and it is getting the information about it from the council that is such a frustrating and time consuming business, why they would want to secretive about a development of this scale is something that I have never really understood.

Pretty much every document that I have managed to obtain relating to the development has added more to the confirmation that it is an ill-conceived development that can’t possibly be built without changing the plans completely.

I do wonder what it is that the council are trying to achieve, particularly as until they finally address the very real problems that relate both to the cliff safety and the flooding issues, the delays just continue.

One of the worrying local paper articles this week is the one about dangerous dog crime http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/thanet/Figures-rise-dog-attacks-Thanet/article-1809907-detail/article.html reading the article I was again aware of the situation where the pressure on the police to produce ever reducing crime statistics, means in practice they are increasingly reluctant to prosecute people.

Another article that struck a chord with me is the one about the Turner Contemporary KCC grant money http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/thanet/Trust-boss-vows-Turner-centre-Margate-value/article-1809836-detail/article.html the argument from the pro Turner lot has always been that the money to fund it doesn’t come out of our pockets.

Well £1,000,000 a year out of our council tax is a substantial amount, over the past few years talking to people I know that work for KCC I have become aware that this project has become a sort untouchable grail that goes on getting funding, no matter how much money it sops up, or how much is diverted from other projects due to the harsh economic climate.

I was surprised by the seriousness of the KFC fire see http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2010/february/6/kfc_fire.aspx this type of modern building always looks to me as though it would be difficult for a fire to spread very quickly.

I have noticed that some of the recent largish residential developments have been built almost entirely of wood and I do wonder how these would withstand a fire.

The council’s unpopular asset disposal program is continuing, but with so much resistance one does wonder if it is going to cost them nearly as much in legal fees countering the opposition as they will raise from the sale of the assets.

One does wonder what the cost of the Northdown House debacle was when one considers the all of the business they lost while it was going on.

Back to Pleasurama, I gather now that the developer has deposited £1m with the council, instead of the bond, with the £1m on the cliff repairs I am beginning to wonder if Austin Powers is involved.

I suppose that so much actual money must be seen a considerable message of intent, what I fail to understand why if the developer has considerable ready cash available, he hasn’t undertaken a survey of the cliff façade and a flood risk assessment.

I have started to sound out our councillors about the possibility of getting temporary leisure use for the site this year, so far the answers have been the same as previous years, by that I mean that they say work is due to start on constructing the development in the next few weeks.

One does wonder after having said the same thing all these years running if they genuinely believe what they are saying, they reply to me that the problems with the cliff façade have been resolved, I then send them the photographs of the missing foundations after that I don’t hear from them again.

Bit of a long ramble I am afraid but then you don’t have to read it.

Thoughts on failures and some pictures of Northdown Park and a bit of a ramble

With the local history books I publish my main priority is to get the material in them on to paper, so there are enough copies about to make certain that it is permanently preserved.

However I have to say that I was surprised that the book I published last week “John Heywoods Illustrated Guide To Margate” hasn’t sold a single copy.

Click on the link if you want to buy it http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/john_heywoods_illustrated_guide_to_margate.htm I have put the map of Margate from it on another of my failures http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/

That website which keeps track on the main local blog posts and comments and is something that I use every day only gets about 50 unique visitors a month compared with the 2,500 or so who read this blog.

One area where this blog Thanetonline that is, differs from most of other local blogs is that there is a fair amount of comment on older posts, because of the historical comment, having said that though other local blogs do attract comment on old postings. So what defeats me is apart from looking on http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/ how would anyone ever find these comments and therefore what is the point of them?

Here is the link to the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts1210/id4.htm the shop is too busy today to get on with much so I will probably ramble on a bit more as the day progresses.

Ramsgate Town Council Albion House and the Custom House.

A few thoughts here that come from reading today’s Isle of Thanet Gazette see http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/thanet/Ramsgate-town-council-moves-109-years/article-1797328-detail/article.html and Mark Nottingham’s blog see http://marknottingham.blogspot.com/2010/02/ramsgates-new-town-hall.html

The main thing that concerns me here is that this issue could divide many people who are pro Ramsgate and should be on the same side, the problem being that that the issue of saving Albion House has got confused with the issue of finding an appropriate home for our town council.

Much of this is to do with how grant funding works, the problem being that grant funding that would be available to a non government organisation, and was available for the restoration of the Custom House wouldn’t as far as I understand, be available either to TDC or RTC.

I may have misunderstood this in some way, so please correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it there are only two ways forward for Albion House, one is to form a charitable trust that can get the grants another is to sell it to a private company that can get the grants.

Now at the moment TDC are using Albion House to fight a legal battle with local residents at our expense see http://thanetstrife.blogspot.com/2010/02/expensive-tdc-fight-to-oppose-hoots.html something that I find rather depressing.

The bottom line here though is that TDC has operated a strange policy of making such services as they provide in Ramsgate fairly inaccessible and fragmented through a number of different buildings.

Their offices in York Street, The Town Partnership in York Street (another closed shop now), Albion House (a building that has to have netting on it to stop bits of it falling on people that was never given disabled access), The Tourist Information office (moved from building to building in the town until it was moved to where no tourist would be likely to find it).

I also noticed that TDC want you to pay them to film The Custom House see http://www.thanet.gov.uk/leisure__culture/filming_in_thanet/custom_house_ramsgate.aspx something I found a bit bizarre in the circumstances.

There is also a bit of a myth that Albion House has a long history of being Ramsgate’s town hall, this is just not the case, Ramsgate’s New Town Hall was in the market place on the junction of Harbour Street and Queen Street. It was the town hall from about 1840 to 1955 when it was demolished.

Royal Sands Development Pleasurama the bulge and the revenge of the hard hats.

The sun did finally come out and with the man flue subsiding I did manage to get out and take some pictures, including some of the cliff repairs by the park see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop210/

Anyway while I was taking the pictures of the cliff repairs one of the workmen approached me asked me if I was the bloke that wrote the thanetonline blog, to which I obviously responded with a yes.

He said that I had taken some pictures of him and he didn’t like them being online, this is a first for me but I though he must have his reasons, so I explained to him that when I stopped putting up the long series of pictures at the end of last summer I got a lot of emails from people who couldn’t get out for a walk and as some of them were disabled, I now just took as many as I could and published them all up.

I went on to explain that this meant that I had thousands of pictures on the internet and while I would be happy to take the ones of him down, he would have to email me the internet address or addresses of the pictures and tell me roughly how far down the page they were.

Then he said, it’s the ones of the blockwork on the cliff wall I want you to take down there’s nothing wrong with it.

So I said, the last time I looked down there it didn’t have proper foundations and wasn’t tied to either the cliff or the supporting pillars.

He then said, do you mean you have been on the site and that that was trespassing.

I said to him, I had been on the site on many occasions and knew I was trespassing.

So he then said, right then we can get you for that, and walked off.

You really couldn’t make it up could you, as you can see from the pictures, even Goody Demolition the firm that did the vital heritage work on the Marina Restaurant were there working for the council see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/search?q=goody

Pleasurama minor update

Work has started laying the pipe for the roof rainwater drainage for the Pleasurama development, this pipe runs from the site to the inner basin and draining the roof in this way conforms to environment agency guidelines.

One aspect of the Pleasurama development that has always interested me it that much of the work undertaken so far hasn’t made much sense.

The new access road from the Granville Marina is a case in point where the developer has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds getting a contractor Knight Developments to build it, without first investigating the structure of the access road, to find out if it will last long enough to provide access to the building.

Even when the EA report came out saying that they strongly recommended a flood risk assessment, work carried on laying lose slabs on sand, on top of the sea defences, well I have been through all of this before and anyone who missed it can click on the links at the bottom of this post, to read all about it.

Well now another contractor http://www.oatmor-harris.co.uk/ are digging up the new roundabout laid by a previous contractor Knight Developments http://www.jlknightroadworks.co.uk/index.html

Do I have a problem with the work going on at the moment, well the answer to that one is no, Oatmor Harris are a quality contractor based in Deal, laying a pipe that has to be laid.

You can see from the photographs that they have turned up with the right kit to tackle the problem of laying a pipe through the concrete remains of the old railway turntable.

But still the question remains, why not lay the pipes and wires for the new development before laying the new roundabout?

Here is the link to this morning’s photographs http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop5/id8.htm it was a wet and gloomy morning and on reviewing them I have run them through a program to lighten them as they looked rather gloomy to me click on this link for the brighter ones http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop5/id9.htm I don’t know why when I publish pictures to the web from my notebook they don’t come up in the right order so I am sorry about that one.

Ramsgate’s Blue Plaque Scheme

The Ramsgate Society has received a grant from KCC to put up blue plaques on buildings in the town to commemorate their association with famous people.

Click on the link for the first draft of who they think should be included and which buildings should have the plaques on them.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Blogpicts1210/id3.htm

I gather that at this stage they are collecting ideas and comments. So if any of you have any ideas click on the comments link underneath and I will pass them on.

Thanet’s Core Strategy update on the missing responses.

I have had a reply from Thanet District Council to the effect that the only respondents listed at http://consult.thanet.gov.uk/inovem/consult.ti/core.strategy/listRespondents are those who succeeded in using the online form.

This is slightly bizarre on reflection as the Ramsgate Society response was delivered on paper I believe, so I still have some way to get to the bottom of this.

I genuinely believe that there isn’t an intention to deceive here, but this is due to the officers concerned having to work in the new area of public consultation joined to the internet, within the constraints of TDCIT.

From what I understand the names of those who responded on paper or by email will appear in the list soon and there will be some attempt to publish as many of the responses as possible on the internet.

My understanding is that they have masses of sheets of paper, complex emails with long attachments and they are looking at how best to present this on the internet, in a way that people unscramble it all fairly easily.

I suppose the lesson here for the council is that if you say on the internet that there are 118 responses when in fact there are more than this and combine this information with the names the of people who responded, many of them are going to notice immediately that there names aren’t there.

I think the nub of the problem here is that the officer putting the information on to the internet isn’t the officer that has produced the information and in fact the person who put the information onto the internet is in fact an IT bod who hasn’t a detailed understanding of the information that they are publishing.

You can consider this in terms of my online bookselling and wonder what would happen if instead of me and the other people who work in the bookshop putting the books for sale on the internet, these were put online by someone who hadn’t actually seen the books.

Government in general but particularly local government has got itself into a bit of a time warp when it comes to IT, it is as though publishing to the internet is a sort of sacred cow only to be done by some special group of people.

This used to be the case a number of years ago, of course now everyone one does it all the time, if you leave a comment here you have published to the internet and everyone with an internet connection can read it.

Well everyone apart from people living in countries with oppressive regimes or working in places like TDC where this site is probably blocked by the thought police or whatever.

Pinch and a punch it’s the first of the month.

Once again if you don’t have a local blog or a website with a link to this blog, this is Mr Borings post of the month and I should skip it if I were you.

click here for my web statistics showing how many people have clicked on a link on another website to get here, it is the nearest I can get to a measure of the popularity of the other locals blogs and websites.

The link and reciprocal link business is a vital part of the internet and the special links to Recent posts on other blogs, on the sidebar of this blog and others, that update automatically, are a key part of having a popular blog.

There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that the search engines like this type of thing.

If you have a blog and you want to add this facility to your site, go to your blogger dashboard, click on layout, then add gadget, then blog list, once you have dragged the thing about to where you want it to appear and saved it you can add blogs and other websites that have feeds to it just by pasting in their web address and saving.

This isn’t really rocket science, if you want people to read your blog or website then you want links to it from other sites on the internet leading to your site, if you link to people then they link to you.

Static links, the conventional ones that always stay the same, like the ones further down my sidebar, are just plain boring, but the ones that update, well hot diggery dog.

Having said all of this bloggers gadget is a bit slow to update, so if you want instant updates to the local blogs that post a lot, use http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/ and if you think there are other sites I should add to that site of my sidebar don’t be shy to ask me my email address is michaelchild@aol.com and if the content is either local or interesting I will certainly add it to my sidebar and don’t require a reciprocal link.

I can’t add non blogger sites to http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/ as I haven’t and seem to lack the ability to write the online bit of the javascript i.e. the bit on http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ that picks up the posts and comments form the sites, so that the javascript on http://thanetblogs.blogspot.com/ can retrieve it.

Most webmasters are very cagey about their web statistics and my blogger ones are password locked so I can’t make them freely available for anyone who wants to look at them, however I have managed to unlock my bookshops website’s statistics here is the link to last months statistics http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/stats/awstats.pl?month=01&year=2010&output=main&config=www.michaelsbookshop.com and you can access the rest of that sites statistics from the links on that page.

This includes visitors ip http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/stats/awstats.pl?month=01&year=2010&config=www.michaelsbookshop.com&output=allhosts addresses the whole lot and as you can see it unmasks quite a lot of guff that people write about their webstats without actually showing them to people.

This is a site that gets about one and a half million hits a year, so I would think it would be fairly representative of other popular local sites.