Sunday Ramble and pictures, or fewer pictures?

After photographing the Granville on Thursday I headed off to Deal, a town that hasn’t been damaged by out of town shopping in the way the Thanet towns have.

 Lunch at the coffee shop at the end of the High Street this is both good and cheap, about £5 per head for lunch and a drink. Pictures at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop1111/

Some of the pictures were out of the car window as my wife was driving, some were interesting, most I have deleted, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop1111/id3.htm

And

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop1111/id4.htm

Saturday I had to take my children to an event and on the way back I passed the Monkey House Art Gallery, I didn’t expect this to be open or anything on there but it was so I stopped and took some pictures, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop1111/id5.htm

An interesting exhibition I thought, I often find when I have visited an art exhibition I feel the urge to paint something myself, so I did a quick sketch based loosely on the people running the gallery and the strange business of selling something aesthetic.

Some of the exhibits included retro items, which contrasted strangely with the easel the inevitable laptop and the gallery being in such a strange place.

I should point out that I was very nearly expelled from school for sketching, and usually use considerable restraint, as on the whole people don’t feel comfortable being subjects, or perhaps victim is a better word.

Gallery owners and other artists though I consider to be fair game, so here is the sketch.

On to today, lunch at The Minnis, this is one of my favourite Thanet Restaurants http://www.theminnis.co.uk followed by a walk along the sea defence causeway in the direction of Reculver. This is the sea defence that failed in the 1953 storm.

Far too many pictures I know, this is the last page http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop1111/id8.htm and I can say in my defence that i did delete about half of them.

Back to the picture of the face, faces, I particularly like this face illusion video.

I may ramble on some more.   

Granville House Ramsgate, pictures of the basement, disused bar, dining room and function rooms and some thoughts on the future of the Granville.

As part of my general interest in Ramsgate’s disused leisure facilities, this post is about the parts of the Granville that are disused.

The map above may be helpful.

The red area is the part that is due to be auctioned next month, the auction details should appear here soon http://www.a-r.co.uk/current-auction

The green area is the part that was rebuilt recently.

The blue area show where the ground floor is disused.

The photographs next, please understand that a lot of them were taken in complete darkness, so in some cases the quality and subject is dubious, also for some I used a very wide angle lens as I couldn’t get fare away enough to fit enough in any other way.

This page, the first ones are of the main entrance hall to the flats which is in use, followed next by the part that most recently used as a bar, followed by The Prince Albert Room which appears to have had the fireplace stolen. Here is the link http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/granville

I am putting this post together and adding to it as I get time today, any help with old photos, historical information, modern information would be helpful.  

There were of course these plans passed in 2005, I am not sure if they are still valid. 

Here is the back, it looks a bit tacky to me, the planning ref is F/TH/04/0882 if you fancy investigating it.


On to the next page of pictures, through the kitchen and into the dining room and at the end of the page into the cellar below. Here is the link http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/granville/id3.htm  

The dining room is rather sad, one of the pictures of it is at the top of this post, the big wooden box on the left covers the fireplace, I believe there is a similar one on one in the houses of parliament another Pugin building.

Various parts of the ceiling have collapsed, I suspect due to water damage. 

Richborough Power Station, When It’s Gone, Its Gone

Quick watercolour sketch of the power station today, well it is my day off, I took one photo of it with flash and one without, I don’t know if either of them will look ok, but there you go.

I took a picture of my sketchpad and painting equipment, straight after painting it, for anyone interested.

The whole thing goes in ones pocket easily the colours used were rose madder, Prussian blue, burnt umber, lemon yellow, yellow ochre, and Paynes grey. I didn’t use the, cobalt blue, titanium white or ivory black that are also in my paint box.

The point I am trying to make here is the power station is likely to be demolished soon and I suppose I have seen it a lot over the last 45 years but it is the attempt to paint it that will make the strongest memory of what it looked like for me.

Ramsgate Slipways Plans, a comedy of errors.

The picture above looks like a nice development doesn’t it and it’s intended for families.

If anything the side elevation that Mr Wren proposed looks even better. I am also told that the people running it won’t be harassing legitimate protest groups.

But the question is would it be appropriate instead of the harbour slipways?

 As you can see what is being proposed there is an attractive looking development

and yes it also looks even better from the side.

Because of this it was my intention to comment on the plans in as positive way as I could, but had the underlying concern that the harbour may need the slipways in the future.

Last time there were proposals to develop this site, it was for a very modern building that didn’t fit in well with the surrounding architecture and I had no qualms whatsoever about objecting to it, here is the objection I sent to the council http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/1111/id5.htm

This time my concerns fall into two main areas.

The first one is the economic one, Thanet District Council’s accounts are not something that I find easy to understand, so I may have this figured wrong, but the port and harbour seem to bring the council an income of about three million a year.

So I would say that before there is any consideration of redeveloping the slipways the council need a professional assessment of the harbours needs in terms of getting boats out of the water for repairs and maintenance.

The second concern was the flood risk assessment, as last time there were all sorts errors relating to this, (it confused mean high tide with maximum high tide, there had been a lack of communication between the flood risk assessor and the architect and so on) I was interested to see what they had come up with.

From an engineering point of view it is an interesting one, normally a flood risk assessment for a foreshore building produces two main figures, one being how high the sea defence needs to be and the other how far behind the front of the sea defence the development can be, to allow for wave dissipation. In this case the development is built on a short pier so there is no sea defence in front of it and no wave dissipation, there is also the added problem of anything floating underneath it.

There have been quite a few comments on my previous post about this, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/11/ramsgate-harbour-slipways-plans.html so I had a thorough look at the plans and promised this post.

I was pretty much astonished to find that the previous flood risk assessment, the one with the errors in it had been used for this application. Why an architect would base a foreshore development on a flood risk assessment already proven to wrong and one of the reasons that the previous development was rejected defies any understanding whatsoever.

The basic maxim of  first discovering how high the water rises and then designing the development had obviously been ignored altogether.

I then phoned the council for some more information before lodging my objection, and asked them some questions.

Q Were their plans to demolish the slipways and if their were, why weren’t the on the council’s planning website?

A Plans were submitted but they weren’t submitted correctly, so they will be submitted again, after which the council will publish them.

Q Did they realise that the flood risk assessment was the same one that had been one of the grounds for the previous application being rejected?

A Yes they did and they were already aware that the Environment Agency would object to the new application because of the flood risk assessment.

Q If the application lacks the right flood risk assessment, lacks the demolition application and so on how can I express either support or objection in the next few days, before the time limit to comment runs out?

A The council will defer the objection date until after the missing documents are published on their planning website?

Q Is the viability of the harbour with reduced capacity to get larger vessels out of the water valid grounds for objection?

A Yes.

Well that was where I was last week, so I started asking some of the people I know if they had any idea about the application.

Yesterday, Monday the developer came to see me to ask why I wasn’t being supportive of the development.

I think his stance is that the council approved the transfer of the lease to him with the knowledge that he intended to develop the site and therefore he should be allowed by them to develop it.

I will continue with this if I get more time.  

Chinese Puzzle?

China Gateway, China Gate or whatever you want to call it comes before the planning committee for deferral this evening and I suppose deferral is probably the best option for it.

The worry with this one was that the council would either pass it without the proper measures in place to protect our water supply, or turn the thing down and the planning inspectorate would overrule the council and pass it without the proper measures in place to protect our water supply.

Here are the pertinent bits from when full council passed it last time http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/1111/id4.htm

My understanding is that until all of the problems in the 106 agreement are sorted out the council won’t sign it so the development won’t start.

At the moment while we have so much vacant industrial land both nationally and locally, building an industrial site on prime farm land next the drinking water borehole does seem totally insane.

However whether you are for or against this development I would say you would be likely to agree that resolving the surface water drainage form the lorry park down near the pumping station has to happen before the development starts. The main reason for this is that if the situation can’t be resolved then the site layout would have to be changed, something that would be very difficult if part of the site has already been developed.

The problem is a simple one to understand, at the moment just down hill from the lorry park is the borehole, so a typical problem scenario would be; a thunder storm that caused a power cut and rain, with no pump running the water and any contamination from the lorries would run off the edge and into our drinking water.

Manston Airport solve this one by having a big pipe leading into Pegwell bay, the China Gateway people don’t have this option as the Environment Agency have already said that it is too dangerous to drain the lorry park into Pegwell Bay. 

Nothing in the World But Youth, some local developments and a bit of a ramble.

I went to The Turner Contemporary on Sunday, again, you are not allowed to take photographs in the main exhibition, “Nothing in the World But Youth” and it was my intention to sketch some of the exhibits but frankly the exhibition is far too busy and there isn’t really anything much to sit on.

There is no criticism of the gallery here, there isn’t anything they can do about the photography rule, there are fare too many exhibits that are still in copyright for them to allow photography and it is too busy for them to put lots of seats in the galleries.

The exhibits all relate to youth, either exhibits by artists when they were young or older artists producing pictures expressing aspects of youth so it does provide inspiration. Above a summery youth related picture from my sketchbook which I hope gives a bit of the feel of what the exhibition is about.

Sorry about the delay here, sometimes one wonders about this country, I have spent most of the day trying to reduce the amount I pay for processing credit cards in my bookshop.

Anyway on to my ramble, I was a bit miffed that the Turner Contemporary only publicised the queen’s visit after it had happened. Saying why not visit Margate last week isn’t entirely helpful to struggling local businesses.

It is reassuring to know that Margate has beaten places like Cambridge to the Great Neighbourhood Award, see http://www.academyofurbanism.org.uk/awards/main_awards_2012.html anyone know what the academy for urbanism is?

I will ramble on as the day continues.  

New Old Birchington Book out today

Published today “Birchington In Thanet Kent” Sea & Sun, by F G Redman, price £3.99 click on the link if you want to buy it http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/birchington_in_thanet_kent.htm

This is very much a guide in the style of the time as you can see from the sample pages.

I do publish some other Birchington books, recommended are the following:

A History of the Ville of Birchington by J. P. Barrett although published in 1893, so it predates the previous 120 years of Birchington’s history, this is one of the best of Thanet’s Victorian local history books and I would say a must for anyone interested in our local history.

Price £6.99 click on the link to buy it now http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/a_history_of_the_ville_of_birchington.htm

Dangerous Coastline 1939 – 1945 By Derek S. Hart.

This book is about the Second World War seen through the eyes of a child growing up in Birchington.

He tells of finding mines on the beach, the spectacle of the Battle of Britain being fought in the skies above and includes humorous anecdotes involving some of the troops.

Price £7.99 click on the link to buy it now http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/dangerous_coastline_1939_1945.htm

The also ran Birchington publications are:

The Birchington and Westgate Street Directory 1900 £3.99 click on the link to buy http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/the_birchington_and_westgate_street_directory_1900.htm

Birchington Great War Patriotic Record £5.99 click on the link to buy http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/birchington_great_war_patriotic_record_.htm

I will supply any or all of these post free to UK addresses.

Obviously Birchington features in several of the other local books I publish and I often have secondhand copies of other books about Birchington, so I recommend coming to the shop and having a look at the local books if you can. The shop is open from 9.30 to 5.30 but closed Sundays and Wednesdays.

Margate Football Club Expansion Across Hartsdown Park, Last Chance to Take Part in the Public Consultation.

The responses to this have to have been received by Monday, so if you want to take part it’s now or never.

.

Area shown on plan	Lease arrangement	MargateFootball Club (MFC) proposals
Area A	Existing lease	MFC are requesting to change the lease they have currently on the football ground from 10 years to 24 years.
Area B	New lease	MFC wish to lease a new area of Hartsdown Park to construct a new football pitch.  MFC are requesting a lease of 24 years on the site of the new pitch.
Area C	New lease	MFC wish to lease a new area of Tivoli Park to extend current parking provision. MFC are requesting a lease of 24 years on this site. (This additional parking provision would be for all users of the redevelopment as detailed below*).
Area D	New lease	MFC are requesting a new lease of 125 years on part of the football ground site currently leased to them.  This is for the construction of an 80 bedroom hotel*.
Area E (Two sites)	Existing lease	MFC are requesting a change to the lease on the existing five a side pitches and car park from 15 years to 24 years.

*Redevelopment - In 2005 MFC were granted planning permission for the erection of a mixed use development comprising a football stadium, 80 bed hotel, fitness club, children's play area, theme bar, conference and banqueting, hospitality boxes, admin offices, boardroom, one full size synthetic pitch, 10 five a side pitches and associated parking and landscaping. (Planning reference F/TH/04/1601).

Frankly Thanet District Council have done a good job both in promoting and presenting this consultation on the internet, so you shouldn’t have much trouble understanding it.

The only thing that some computers may have difficulty viewing is the map above, which is only on the council’s website as a flash player file, which is why I have published it above as an ordinary picture.

In these proposals the council act as both planning authority and landlord, so it is a case of they may approve a planning application but refuse to rent the club the land, so the club can’t actually do what the council has approved. 

Here is the link to the details of the consultation on the council’s website http://www.thanet.gov.uk/council__democracy/consultation/margate_fc_consultation.aspx

There isn’t an online consultation form and as any response has to be received by Monday, the only option open to most people will be to respond to the consultation by emailing the council at this email consultation@thanet.gov.uk   

I don’t live in Margate, so my own thoughts lack a detailed understanding of the issue, any corrections to them would be welcomed in the comments.

I don’t really have concerns about the 80 bed hotel, fitness club, children's play area, theme bar, conference and banqueting, hospitality boxes, admin offices and boardroom, particularly if it will help the club to remain viable.

I do however have problems with areas B and C as these fragment the parkland, as far as I can see from the plans the existing fencing on area E will continue on to area B so people will have to walk around the whole lot to cross the park.