Plans to demolish the slipways in Ramsgate Harbour

The application register sheet describes the proposal as: Listed building consent for the demolition of workshop, offices and other associated structures, together with partial removal of slipway rails and boundary fencing.

The TDC planning website is one of the most bizarre websites I have ever come across in as much as the web addresses of the pages on it change after a while so you can’t retain links to them. If you want to look at the application you need to go to the site and enter the application reference in the search box, this link takes you to the site http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet the planning reference is L/TH/10/0736

When the site stops working or if it doesn’t work in the first place, close all the pages you have open that come from the site and start again.

I have a few planning drawings that relate to this and have stuck them on the web at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id26.htm in view the difficulties using the council planning site.

There are pros and cons to this development and I know that I have mentioned them before in my posts about it, that I made before the official application was submitted and now I am afraid that I am going to bore you by reiterating some of them again.

My main concern is that although the slipways may not all be commercially viable when viewed as an isolated business i.e. three slipways and a small ship repair firm, it may be that the harbour as a going concern isn’t viable with just the one slipway that we would be left with if this application is successful.

The problem here is one of getting medium sized vessels out of the water for maintenance and repairs, this particularly applies to the service vessels for the offshore wind farms.

The key question here is would the harbour as a whole be commercially viable with only one slipway? The secondary considerations relate to our heritage, both in terms of the listed status of the slipways and any building between the two major and iconic listed Ramsgate buildings, The Clock House and The Royal Victoria Pavilion.