Thanet District Council's Secret Cabinet Reshuffle

I have just received confirmation that the portfolio for Ramsgate Marina been has moved from councillor Simon Moores to Councillor Robert Bayford.

I then contacted the council’s democratic services who told me that they were unaware of this situation and like the rest of us assumed that any change in portfolio would be decided at the council meeting to be held on 15th July.

My concern here is that this is an already done deal, made by the new leader of the council. Make no mistake here I have no problem with the cabinet reshuffling portfolios and these reshuffles being the subject of a council meeting agenda and the decision being made by council vote.

Where I do have a problem though is where the cabinet is making decisions and then using the council meetings as a rubber stamp, this is the difference between democracy and dictatorship.

I suppose there is the alternative of local government by dictatorship and I suppose that this would be reasonable as long as the dictator told us about major decisions effecting Thanet.

My attempts to elicit some sort of reply from our new leader so far have fallen on barren ground once again I am happy to accept individual councillors failing to reply to emails so I am happy to accept no reply from cllr-robert.bayford@thanet.gov.uk however I find no reply not even an acknowledgement from leader@thanet.gov.uk wholly unacceptable.

I consider questions about the Maritime Museum and The King George IV Maritime Heritage Pontoon, important to Ramsgate and worthy of some sort of answer.