The rest are here
here
here
here
and here
Sorry that I didn’t manage to get the whole carnival, I spent too much time on the beach with my children to be in the right place ate right time.
News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 200 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.
Monday, 25 July 2011
Friday, 22 July 2011
The council war on the local blogs update, carnival publicity and more pictures some pictures of Margate and a ramble.
Sorry there haven’t been many posts this week, I have been busy, with other things today is market day here in Ramsgate so my bookshop is too busy for me to get on with anything much apart from write this post, which I expect will be fairly fragmented.
First the press release business, if you don’t know what this is about, here is the link to the previous post on this subject http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/07/thanet-district-councils-response-to.html
The history of this press release thing goes back quite a long time, during 2008 I made various attempts to get the council to publish their press releases, in a timely manner, with the associated pictures – which are paid for by us – on their website with proper feeds.
In November of 2008 I decided it would take a long time for the council to achieve this and started publishing them on this blog.
I continued trying to get the council to do this, my recommendation to the council was that they set up there own blog, on blogger and embed it in the council’s website as this wouldn’t cost the council anything, would allow for the free hosting of large image files but most of all produce the most advanced form of feeds.
For some reason that I have never understood the council decided not to do this and instead tried to improve the way the put press releases on their own website. Not surprisingly they weren’t as good at doing this, as Google are who operate blogger.
By May 2009 I decided that the council press releases, many of which have a “making more tractors” flavour to them were making this blog boring, so I set up the Thanet Press Release Blog, this link takes you to the posts there for this month last year http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html
I added the latest planning applications, the latest documents about council meetings and other press releases, like the ones from the Labour and Conservative groups. I also deleted abusive and libellous comments, in fact did the council’s job for them.
Between then and last year the council have made various attempts to improve their publication of press releases on the council’s website, but they don’t seem to have managed to get this to work consistently and reliably.
Then in June of this year the council decided they would stop sending me their press releases, to me this was pretty strange as, as far as I could see, I was the only person publishing them in their entirety, with the images and with proper and reliable feeds.
As far as I can see on the one hand the council say they are spending about £100,000 per year putting information in the media and on the other they are stopping me from doing this for nothing, for them, just in case anyone reads it and they have to answer questions about this information.
There were some anonymous comments and one from Simon Moores on my previous post about this, supporting the council’s position see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/07/thanet-district-councils-response-to.html but none of them seem to be saying that they don’t want the press releases, council photographs, new planning applications etc published and fed properly on the internet.
Anyway I bunged off a response to the council’s reply, here it is:
Dear Business Information & Improvement Manager.
Further to your response to my foi request 14/06/2011 entitled “Freedom of Information Request 1” please could you clarify some points and respond to my recommendations.
The numbers refer to the numbers in the original request and may be helpful for clarification.
9 As the council incurs no extra cost for adding non accredited media to their mailing list, could you please restore non accredited media sources to your list?
9 Could you please clarify what managing this list involves?
9 In terms of enquiries resultant from press releases and other council information, I am assuming that the number of resulting enquiries is going to be directly proportional to the amount of coverage that the press releases and information receive.
6 As the council is spending £105,256.10 on advertising, it would appear that they would expect some response from this.
Could you please clarify the situation for responses resulting from press releases?
By this I mean that in a general sense the council is spending a considerable amount on issuing press releases and publicity, but also seem to be trying to limit the circulation of those press releases and publicity to prevent people from reading them and responding to them.
15 As evidently the decision to stop supplying non-accredited media with press releases wasn’t made at the request of elected members how was this decision made?
Best regards Michael
And have had this reply:
Ref No:28691 / 1808318
Dear Mr Child
Thank you for your communication of 21/07/2011 requesting further information about the councils press release policy.
Your request is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and will be answered within twenty working days.
If you have any queries about this request do not hesitate to contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.
Yours sincerely,
Corporate Information & Communications Manager
I suppose that if they take another month to reply this is going to be a long conversation.
On to Ramsgate Carnival, I managed to locate the pictures I took of it in 2008, a series of linked webpages, links at the top, here they are http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/RamsgateCarnival2008/ they seem to be a bit on the light side, would they have faded in the computer?
It also occurred to me that the council not promoting the carnival on their website, se the last post , could lead to problems if they promote Margate Carnival and frankly a council not promoting any of the local carnivals does seem pretty strange, so I bunged off the following to them:
Subject: Re: Carnival
Date: 20/07/2011 16:28:17 GMT Daylight Time
From: MichaelChild@aol.com
Reply To:
To: Pending@thanet.gov.uk
Thanks **** I will add your comments (without your name) to the blog post about the carnival where I mentioned that I had asked the question.
It did just occur to me that if the council promotes one town’s carnival without promoting another it could cause problems.
My take on this is that if an event justifies the presence of the tourist information staff then they should ensure that it is publicised on the council’s websites.
Best regards Michael
Subject: Re: Carnival
Date: 21/07/2011 12:10:40 GMT Daylight Time
From: Pending@thanet.gov.uk
Reply To:
To: MichaelChild@aol.com
Dear Michael,
The carnivals are publicised on our Tourism website Visit Thanet:
The carnival events are also publicised on the Visit Kent website.
Kind regards,
******
I have a few pictures on the camera card, here is the first lot http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/711/id9.htm mostly Margate yesterday, I will ramble on about these if I get a chance.
Having had a cup of tea, on to the shopping, why would you need to go shopping in Margate? Is a question I have been asked so I have put my purchases on the till desk and taken photographs of them, I will endeavour to explain.
To understand the buying of a paintbrush you are best to think in terms of the Japanese Tea Ceremony.
This 1834 framed print of North Foreland Lighthouse for £12, I am pretty sure it’s one I haven’t got.
This picture of Margate Beach for £3 all of these pictures were bought in the old town, which is having something of a revival.
This brings a new dimension to cottageing in Margate.
While on the subject does anyone know what happened the Margate’s Gay Pride event, I thought it ought to be on about now, you may remember this time last year that as soon as I complained to the council that they were being homophobic, by not promoting it on their website it appeared there, as if by magic.
On to shopping in Margate, on arrival I went straight to the little cafĂ© off the side of the High Street, you know the one with the sofas upstairs, its been there so long that I don’t think I have ever mentioned it before.
The first one was a paintbrush from Lovelys in Northdown Road, it wasn’t a very big brush and this is the only place you can try them out first.
I then bought two postcards of the 1951 Ramsgate Festival of Britain illuminations, £3.50 each, a reasonable price for scarce cards, I thought.
This picture of Margate Beach for £3 all of these pictures were bought in the old town, which is having something of a revival.
Some comments on the pictures that I took yesterday, link above.
The Joke Shop from the Arlington arcade has move into the lower High Street, with an associated Bong Shop section same counter two different shops, one selling jokes and the other equipment for the use of illegal recreational drugs.
Presumably this separation is because one is not a joke, or a different sort of joke, or possibly related in some way to appreciating the art in the Turner Contemporary – the stripes man, the mirrors – all very 60s, Metro revolution.
The Vincent Cottage Company have opens where the tourist information office was check out their website for a red distressed wooden heart, see http://www.vincentcottagecompany.co.uk/Living/view/36
While on the subject does anyone know what happened the Margate’s Gay Pride event, I thought it ought to be on about now, you may remember this time last year that as soon as I complained to the council that they were being homophobic, by not promoting it on their website it appeared there, as if by magic.
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Ramsgate Carnival 2011 this Sunday
I have asked the council if they will be promoting any of the Thanet Carnival’s on their website this year, I wouldn’t hold your breath for an answer though.
Update I received the following reply about the carnival promotion from TDC:
Dear Mr Child,
The Thanet town carnivals are not organised by Thanet District Council but
instead by independent bodies.
Should the organisers wish for their events to be promoted on the TDC website
they can contact the council and this will be considered. They can also sign up
to our community portal and post their events. Once posted, they will appear on
the front page of the council's website under the Events category. We have not
received any contact regarding promotion of these events from any of the
organisers to date.
Kind regards,
Friday, 15 July 2011
Thanet District Council’s response to its war on Thanet blogs
With some of the accredited media somewhat discredited at the moment - The News of the World has gone. The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times follow?? – there is an added irony to this post.
Some of you will remember that about a month ago TDC decided to stop sending press releases to me and other non accredited news sources, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/06/thanet-district-councils-new-war-on.html
My take on this is, as several thousand local people read this blog and read my press release blog – where I published the TDC press releases and other TDC information before the council stopped cooperating with me – then information supplied by the council to me and the very few other prominent local bloggers for publication, should be treated differently to information requested by a member of the public, for their personal use.
Now if I want to ask the council a question I have to use their freedom of information department and as the foi legislation says the council don’t have to reply to me for a month, they don't.
In fact I used this system to try and find out about their new rules for unaccredited press and a month later I have just now received the replies.
This request relates to the way the council provides information to accredited and non accredited media.
For the purposes of this request I am assuming that a council accredited media source is a media source that receives press releases or can ask the councils press department questions.
Thank you for your communication received on 14/06/2011 entitled Freedom of Information Request 1 where you requested various information regarding the Council's press releases, websites, publications, and accredited media.
The information you requested is as follows. I have numbered my responses according to your original request.
The information you requested is as follows. I have numbered my responses according to your original request.
I have tried to make this easy to follow by putting my questions in blur and the council’s answers in red.
- Please provide any additional information about the council’s relationship with the media that I haven’t asked for but is held by the council and appears pertinent.
- Does the council have any accredited media source that is exclusively internet?
- Does the council have any accredited media source where the local media publication is exclusively internet but the same business has paper publications? Your Thanet would be an example of this.
- Please provide a list of exactly who and which organisations receive council press releases or can ask the council press department questions? Please include in-house and government funded publications?
Academy FM
BBC South East Today
BBC Radio Kent
Heart FM
ITV Meridian
KM-FM
KM Thanet Extra
Thanet Gazette and Thanet Times
Your Thanet/Kent on Sunday
Local Government Association
- Please provide a list of which publications the council pays to advertise in and an approximate figure for the councils spending on advertising in accredited media?
KMFM
KM Thanet Extra
Thanet Gazette & Thanet Times
Your Thanet/Kent on Sunday
- Please provide the approximate cost of public information publications funded by the council, including the cost of the council’s various public information websites?
The total that the entire Council spent on advertising for 2010/11 was £105,256.10
As you have not specified which publications or over which period I have provided the information below. The production of these publications is currently under review for future years.
The approximate cost of public information publications funded by the Council for 2010/11 are as follows:
Thanet Matters – 3 editions - Total Cost = £12,433.00
Youth Matters
Easter edition = £4,761.00
Summer edition (combined with Sports Matters) = £6,109.00
The approximate cost of the Council’s various public information websites for 2010/11 is £22,337.78
- Are there any accredited publications that the council do not contribute to financially in some way?
BBC Radio Kent
BBC South East Today
ITV Meridian
Academy FM
- Does the council have a policy for withdrawing funding including advertising revenue from accredited publications and for what reasons would the council withdraw funding? Would the council for instance withdraw advertising or threaten to withdraw advertising from an accredited news source that criticised the council?
- Does the council incur any extra costs for adding non accredited news sources to their press release mailing list?
- Have any of the council’s accredited news sources requested that the council does not supply press releases to non accredited news sources?
- Have any of the news sources supplied with press releases up to this point abused them, not adhered to embargos and so on?
News sources supplied with press releases have not abused them.
- Have the council’s press department been supplying press releases to and answering questions for individuals or organisations that have no news outlet or obvious public readership?
- Up until the present ban on non accredited news sources, my understanding is they were the only point of publication for high definition reproduction of the council’s accompanying press release photographs. What will happen to these photographs now and will the council publish them in high definition online?
Where appropriate, the Council publishes low resolution images on its website to illustrate new stories. See the following for an example:
http://www.thanet.gov.uk/environment__planning/planning/ldf_and_local_plan/dreamland/dreamland_cinema_building.aspx
http://www.thanet.gov.uk/environment__planning/planning/ldf_and_local_plan/dreamland/dreamland_cinema_building.aspx
- Does the council have a policy of delaying publication of their press releases to coincide with the publication of the same releases in accredited news sources?
- Has any political pressure or pressure from elected members been put on the council to stop sending press releases to or providing information to non accredited news sources?
- Does a news sources readership have any effect on its accreditation and if it does what level of readership would be required to gain accreditation?
- What criterion does the council use to select accredited news sources?
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Thanet District Council Meeting Tomorrow, Animal Exports, Airport, Webcasting, Standards.
It looks like this meeting will be covering a lot of issues and I will write something here later today about them if I get time.
The picture above is of a Ramsgate Council meeting, this presumably comes from a time when one was allowed to take pictures of council meetings.
First night flights, there are some night flights occurring around this point in time, my understanding is that these are to fly food to our troops in Afghanistan, I don’t think that anyone I know in Ramsgate objects to these flights.
But it does surprise me that the airport hasn’t taken advantage of this opertunity for positive publicity.
Rumour is that there is Infratil are keen to sell Manston and that some other operators have been sniffing around, as Infratil lost £3m last year on their UK airport business this raises the interesting question of what anyone would pay for a business that loses that much a year.
I suppose the only logical way forward for the airport is to expand the aspect of it that has been successful which mostly relates to aviation heritage, a base for air shows and short haul flights that don’t make much noise anyway.
I am not so sure what it means.
When the idea was first suggested I told the council that if they sent me the dvd I would be happy to put it online for them, for nothing. The dvds get made anyway you understand.
“Council resolves to seek a legal opinion on whether TDC can lawfully ban the transportation of live farm animals from the Port of Ramsgate on the ground that they are ‘sentient beings’ and not ‘goods’.”
Nothing from the council press and information department yet.
I don’t think the airport operator has any concept of taking the town of Ramsgate with them on anything at all, minor pr opportunities like announcing when the Red Arrows or some other interesting aircraft are likely to be flying over the town, so that residents have an opportunity to take a picture, seem to be something they have missed.
One of the noisest and most disruptive businesses in Ramsgate was the Sally Line and yet this business was well supported by Ramsgate residents. Infratil just don’t seem to have got the message and will fly a noisy plane at 7am on still Sunday morning low over the town when the obviously don’t need to or carry on endless low training flights over the town when they could obviously do this somewhere where hardly anyone lives. Well now the have got lot peoples backs up and they mostly have themselves to blame.
Night flights has become a party political issue, how daft can you get, well I suppose as flights over Ramsgate have even been a racist issue, anything goes.
I suppose the only logical way forward for the airport is to expand the aspect of it that has been successful which mostly relates to aviation heritage, a base for air shows and short haul flights that don’t make much noise anyway.
There will be a question for the leader I suppose like a mini PMQ, this is what it says:
“1.1 According to Council Procedure Rule 14, a Member of the Council may ask a Member of the Cabinet or the Chairman of any Committee or Sub-Committee, a question on any matter in relation to which the Council has powers or duties or which affects the district, providing they have given at least five working days notice in writing of the question, limited to fifty words.
2.0 The Current Situation
2.1 On 4 July 2011, the Democratic Services & Scrutiny Manager received from Councillor Poole the following question addressed to Councillor Bayford:
2.2 “Substantial ERDF grants were given to a number of local businesses during the early 2000s, following a stringent process of selection. Will you explain why, from 2003 onwards, there wasn’t an effective process to ensure the monies were spent according to the strict criteria used when the grants were agreed?”
On to the business of webcasting council meetings, apparently at the moment it costs the council about £250 in staff costs to convert the DVD, that they already make, into the right file format and put it online.
Anyone who has ever put a dvd on Youtube will probably wonder if they paid an officer to sit there while the file converted and went up on the internet.
To me converting a video file means opening it in the right program and going off and doing something else while the computer gets on with the job and then coming back and finding the file in your Youtube account, clicking on upload and then going off and doing something else while it uploads.
Then there is the live animal transport motion, this isn’t something you have to clean up with a shovel, but the following:
1.1. Council Procedure Rule No. 16 governs the process for motions on notice being submitted to Council.
1.2.1 The following motion on notice has been received from Councillor Fenner in accordance with the Council Procedure Rules:
Update, news of the council meeting is slowly filtering out, with Simon Moores rather bizarre tweet “After a very long day indeed, tonight's Council meeting was best viewed through the lens of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland'”
And this from the Labour group http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/711/id8.htm
Monday, 11 July 2011
Thanet District Council Publishes Draft Accounts
These are available as pdf file at http://www.thanet.gov.uk/pdf/Draft%20Statement%20of%20Accounts%2010-11%20updated.pdf the advantages here are mainly you can search the whole document, if you haven’t got a search box pressing Ctrl and f at the same time usually does the trick. For example if you want to find the chief executives golden handshake you put “chief executive” in the search box and keep pressing enter until the following comes up:
“The Authority terminated the contracts of a number of employees in 2011/12 incurring liabilities of £694k (£111 in 2010/11). Of this total, £92k is payable to the Chief Executive, in the form of compensation for loss of office and enhanced pension benefits of £81k, a further £67k was payable to the Director of Regeneration Services for loss of office and enhanced pension benefits of £83k, these would be disclosed in note 35 however, although the restructure was agreed in 10/11 and a as a result the cost accrued, the staff will not leave until 2011/12. The remaining £370k is payable to 13 officers from various services who were made redundant as part of the Authority’s restructure.”
If like me you are interested in Pleasurama type it in the search box and the following will come up:
The Council has entered into a development agreement with SFP Ventures (UK) Limited (SFP) for the Pleasurama site. The Council is the freehold owner of the property. The developer has agreed to carry out development works on the property in accordance with the agreement. The Council have granted leases to SFP and will transfer the freehold interest when the works have been completed. As the leases are long term (199 years) and the intention is to transfer the freehold assets, any sales will be treated as a disposal. An overage payment will be due from the developer on the sale of each unit developed on the site. These payments will be treated as capital receipts. However, due to the economic downturn in the property market, it is not possible to foresee when the overage payments may materialize and therefore a contingent liability has been shown within the accounts.
Alternatively if your computer has difficulties with pdf documents click on this link for the draft accounts published as a series of linked webpages http://www.thanet.gov.uk/council__democracy/council_budgets__spending/statement_of_accounts_2010.aspx when you get to the end of one page click on the link next to the word “next” to get to the next page.
I don’t know whether to read anything into this apparent reluctance to publish them, and of course now I am no longer a council accredited news source I don’t receive their press releases so I don’t know if they have issued one saying that their accounts have now been published. Possibly they just don’t think that they are that important, possibly they don’t think the unborn denizens of Thanet would be able to read a balance sheet.
A lot of money for roundabouts that go nowhere in the middle of some fields, no wonder they want to turn it into a housing estate.
I had a bit of a funny dialogue with the council over the accounts, back around the 20th of last month the council put a statement saying the accounts were coming out in the latest news part of their website.
I complained to them that this was important information and should have been included in their news feeds, they then moved it from the latest news section and told me that it wasn’t a news item but would be included in their news feeds next year.
I then asked them where the accounts actually were on their website and they said they would put them on their website on the 8th of this month. They didn’t appear then so I asked them again today and the said they were just going to put them on their website, well now the have done.
Searching the accounts for East Kent Opportunities helps to understand the Eurokent business, this is an example of what I mean.
“The additional £2.541m represents the liability owed to Kent County Council for the authority’s share of the cost of construction of the spine road at Westwood, as part of the East Kent Opportunities Partnership agreement. Kent County Council passed a decision on 10 June 2010 to defer repayment to 2013/14.”
The automated librarian and the manual bookseller
Local Book Sale
I have just changed all the local books in the shop window and put all the sun damaged, condensation damaged ones, various local books that may or may not have something wrong with them, various proof and production copies, into a sale.
Ramsgate Library Closed This Week
This is what it says on the KCC website “Ramsgate Library will be closed 11th till 19th July for self-service installation. Our apologies for any inconvenience caused.” It seems to be one of those council announcements that you can only find if you already know the information.
If there is a task in the life of a shop assistant that I would wish was automated it is window dressing, having read the press release with interest I am considering some sort of self service installation in my bookshop. Something that perhaps adds new terror to the phrase; “are you being served?”
This business with our local government use of the internet is so incredibly potty that words often fail, Google takes one to www.kent.gov.uk/ramsgatelibrary if you do a search for Ramsgate Library, this page doesn’t actually tell you that the library is closed, to find this out you need http://www.kent.gov.uk/KCC.Libraries.Web.Sites.Public/LibraryDetails.aspx?aid=0&lid=87 I only managed to find this page because I already knew the library was closed. Of course the really useful thing the library could do to save staff time is to make their local history archives available online. The collections of old photographs, local paper archives, rate books and so on. I suspect that there is however a direct relationship between library funding and the number of people visiting the library, council solution, go to the library to visit a machine. In Margate they have upped library visitor numbers by making people go to the library for council services, they even have prizes for this making of a library not really a place you would visit for a quiet read.
It says on the library website: Book a PC in our brand new IT suite! If you need help our Computer Buddy will get you started on the basics. The Computer Buddy is at Ramsgate Library on Mondays 9am to 12noon, Wednesdays 2pm to 4pm, Thursdays 10am to 1pm, Fridays 10am to 1pm and fortnightly on Saturdays 9am to 11am.
Is this computer buddy some sort of automated librarian? Will this computer buddy be replaced by a machine? Will all the books be replaced by some sort of machine? With the introduction of the Kindle reader is there any future in libraries, do we still need them? Over the last few years I have watched nearly all of the bookshops close, for the most part what is left are shops that sell books, either that no one wants or hardly anyone can afford.
The problem mostly relates to a thing called the “Net Book Agreement” this was a price fixing agreement that fixed the minimum price of books in the UK, strangly this didn’t have the effect that one would expect of making books here more expensive, quite the opposite.
The idea of this was that the big and powerful retail chains, supermarkets and so on left the book world alone and small bookshops doing unprofitable or loss making business like, having specialist stock, promoting new authors and so on could subsidise this with the profits on bestsellers.
This also led to a flowing of literature in the UK between about 1940 and 1990, all over now I’m afraid, theoretically it is much easier to get published now, in reality to get something good published and on sale at a reasonable price where people can find it, well that’s another matter.
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Eeeeekkkoconsult Thanet District Council EKO, a strange tale of female emancipation and war a ramble
I know some of you have been following my dialogue about Eurokent with our new chief executive with interest, anyone who missed this and wants to know what it’s about should click on this link http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/07/eurokent-business-park-thanet-district.html and then this link http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/07/eurokent-consultation-update-and.html
Anyway the gist of this thing is that I suppose building a housing estate on agricultural land and a playing field, given to Ramsgate, that will ultimately house thousands of people seemed important to me. So much so that I asked the council about aspects of this through their customer feedback system.
This is an important issue to local people and I have tried to ask the right questions on behalf of the thousands of local people who read this blog, as most of you must know we have been denied access to the council’s press department, in fact I had thought that all of the local bloggers had. That was until the news about the councils position on animal exports was announced on Thanet Life two hours before the press release appeared on the council’s website, so I suppose it is different rules for cabinet member bloggers to the rest of us.
This is a ramble so I wont' bother to apologise for rambling again, sorry.
Anyway I was pleased when our new lady chief executive replied to us directly and thought this was appropriate to the scale of the matter.
Now something seems to have gone wrong and the response to my email that started:
“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.”
Was:
From: ***@Thanet.gov.uk
To: MichaelChild@aol.com
Sent: 07/07/2011 16:34:08 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: Thanet District Council - Information Request Acknowledgement
Ref No:29224 / 1795271
Dear Mr Child
Thank you for your communication of 05/07/2011 requesting information about the ownership of Eurokent Business Park and Rose Farm Estates involvement in it.
Your request is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and will be answered within twenty working days.
If you have any queries about this request do not hesitate to contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.
Yours sincerely,
****
Information Request Assessor.
Anyway I banged off an email to Sue saying:
Fwd: Thanet District Council - Information Request Acknowledgement
From:
MichaelChild
To:
sue.mcgonigal sue.mcgonigal@thanet.gov.uk
Date:
Fri, 8 Jul 2011 11:54
Sue, I assume you did read what I sent:
“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.” Etc.
Now I have several thousand readers who from my web stats have been taking a considerable interest in our correspondence about the Eurokent issue, I also clearly pointed out that if you have any off the record observations that you don’t want me to publish you only have to say so.
I don’t really know if the email
I have also contacted EKO who promised to email me details of the response to the previous consultation, well the consultation deadline is tomorrow and I still haven’t heard from them.
Perhaps you consider I have some ulterior motive here in trying to find out exactly who and what EKO comprises of, what their relationship is with the existing Eurokent Business Park, which seemed up until this consultation to have been reasonably successful given the current economic climate, I don’t really know.
What we have at the moment is a consultation about a project to build a large housing estate with the council as major stakeholder on the one hand, while on the other hand the councils press department are issuing press releases that seem to pretty much exclusively be saying. “We are making more tractors”.
Basic information like who the council is partnering with and what the results of the previous consultation were, would seem essential information for completing this consultation.
My experience with TDC foi requests is that information can take nearly a year to obtain, indeed I have one about the current situation with the Pleasurama development that seems to be taking an inordinately long time.
I should also point out that as the email I sent to you, which presumably instigated this foi request isn’t included in the response it seems very unclear which of the questions I asked you are to be answered in this way.
Best regards Michael
As I said I also phoned up the people at East Kent Opportunities who promised to send me the answers to my questions before the consultation deadline today.
The net result of this was nothing turned up, so I have just filled in the consultation, I will try and make the questions a different colour to my answers eventually:
What do you think about the proposed Eurokent masterplan?
I have contacted EKO and asked for some basic information about this project that I considered I needed to fill out this consultation, I was promised this information by email prior to today the consultation deadline and I haven’t received it.
I also asked TDC and after some dialogue which essentially delayed the issue I received a notification this Thursday that my answers would be treated as an foi request and I could expect a response in about a month.
The main things I asked for were a summary of the previous consultation results and a more detailed breakdown of the ownership of EKO. I also asked if the Eurokent Business Park was wholly or partly owned by EKO and an update on exactly how much of a failure or success accomplished site has been. This request was made in the light of the recent TDC press release http://www.thanet.gov.uk/news/latest_press_releases/eurokent_business_park_success.aspx that said the business park had been a successful venture.
Obviously when the intention is to turn agricultural land into housing land the potential for financial gain is enormous and so I would like to properly understand the justification for this, some sort of reasonable evidence that the parts of the site already developed have been a failure, Marlowe Academy, Eurokent Business Park and so on, would be helpful.
Also in view of the huge profits involved I would like to understand who outside of the local councils stands to gain, a particular consideration here is Rose Farm Estates and if there is an aspect of councillors or council officers having administrative or personal share involvement in the business.
It is difficult to tell from the outside if this venture is a situation where the council are trying to recover the losses incurred by bad financial judgment, if the EKO always intended a residential development here, or what exactly has happened. There is also a sense that EKO appears to be distancing itself from use of this site that has been successful, loan of part of the site to extend Jacky Bakers, Eurokent Business Park etc.
The main information part of the EKO website doesn’t work http://www.eurokent.org/news.html and the information contact seems to have been removed from this page, this doesn’t help when trying to respond to this consultation.
There is also the concern that turning this site over to residential could lead either to residential use or expansion of the other EKO site at Manston, without this site and with the environmental problems with the Manston site it difficult to understand where business expansion it to occur in Thanet when the economic climate improves.
Aspects of the mock-up design on the EKO website are very concerning, for example see http://www.eurokent.org/pages/high%20street.html this shows a High Street design with no apparent shops, non conventional building materials used to produce what looks like dated and dense council housing of the type that is now causing social and economic problems.
The also seems to be no explanation how residential accommodation would sit around a road layout designed for large commercial vehicles, now used as a rat run to and from Westwood Cross.
Essentially aspects of this consultation are unclear to the extent that it is impossible for me to support a mixed development on this site.
We are looking for feedback on a future name for the Eurokent development, which is more suitable to a mixed-use scheme. What do you think the new community should be called?
Thaneton
What sort of community facilities would you like to see as part of the masterplan proposals?
I suppose that depends on what sort of community is envisaged there, as this development would, if built it would connect Westwood Cross with Newington community facilities would have to reflect the needs of both existing developments.
Oh yes back to the ramble, it is Saturday evening and this is a long ramble, so you may need a drink at this point.
We now come to Jacky Bakers as some of you may remember EKO had a bit of Jacky Bakers by swapping it for a bit that had already been taken away, or some such thing, this is the council’s explanation http://www.thanet.gov.uk/council__democracy/consultation/closed_consultations/jackey_bakers_sports_ground.aspx and even this bit if your computer can manage a pdf http://www.thanet.gov.uk/PDF/eurokent.pdf
After WW1 what with one thing and another the vote was given to women, this was done quickly and without much fuss, as they had been running most of the essential services, I don’t suppose the men at the time had much option.
Here in Kent Ramsgate was the first place to have a female mayor, Janet, and it was this Janet who gave Jacky Baker’s farm to the town, this is what she had to say about it:
“ In providing the ground for the young people of the town a new lung had been added to the borough [Ramsgate] which would be appreciated not only by those alive now but by their children’s children.”
The pink bit of Jacky Bakers is the bit the council seem to want to build houses on, I hope it comes out shocking enough for you, its always difficult to tell with colours and computers.
The picture if you click on it to enlarge it and then click on it again is a high resolution scan of my copy of the 1791 print of Ramsgate a smaller version of this forms the frontis of Richardson’s Fragment of History, available from good bookshops.
I recommend printing it out and sticking it on the wall for a bit.
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