Day of shopping at WC, cheap artists materials and some pictures of Ramsgate

I had reached a point where I had pretty much run out of clothes that didn’t make me look like a tramp, not something beneficial for a shop assistant, so I had to make one of my rare excursions to the big Tesco and TK Max.

Tesco seem to be one of the only places that keep trousers for fat men with short legs, note the ones that say “active waistband” on them mean that they get bigger when you drink a pot of tea, or a couple of pints, or eat your lunch.

TK Max have shirts that are ok and quality cooking equipment, today a quality stoneware cooking pot with a lip so the pastry has something to sit on and a stainless steel saucepan to replace the one the handle fell off. I thought that was it however but in the end of the toys they have some half price proper make artists materials, at half price, Windsor and Newton paints and so on.

I bought myself a tin of 6 Derwent skintone colouring pencils reduced from £11 to £6 so I came away from the unpleasant business of shopping with a toy.

No pictures of WC as they don’t allow photography, however a few of Ramsgate mostly take after delivering Brownies.

Here are the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/netbook611/id4.htm I may add some comment when I have had a look at them.

As you can see, the dodgy looking bit of the Pleasurama cliff wall looks well dodgy and the work on site is continuing at snails pace.

Dredging is occurring in the area of the new pontoon, which should be beneficial.

Some MG cars on Harbour Parade and a white seagull with a brown head, either a special breed or it had been at the chocolate source.

The makeover of the Admiral Harvey is looking good and it is very good to see work staring on the large empty house in Albion Place.

Thanet District Council Issues New Statement on Live animal Exports From Ramsgate Harbour.

Here is the link http://www.thanet.gov.uk/news/latest_press_releases/animal_exports_legal_advice.aspx and here is the link to the legal advice http://www.thanet.gov.uk/pdf/84853%20Ramsgate%20Harbour%20Thanet%20District%20Council%20Advice%202306201.pdf

The point that they seem to have missed is any mention of the whether or not the council have an animal welfare policy and if it has what it says. I could foi them and would probably get an answer in about a month, does anyone else want to try?

I will write to some of the councillors and see if any of them reply.  

Margate Mistakes?

I am always a bit wary about posting Margate issues, the truth is that I don’t understand them properly.

The first one is the new Tesco under Arlington House, to be honest I was quite surprised that so many people seem top be against this one, viewed from the outside I looks like anything would be preferable to what’s there now.

As most of you probably know that when it came before the council planning committee that is equally spit along party lines the voting for and against was equal. Perhaps there is a party whip at planning level or perhaps it just went like that I don’t really know.

This left it in the hands of the new independent chair of planning, Jack Cohen, to cast the deciding vote, which meant it has now gone to central government for a decisioin.

My understanding is with the new localism bill in the offing, central government are much more reluctant to overrule local government in these issues, so without considerable local pressure they are not very likely to call in the pans.

It is also my understanding that you have until this Friday to write to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, asking him to have the plans called in.

The email addresses for this and you need to copy the email to both of them are; The National Planning Casework Unit at npcu@gowm.gsi.gov.uk and eric.pickles@communities.gsi.gov.uk

You need to quote the application ref F/TH/10/1061 and your name and address.

 I have also been sent some artist’s impressions of the effect of the Margate Football Club development on Hartsdown Park, they are before and after pictures, I am not sure how realistic they are. However the map on the plans that I have published before does seem to show the park being pretty much cut in half by the fencing for the artificial pitches.
 

Your Thanet Elect New Mayor of Ramsgate

Here is the link http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/koslaunch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=7o0Sx1A618bR&PBID=84956776-5fe0-4064-a733-83aabf1dd4b7&skip= the whole picture and caption is on the front page.

These days a good question for a Thanet journalist could be. Have you ever been to Ramsgate?   

Eurokent Consultation Update and an Apology From Me to the Chief Executive of TDC

First I should remind anyone who wants to take part in this consultation that they need to do so by this Saturday, here is the link to do so online http://www.eurokent.org/pages/feedback.html


The rest of this is a bit rambleish I will try to format it so it isn’t too boring.


The Eurokent website is a bit strange, in fact there seem to be two websites this one http://www.eurokent.org/EKO.html and this one http://www.eurokent.org/index.html you can get to the second one from the first one but not the other way around. The first one shows both of their business park sites and the second one only the Westwood one.


Next my apology to Sue McGonigal, this is a bit embarrassing to me as the dialogue between us that I published on Friday continued and I have just been reminded by the council’s Corporate Information & Communications Manager, Business Services, that Sue replied to me on Saturday and I didn’t add her clarification.


To read the correspondence so far click on this link http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/07/eurokent-business-park-thanet-district.html


OK this now gets slightly complicated to explain, the original complaint I made on the 26.6.11 didn’t get the normal confirmation of receipt from the council and then I made another complaint and got the normal confirmation of receipt, so I assumed the council’s email system had cone wrong again. As it happened I had CCd the original complaint to the council’s leader and chief executive at their TDC email addresses, so I emailed them to see if they had received it. 


So here is the rest of the dialogue, first the email from me to the leader and the chief exec.


From:   <MichaelChild@aol.com>
To: Customer Services   <Customer.Services@thanet.gov.uk>
Cc: cllr-Robert Bayford   <cllr-Robert.Bayford@thanet.gov.uk>
Cc: Sue McGonigal   <Sue.McGonigal@thanet.gov.uk>

Sent: 28/06/2011   15:50:37
Subject: Re: Official complaint ref C2

Sue Bob could  you  kindly confirm that you received the email below (complaint link above) as it's one of  three I sent to customer services recently, this one and  another one didn't turn up at all and a further one took  nearly 20 hours to  arrive.

I assume this is a problem you wish to know about and resolve, so any help with it I am happy to provide.   

Best regards    Michael

Then her reply


In a message dated 28/06/2011  17:43:34 GMT Daylight Time,  
Sue.McGonigal@thanet.gov.uk  writes:

Dear  Michael,
Yes we received the complaint, and I have written a response, which
Should 
be with you shortly  (I am currently out of the office and  so have
asked 
someone else  to process it through the complaints  system)
Regards,
Sue  

My reply to Sue  

>>> <MichaelChild@aol.com>  06/29/11 4:55 PM >>>

General note. I am way behind with  responses to emails as  have had
about 
forty complicated local  history questions this week, so sorry  about the

delay in replying  to you.  
Few crossed wires here I think Sue  
What I was  asking is had the council received the thing  as I have made 
four  feedbacks recently and what seems like an almost total  breakdown
of  
communication. 
The system seems to be partly busted, I send in a   complaint on a date
with 
a reference to customer services email. 
I  then get a response from a different council email  address,  saying
the 
complaint has arrived on a different day and giving it  an  entirely
different 
reference, they don’t tell me what the  complaint was about  even. 
So I send them four complaints. 
C1 the  sky is green, date 1.1.01 
C2 the grass is red, date 2.2.02 
C3 the sea  is purple, date 3.3.03 
C4 my tea is cold, date 4.4.04 
And get two  responses  
We have revived your complaint C7 date 7.7.07 
We have  revived your complaint C8 date  8.8.08

Best regards   Michael

Websites

Then her reply 
In a message dated 01/07/2011 09:33:29 GMT Daylight Time,  
Sue.McGonigal@thanet.gov.uk writes:

Dear  Michael,
I have copied this on to ++++++, who oversees the  complaints
process, and ask her to provide a reply to you.  

Regards,
Sue

Then I received Sue’s response to the complaint from the council’s Corporate Information & Communications Manager, Business Services. (link above)

And I replied to Sue

From: <MichaelChild@aol.com>
To: Sue McGonigal <Sue.McGonigal@thanet.gov.uk>

Sent: 01/07/2011 21:02:55
Subject: Re: Official complaint ref C2


Evening Sue sorry about the delay in replying, thanks, I  think part of the 
problem here is that the questions that relate to writing the  blog don’t 
fit very easily with having to use the complaints procedure to get  
information. 
I don’t want to be difficult about this one, I have just  sorted out last 
month’s web statistics which show I had more than 5,000  individual readers, 
so there is a sense in which I have some responsibility to  them. 
I have just done the post about Eurokent see 


http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/07/eurokent-business-park-thanet-district.html  
any 
corrections are welcome, both official and  off the record. 
As  you see there is a certain incongruity between the March press release 

http://www.thanet.gov.uk/news/latest_press_releases/eurokent_business_park_success.aspx)   
and your reply, which I would like to iron 
out.  
Best regards  Michael

I then got the following response from Sue 

From:
  Sue McGonigal 
To:
  MichaelChild


Dear Michael,
The Eurokent Business Park, referred to in the press release that you attached, 
is entirely separate from the developments being consulted on by EKO (which 
unfortunately relate to a parcel of land also known as Eurokent). The former was 
developed by TDC, in partnership with SEEDA - and the latter is being developed 
by EKO, which is the joint venture between TDC and KCC. 
Regards,
Sue.

Finally to bring you up to date my reply to Sue sent today.


Re: Official complaint ref C2


MichaelChildMore Details 


From:
  MichaelChild




To:
  Sue.McGonigal Sue.McGonigal@thanet.gov.uk


Hi Sue, once again please accept my apologies for the delay in replying.


With the consultation having to be in by Saturday there is obviously no time to follow the instructions on the Eurokent website and make a foi request to TDC to find out what this issue is about in financial terms.


I intend to a blog post about the issue later today, both highlighting the need to respond to the consultation by the end of this week and to try and explain what this is about.


I did go to the consultation information drop in at Ramsgate Market and I did ask the people there about the Eurokent Business Park and the council’s press release, their response was that the business park hadn’t been a success with few takers for the units.    


From the way they spoke I had assumed that it was all part of the same enterprise, can you confirm that the Eurokent Business Park is wholly owned by TDC and SEEDA with no part of it owned by EKO?


The EKO questionnaire I have in front of me, this only mentions Eurokent as being joint venture between KCC and TDC with no mention of Rose Farm Estates. Could you please explain what Rose Farm Estates involvement is and if councillors or council officers are involved either financially or administratively in Rose Farm Estates?


My take on this issue and please correct me if I am wrong, is that the council have gambled with a land investment and the building of an industrial and commercial infrastructure that has misfired and left the council with a large liability. Now it appears that the council is trying to resolve this problem by granting itself planning permission to turn farmland into residential and benefiting from the huge profits gained from so doing. Within this compromise I am concerned that other individuals involved will profit excessively from this.


I am also concerned about the relationship with Manston Business Park which is I believe another EKO venture that has gone wrong, my understanding is that the environmental considerations would make it unrealistic to proceed with a large commercial development there. This of course raises the concern that once Eurokent Business Park land at Westwood has been developed for housing, when the economic climate improves there will be nowhere left in Thanet for this type of regeneration.


It also raises the further question of does the council envisage a residential development at Manston too?


With respect to the consultation process and it not being a council consultation, my understanding is that the consultation was being carried out by Savills estate agents, once again please correct me if I am wrong, this raises the question of how the consultation was funded, did the council pay for part or all of the consultation?


Best regards Michael


Anyway I then got this reminder.


Dear Michael,
It may be helpful to your readers, and avoid some confusion, if you published the response Sue McGonigal supplied to your enquiry below on your blogsite. Her response was as follows:




Dear Michael,
The Eurokent Business Park, referred to in the press release that you attached, is entirely separate from the developments being consulted on by EKO (which unfortunately relate to a parcel of land also known as Eurokent). The former was developed by TDC, in partnership with SEEDA - and the latter is being developed by EKO, which is the joint venture between TDC and KCC. 
Regards,
Sue 
Kind regards,
+++
+++++
Corporate Information & Communications Manager
Business Services
Thanet District Council 


Sorry if all that was a bit boring, but I thought it would help those who are interested to see the thing in context. I think the underlying problem here is about trying to get information from the council for readers of this blog.


My difficulty is primarily that I have a lot of other things to do, apart from trying to formulate questions to the council in such a way that I get meaningful answers.


With something like this Eurokent business, I can’t just ask, what is this really all about?


To my mind something as important as over 500 new houses being built in Thanet on agricultural land that is partly owned by the council, ought to warrant a clear press release from the council telling us what is going on.


Listening to our MP stressing the importance of the UK being less dependant on food imports on BBC Southeast Today served to add to my concerns here.
I think that one of the problems that we have relates to wasted land empty properties another relates to taking into this area people with social problems from other parts of the country. What has happened in the social housing in my part of Thanet recently seems very like social engineering, producing ghettos of deprivation. I can see that these people have to be housed somewhere and I can also see that other people wouldn’t want to live in the noisy and often rowdy parts of the town centres. Living where one is cautious about going out of ones front door in the evenings is not pleasant. But to produce concentrations of deprived people without any sort of extra social support seems crazy to me.


Perhaps it would be best if the council built housing for the most deprived there and supported this with a special school, enhanced social services and policing.


Oddly enough what the council seems to be doing here is advocating building a housing estate with a centre rather like the one they have just demolished at Newington. The pictures on the East Kent Opportunities website, the High Street with no shops, accommodation adjacent to the dual carriageway rat run from Westwood Cross, the dated looking housing made of non traditional building materials, suggestive of an architect who wouldn’t want to live in what he has designed, none of this is encouraging.   
The picture is of coffins in St George’s crypt in Ramsgate. 

Margate the Turner Contemporary sun sea sand pictures

 I suppose in a sense visiting the Turner Contemporary is a bit similar to visiting a religious shrine of some unfamiliar tribe of humanity.

There is a bit of a sense of the god being contemporary art, and this shrine to that god is in a different geographical area to the one indigenous to the worshipers of that god.

Discussions about the Turner Contemporary are likely to very odd, I often find myself having them with people in my bookshop, partly I think because of the books I sell about the local area. One way or another if you develop an interest in this area you eventually wind up in my bookshop trying to find out a bit more about the aspect of the Isle of Thanet you are interested in. My bookshop is on the local tourist loop, to an extent. Hence strange conversations about local landmarks.

One sort of conversation goes a bit like this:

Customer: “That Turner Centre is a waste of money.”

Me: “Well it does seem to have brought some more visitors to the area.”

Customer: “It would have been better if it has some Turners in it.”

Me (wondering a bit about the pronunciation of Souffrier): “Well what did you think of, The Eruption of the Souffrier Mountains?

Customer: What?

Me: The painting by Turner that is in display in the gallery.

Customer: I haven’t actually been inside the gallery.

Another sort of conservation goes a bit like this.

Customer: I’ve just been to the Turner Contemporary and though it was a load of rubbish.

Me: What all of it? There are several artists of international standing exhibiting there, what did you think of the Daniel Burrell?

Customer: Which one was that?

Me: The stripes and the mirrors, on and by the window in foyer?

Customer: Oh I thought that was part of the building.

Then there are the people who say they like the exhibition, in a way these are even more difficult to understand.

I perhaps would say something like, don’t you think the Burrell is a bit dated to feature in a contemporary art exhibition, when the statement was more a 60s reactionary one. The customer is just as likely to say, what Burrell?

Anyway all that aside for the moment, I still haven’t got anywhere with the design faults and the other problems that I highlighted recently, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/05/fine-tuning-turner-contemporary-margate.html

As you can see from the picture above the floor is still a bit of a mess.

Where one goes when so much money has been spent from local tax contributions and there seems to be no real desire to solve fairly minor errors, I just don’t know. I am fairly certain that if the local council had commissioned some fairly ordinary and utilitarian building with these problems, then there would have been some effort to put them right. Any other public building that had had its floor all hacked up like that would have had the floor put right by now. Little things like positioning seats too low to see over the adjacent wall, surely with a multimillion pound project shouldn’t just be allowed to pass muster.

On to yesterdays pictures, here

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/711/id5.htm

and here

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/711/id6.htm

Anyway apart from the relatively minor faults I have mentioned the gallery does seem to be helping to bring Margate back to life, so onto the pictures.

For anyone new to this, I always publish the whole lot on my camera card, not just the ones that came out ok, this isn’t much work and some people like to see them all.

When I turned up it was low tide and a bit smelly because of the seaweed, the compensation was there were some good reflections that help the photography.

I soon flagged though and had a cup of tea at BeBeached on the harbour arm. There was very little wind and some sort of dingy race going on, very nearly in the get out and swim bracket, the dingys in the photos look like toys, not a cleaver photographic trick, just something that happened.

Not many pictures of the inside of the gallery as I have already done it see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/04/turner-contemporary-revisited-some-more.html where there enough links to my pictures of inside the gallery to put you to sleep.

The ones of the Droit House through the windows were because there is  a distortion in the window glass that alters the shape of the side of the clock tower.

On to the second page of yesterday’s pictures, a few of the lifeboat manoeuvring on land.

Lunch at The Puffin Café on the harbour arm, I had a ploughman’s lunch and a pot of tea, they really understand this sort of thing, the pot of tea was served with civilised china and the ploughman’s cheddar, stilton and brie. My wife had Coke (the real thing cool from the fridge) and a toasted sandwich, all of it came out at about £8.50 which I consider to be very good value.

The rest of the pictures on the camera card are at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/711/id7.htm some sort of peculiar roadworks here in King Street Ramsgate, where the resurfaced some of the road and left the rest full of problems.

The snails pace on the Pleasurama development, between 2 and six people working at any one time, it looks like it will take about twenty years to complete at the present pace.

Last Thursday’s lunch at the cake on Westgate promenade, ham egg and chips for me, and an abysmal attempt to sketch the musicians. I finally managed to drop my sketch book in the sea.         

Eurokent Business Park Thanet District Council’s Chief Executive’s Response

This post mostly relates to the complaint I made to the council about the Eurokent Business Park consultation.

Here is the complaint I made to the council.

Subject:	Official complaint ref C2
Date:	21/06/2011 13:35:49 GMT Daylight Time
From:	MichaelChild@aol.com
Reply To: To: customer.services@thanet.gov.uk

This relates to the council failing to publicise a public consultation that they appear to be partly or wholly funding, the Consultation appears to be being held in the three main Thanet shopping centres this week.

Although this consultation seems to be being held under the Eurokent banner, it says on the Eurokent website: “Any Freedom of Information requests about the Eurokent and its budget should be made to Thanet District Council.”

The substance of my complaint is that this is in reality a public council funded consultation that the council for some reason is trying to conceal from the public.

Of course as the council now see my local news website, that several thousand local people read, as non accredited I no longer receive press releases, so I don’t really know if the council have published a press release about this but have been delayed in publishing it on their website, as has happened often before, or if the council are genuinely trying to conceal a public consultation about an important local issue.

Best regards Michael

29/06/2011 16:26:58 GMT Daylight Time From: ********@Thanet.gov.uk

Sent by *******, Corportae Information & Communications Manager on behalf of Sue McGonigal, Chief Executive.

Dear Mr Child

Customer Feedback Reference:29032

Thank you for your recent communication which was received on 24/06/2011.

In respect of your complaint that the council is, by reasons of its involvement with the East Kent Opportunities LLP, undertaking public consultation which is being concealed by the Council.

East Kent Opportunities LLP is a joint venture between TDC and KCC, set up to deliver development on Eurokent and Manston sites. It is a separate legal entity, and as such is undertaking consultation on its proposals to inform the drawing up of plans, that will, in due course, be submitted to TDC's Planning Committee for consideration. It is behaving in exactly the same way as any other building developer would in assessing public opinion of its proposals, which it is legally entitled to do.

The consultation is being widely advertised, and it is made clear on all of the documents that support it (the press statement, exhibition letter, advert and flyer) that this is a joint venture between TDC and KCC. I therefore must refute your suggestion that any attempt has been made to conceal this.

I 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 ******* - Customer Feedback Co-ordinator, Executive Unit.

Yours sincerely

Sue McGonigal

Chief Executive

Thanet District Council

I have removed the officers names apart from the chief executives as I usually do, the reason for this is that the internet has a long memory.

My understanding of the Eurokent Business Park is probably inaccurate but I will do my best any corrections would be welcome.

I did go to the consultation in Ramsgate during my lunch break and I talked to a few people there, however they didn’t change my rather simplistic view of the situation, I was however very short of time.

In this country it is usually very difficult to build anything much on farmland and in this part of Kent farmland sells for much less than land you can build houses on, roughly farmland sells for about £10,000 £15,000 per acre.

Obviously if people were allowed to build houses on it the land would be worth a lot more.

What seems to have happened here is that TDC and KCC joined up with a private company, bought some farmland and got special permission to build industrial units on it, because this would provide employment for local people.

They then spent several million pounds building a large road through the middle of it to accommodate commercial vehicles and several more million pounds building a few industrial units at one end of the land. 

Then Thanet District Council issued a press release saying that most of the industrial units had been taken and the project was well on the road to success, see http://www.thanet.gov.uk/news/latest_press_releases/eurokent_business_park_success.aspx 

Then Eurokent issued a press release saying that the project had been a failure, very few of the units had been taken and that they wanted to build houses on the site.

I had rather stupidly got into my head that this was a council project and that the council should have issued a press release saying they were holding a public consultation about building houses on this farmland.

As you can see from the chief executive’s reply I was mistaken about this. 


I think the crux of the problem here is that the value of land for housing is so much greater than the value for land used for other purposes. 

On a very small scale I am up against this one as a small shopkeeper, obviously every town would like to have a bookshop, but frankly a bookshop on the edge of most town centres wouldn’t be able to pay the overheads related to the same space being used for housing.

The bookshop in Sandwich is in the processes of closing, something that rather proves this point.

The Thanet Labour group have put up a blog post about the Eurokent Business Park today, see http://thanetlab.blogspot.com/2011/07/east-kent-opportunities-and-eurokent.html

The Eurokent site is about 54 acres and they want to build 550 residential dwellings on the site. 

I will endeavour to add to this one as the evening progresses.

Pinch and a Punch It’s the First of the Month

Lies dammed lies and statistics this month, here is the link to my site referral statistics http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/711/index.htm as you see Simon Thanet Life Westagte comes out on top with a whopping 354 visitors coming from his site directly to mine.

On the other hand here is the link to bloggers own statistics http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/711/id4.htm as you can see Tony Bignews Margate comes out on top with slightly less whopping 209 visits coming from his site directly to mine.

The wosisname thing that counts the last 30 days visits to this site and is appearing on more and more blogs instead of a conventional counter is directly linked to a blogger statistics page, here is the link to it http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/711/id2.htm

The all time history figure relates to when blogger first started their statistics facility a year ago and is vaguely interesting as it says that just over 200,000 visits have been made to this blog in the last year.

This months Absolute Unique Visitors figure is 5,214, which is as near as I can get to the number of different people who read this blog in a month. So thanks to all of you.

The picture above is Westgate yesterday.