The Yellow Peril at Ramsgate Main Sands

Of all the peculiar ideas, those of the last Labour administration about the regeneration through retailing, are some that seem to have backfired in strange and peculiar ways.

I think much of the problem relates to traffic infrastructure, based on the idea that people were going to use public transport and bicycles much more than they in fact do.

Equally peculiar is the way is the way that the local Conservatives took on these ideas with great enthusiasm and I suppose the gridlock and parking difficulties that often occur at Westwood Cross are the most familiar symptom of this.

In Ramsgate we are all familiar with the Impact scheme to improve the shopping centre that was suddenly curtailed in an uncompleted state for no apparent reason.

The strangest of all of these projects for regeneration through shopping, was the one that occurred behind Ramsgate main sands, considerable lottery and EU funding was ploughed into something based on the idea that the affluent would suddenly start shopping there by bicycle.

Perhaps thinking about it this may have started even before the last Labour administration at TDC wasn’t Impact a Tory idea, oh well this is all lost in the mists of time.

Anyway sometime around twenty five years ago local shops, leisure facilities and parking became a sort of target here in Thanet with Ramsgate being the frontline testing area.

The Eastern Undercliff main sands area had numerous leisure facilities and considerable free public parking along the one-way road behind the main sands that emerged on the Eastcliff.

The leisure facilities here have been demolished, abandoned, burnt and a few have been turned into car parks.

As far as the road to nowhere goes though the appearance of the yellow peril, in terms of no parking and no loading stripes of one sort or another, has now passed anything I have ever seen outside of the busiest roads where even the slightest congestions causes massive traffic jams.

How exactly people are supposed to unload granny or the children, deckchairs, sunshades wind breaks, I don’t really know.

One thing is certain though, the message to any tourists is, you are not welcome here.
As you see the great wide yellow splodges know no end.
Strangely the adjacent road seems to have no restrictions.
In the picture above you can see that there are times you can park but not unload.
What which council are trying to achieve here defies the imagination, perhaps what they are trying to achieve on dead end road that is very seldom busy is probably in file somewhere only accessible through the information commissioner.

There is a very large bus stop which would be useful if the road was on a bus route.
Why there is some parking allowed there on Sundays but not on ther days defies the imagination, perhaps this was devised to prevent congestion when people were shopping by bicycle.