Royal Sands Development on the Pleasurama site in Ramsgate again.

As pretty much everyone in Ramsgate must be aware, progress on the development is still moving at snails pace. The heath and safety notice on the site is a two year one for 200 workers that expires in March, so my calculation that if it takes 200 workers 2 years to build it the four workers on site will probably take 100 years to complete it I think is still a valid one.

So far we have had about fourteen years with this prime council owned leisure site a hideous mess that blights the town, so I periodically tackle the council about it. This is usually a very long and drawn out business and I would imagine it will be about a month before I receive any reply at all.

Last time I did this was in March and I published the replies I got in august see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/08/royal-sands-development-on-pleasurama.html trying to have a conversation with someone that takes months to reply is a very tedious business, but I am starting the process again. The August replies were not very encouraging.

1.    No records are held of changes to the development agreement on this issue.

1a.    No records of a revised programme are held.

1b.    No records of a public information programme are held.

2.    No material alterations to the approved scheme have been proposed or         approved.

3.    Following the refurbishment work undertaken in 2008 and 2009 a programme     of inspections will commence in October this year. The future programme will be developed following these inspections and until these are carried out the     information that you have requested is not held.

Well you can follow the link to the previous post about the issue if you are getting a bit lost. What I think the council are saying is that have lost all control over their management of this prime site that they are supposed to be administering on our behalf.

It is very difficult to work out what the developer is doing, the development agreement with the council states that he should have finished the pile boring process by the beginning or this year and that by now he should have pretty much completed the steel cage.

This would have been a labour intensive task, creating employment and hopefully a strong structure anchored to the bedrock some three or four metres below the site. What has happened instead is that between two and four workers on site have dug a series of holes about a metre deep and fill these with concrete leaving thin reinforced concrete posts about 3 metres high sticking up out of the ground.

Obviously I have asked the council’s building control department what they think of this, as the building isn’t anchored to the ground as the original project was supposed to be and these thin concrete posts are appearing instead of the steel cage that was expected.

The answer goes something like, we thought that the council’s building control were going to be in charge of this and that we would have considerable control over the construction and the approval of detailed construction buildings, however the developer has used a private firm licensed to oversee building control, so we can’t really say anything. What they have to say off the record, well is off the record, you can always ring them up and have a chat with them.

I suppose the think I find most worrying is that we now have a large development starting on a high risk flood zone, sitting on the old beach that was laid down by the sea instead of one anchored firmly in the solid chalk below it. However all of this is being carries out within the regulations as they stand at the moment.

The failure to comply with the time structure set out in the development agreement with the council is a different matter altogether and I find the fact that the council have made no effort to find out why the developer is so far behind very concerning.

The development now has a website where you can tell which apartment have been reserved, see http://www.royalsandsramsgate.co.uk/availability.asp the server is a bit slow and you have click on a bout 20 links to find out, I think it is about 8 out of 109.

The other big potential hazard to this development is its proximity to the 70 foot high unsupported chalk cliff. The condition of the concrete cliff façade being the most visible problem. This is essentially split into three parts. The brick bit at the Broadstairs end of the site that was built in 1860 and partially collapsed in the 1960s. the arched concrete bit in the middle that was built in the 1930s and seems to be sound and reasonably well built. The bit at the harbour end of the site that has several cracks in it and weed growing on it. So far the developer has only done work in front of the sound looking arched bit in the middle. 


So with this rather mixed bag I have to work out what to ask the council, this is a tricky one as it may be a considerable time before I get a reply. This isn’t made any easier because of the problems I pointed out to the leader and chief executive of the council the other day. By this I mean that the officer in charge of this development, head of major developments has gone, and the officer in charge of building control has also gone.  

Here are the pictures from the compact camera’s card where I got the picture of the site taken today http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/1011/id3.htm a bit of a mixed bag. 


Also in all of this there is what I want to achieve, part of certainly the part of me that is in business in this part of Ramsgate would just like them to get on with the thing in the time frame the promised, well this obviously isn’t happening and isn’t likely to. Another part of me is concerned about the safety aspects of the development, particularly the storm damage and the cliff stability problems.  


I would appreciate it if anyone has any ideas on what to ask the council about the development, they would either post them as a comment or email me.  

The Royal Sands website http://www.royalsandsramsgate.co.uk/about.asp says: “The Developers for the Royal Sands development are SFP Ventures (UK) Ltd a UK based Commercial and Residential Development Company with experience in mixed schemes in both the UK and overseas.”

I have trawled the internet made a companies house search and yet can find nothing to suggest that they have ever developed anything, even a garden shed.

So if anyone knows of anything they have actually either developed or failed to develop it would be a useful indicator of what we have to expect in Ramsgate.

I will carry on with this post as I get time. 

Royal Sands Development, Pleasurama Site Ramsgate another crack in the wall

 A new crack has appeared in the cliff façade up near the lift end, I don’t really know what this one signifies as it hasn’t had time to develop yet. I can’t see any signs of bulging, but as the crack doesn’t extend to the ends of the block infill panel it does look to signify lateral pressure from behind rather than the downward movement of the whole lower part of the panel.

You may need to click on the picture above to enlarge it enough to see the crack.

The whole of the portal part of the cliff façade between the lift and the arched part of the façade isn’t looking very good at the moment and I think if we have a cold winter water freezing in the various cracks could lead to considerable and expensive problems.

I will remind you that if you are a local council taxpayer you have already contributed to the £1m spent on this structure recently. 

I have added a picture with a red line around the area where the new crack has appeared for clarity.

It’s difficult to know what to say about this one how we have reached a position where we have a seventy foot high cliff in this sort of condition adjacent to a new development under construction seems to defy common sense.

There is a certain irony in the fact that were the development on schedule, there probably wouldn’t be enough space between the development and the cliff to repair the cliff wall safely.   

Pleasurama, Royal Sands, The Maritime Museum, the Cliff, The Great Wall of Ramsgate Art Gallery, a Midweek Ramble, Some Pictures.

One thing about the safety considerations that all of the experts are agreed about is that the cliff wall – the concrete cliff façade – doesn’t hold up the cliff, if anything it is the cliff that holds the cliff wall up.

We do have cliffs in Ramsgate with man made structures that are designed to support the cliff behind them, the red brick arches by the harbour are an example of this, but the wall leaning against the cliff on the Pleasurama site is only there to stop the chalk cliff from weathering away. For those of you with an historical interest this cliff wall was built upside-down, the top bit that supports the cliff railings was built first and later on as the cliff weathered away concerns that eventually the concrete apron would fall off lead to the chalk underneath it being cut away and the cliff wall being built underneath it, to prevent this.

Anyone who happens to read the engineers report http://thanetonline.com/cliff/id2.htm on the cliff façade structure will note that the engineer who prepared it was very concerned that nothing heavy went too near to the edge of this unsupported chalk cliff. In fact I believe if the cliff wall wasn’t there no one would dare to drive a heavy vehicle next to the edge of the cliff.

For some time now – years rather then weeks – I have been trying to get the council to impose a weight limit near to the edge of the cliff, I have also been trying to get them to repair various part of the cliff top surface so as to stop water getting in and damaging the cliff structure. This is particularly important during the winter months as the water tends to freeze in the cracks in the chalk and when it does so it expands and forces the cracks apart.

Anyway it looks as though the council has engaged someone to do some repairs at the top of the cliff, although the don’t seem to have passed on the information to them about this being an unsupported chalk cliff.

This leaves me in a bit of a predicament, as there are safety aspects here that concern me, so I have just sent the following to the council’s engineer.

“*** while it looks as though some work is about to happen on cliff top where the surface is damaged which I think is a very good thing, I am reminding you that this is an unsupported chalk cliff and unless you have discovered anything to the contrary I don’t think the brick balustrade underneath this bit has any foundations.

As the vehicle at the top of the cliff looks fairly heavy, you may wish to take some sort of action.

As you know I have both read the various cliff reports and discussed this issue with ***** ***** the engineer who wrote them, he stressed to me the importance of keeping anything heavy away form the top of the cliff edge.

My normal course of action when I see something like this would be to report it to the HSE, do you consider this an appropriate course of action or will you be taking some sort of action yourself.”

The predicament is that I don’t want to be seen as crying wolf over this issue and of course it is fairly likely that the cliff won’t collapse because a few extra tons of construction vehicle are parked up there near the edge.

In fact I would imagine that various anonymous pundits will be only too glad to point out to me just how wrong I was, that is assuming it doesn’t collapse.

This bit of cliff is part of the cliff structure that was built in the 1860s as part of the railway extension from Herne Bay, several of the structures that formed part of this expansion were condemned at that time and had to be rebuilt.

This particular part of this 1860s structure, the supporting work around the old tunnel entrance and Augusta Steps partially collapsed about fifty years ago, was surveyed, made safe and then collapsed again in the middle of the reconstruction works.

The bit immediately under the construction vehicle didn’t collapse then and wasn’t rebuilt.

Of course if it does collapse it will be a different matter altogether, especially if there is loss of life, I could well wind up being prosecuted for not reporting it. To me it looks like a 150 year old brick structure without foundations sitting on top of a pile of muddy chalk behind which is a 70 foot high unsupported chalk cliff with a surface on top of it that has been damaged for several years and on top of this is sitting several tons of construction vehicle.      

Update I also informed Cardy’s the contractors of the situation and have received this answer:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for passing on the information with regards to the telehandler

that had parked by others on the cliff promenade. Our site team were

indeed already aware of the situation and as a precaution had avoided

access to the area directly below on site.

We have subsequently been informed that the telehandler has now been

removed by its owner.

Regards Michael”

Which is something of a relief to me.  

On to the Maritime Museum, information on this one is a bit sketchy, I think this is another case, like The Royal Sands development, where the delays and differences between what we were lead to expect and what is actually happening really justify some proper and detailed information about what is going on.

My own feelings are that it is the council that have a prime duty to explain their custodianship of publicly owned assets that they are supposed manage on our behalf.

So this is mostly based on rumour and guesswork, please don’t see it as a reason for recriminations, if any of you want to do anything please put your efforts into trying to persuade the council to get their act together.

Last week I went down there at lunchtime and noticed that some of the ground floor windows were broken, my main concern here is for the safety of the museum’s collection, anyway I alerted Simon Moores who is the councillor in charge of asset management and the windows have now been boarded up.

My feelings are that the museum and the collection in it are at considerable risk and that some action needs to be taken now.

This goes back to 2007 when the council decided to pull the funding for our museums, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2007/12/cost-of-everything-and-value-of-nothing.html 

There is a charitable trust ready to take over the running of the museum, the Preston Steam Trust, however they need the council to rent them the building so that they can do this.

In fact The Preston Steam Trust can’t legally receive the collection without security of tenure of the council owned building.   

This is a ramble and I will add to it as the day progresses.

On to the Great Wall of Ramsgate, some new pictures have gone up, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/811/id3.htm the big one, picture above, by the graffiti artist Garff is to replace his existing one that is due to be covered with other pictures, mostly submitted by local schools.  

More pictures here http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/811/id4.htm

As you can see from the pictures here there are some more new shops open in Ramsgate http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/811/id5.htm

The Royal Sands Development on the Pleasurama site in Ramsgate a reappraisal.

 For those of you unfamiliar with this ongoing building site in Ramsgate I will do my best to fill you in to start with.

If you want a lot of detail, click on this link http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/search/label/Pleasurama%20development?updated-max=2011-02-25T16%3A45%3A00Z&max-results=20 and every time you get to the bottom of a page of posts click on the “Older Posts” link. If you want to go back even further, I was writing about this development before I started this blog and this link takes you to that http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/tdc/

For those who want a quick résumé of the last ten years of building site, here it is.

The site belongs to Thanet District Council and for most of the past 100 years formed Ramsgate’s main leisure site, in a similar way to the way Dreamland in Margate was the main leisure site there.

Anyway about ten years ago the council decided to join with Whitbread and SFP Venture Partners to build a hotel, residential and retail development there.

Work was to start on thing in 2002 and be completed in 2003, unfortunately Whitbread pulled out of the project.

Anyway the council decided to go forward with the project just with SFP, at the time SFP was a purely offshore company and even to this time I have never been able to find any evidence that they have ever produced a development of any sort.

I think that the problems have really stemmed from this decision, over the years SFP have engaged various contractors to do both design work and construction work, but the problem that there is no experienced developer behind the project comes back to haunt us.

The site, situated between a tall cliff with a history of problems effecting its stability and the sea with a history of storms engulfing the site, is a very demanding site to build on.

Neither the problems relating to the cliff that the council have already spent £1m on, or the problems relating to storm flooding, which the Environment Agency have made safety recommendations about, have been satisfactorily resolved.

Various contractors have done work on aspects of the development and then pulled out before completing the contract.

Eventually so many deadlines schedules and financial obligations had failed to be met that the council officers put the issue to the council cabinet on the 16^th June 2009. The officers put two courses of action to the cabinet one of which was to pull out of the agreement with SFP for failure to comply, this was the option that the officers recommended. The other was to go ahead with reduced financial guarantees and a new schedule for the building work.

 The cabinet decided to continue with the developer and reduced financial guarantees and a deed of variation to the development agreement was agreed setting out a new timetable. Click on the link to read this document http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/pda/id17.htm

Once again the work on the site isn’t following the timescale agreed with the council, added to this instead of pile boring foundations down into the solid chalk as was originally expected the developer has laid shallow foundations down onto the old sand beach.

I wondered what the council’s building control department, that had recently insisted that the adjacent development was “piled bored” well and truly screwed down to the chalk bedrock below. Apparently the council are not in charge of building control for the Royal Sands Development, although they do have a new search facility on their website where you can find out who is at http://www.thanet.gov.uk/environment__planning/building_control_case_search/case_search_facility.aspx this reveals:

Case Number IN/83246/10

Case Status Decided

Decision Pass plans unconditionally all types

Decision Date 15/09/2010

Case Details 

Case Description New Development Comprising 107 Apartments 82 Bedroom Hotel 4 Retail Units And Health/Fitness Centre

Applicant Name Sfp Ventures (Uk) Ltd

Agent Name Harwood Building Control Approve Inspectors Ltd 

Case Officer Paul Morgan

Harwood Building Control are a local firm however there is no reference to the development on their website http://www.harwood.uk.com

We also have a new architect, mentioned on the signage at the site, John Sime & Associates/ Alan Butcher are quoted as the designers, although no new plans have been submitted to the council.

In the past when I have voiced concerns about the buildings design, particularly those aspects related to flood risk and cliff stability many of the reassurances that I have had related to the council acting as building control.

The overall understanding being that this was to be a pile bored development with a steel cage, seems to have changed to a building constructed using shallow foundation pads resting on the old sand beach, with the very small part of the cage that has appeared so far being constructed of ferro concrete.

Anyway at the moment we have a development agreement amended to say that the pile boring should be completed by the later date of 31^st august 2010 and that at the moment there should be a considerable amount of the structural framework completed, obviously this hasn’t happened.

I have had an ongoing dialogue with the council over this development going back over about nine years, during which time officers dealing with the issue have come and gone.

Anyway back in February I escalated this to a foi request.

 THE CORRESPONDENCE

Emails from me in blue, from the council in red and the contractor in green. 

www.thanet.gov.uk
email customer.services@thanet.gov.uk


>>> 23/02/11 16:22 >>>

Please treat this as an  official customer feedback request.

This is essentially a general enquiry about  the Royal Sands Development on the old Pleasurama site in Ramsgate.  

1 Please send me any addition  information about this development that I haven’t requested below, because I am  unaware of its existence. 

It would appear that some work  has occurred on the site during the last month, but obviously this work doesn’t  relate to the development agreement schedules and conditions of the various  leases contained in it.

2 Does this mean that the leases are now invalid and the development agreement is to be determined?

3 Or does it mean that there has been an updated agreement with new schedules? 

If the development is going ahead, either to a new schedule or is being allowed under some other flexible arrangement: 

4 Can you please supply me with a revised building schedule?

5 Can you please tell me which of the approved plans the development is to be built to and if these plans are published on the council’s planning website?

6 Can you please send me details of the public information sessions that were promised once work started on the site?

7 Can you please send me any updated information on the cliff safety issue? Details and dates of the promised cliff top weight limit, correspondence between the council, the HSE, the developer, cliff survey and maintenance schedule, any cliff survey reports, any agreements for cliff maintenance between the council and the developer.

8 Can you please send me details of any flood, storm or emergency escapes incorporated in the development as a result of the EA recommendations 8th Feb 2008.

9 If the artists impressions, details of roof material and other building materials for the building to be built, are different to  those described on the councils planning website, due to the various different  plans and in consequence plans being used that no longer relate to the ancillary details, can you please send me the details of these changes?

10 If the plans that are to be used no longer relate to all of the planning and design statement, can you please send me revisions to the planning and design statement?

Please confirm your receipt of this request?

Best regards  Michael

Subject: Thanet District Council - Your Information Request Response

Date: 08/03/2011 13:14:29 GMT Daylight Time

From: ****

Reply To: 

To: MichaelChild@aol.com

Ref No: 26393 / 1650743

Dear Mr Child

Thank you for your communication received on 24/02/2011 09:00:09 where you requested information about the Pleasurama or Royal Sands deevelopment.

In response to your questions I can comment as follows:

1 There has been some early slippage in terms of works undertaken to comply with the terms of the development agreement. The construction works are however now starting to claw back time lost earlier in the construction programme and progress is now being made on site. There is no amended agreement with the developers and no action is presently anticipated in relation to determine the development agreement, neither has there been a request for a revised build schedule.

1a I will request a revised programme from the developer who has indicated that he will be aiming to adhere to the programme.

1b I will also request that the developer establishes a public information programme.

2 No recent amendments have been proposed to the design of the building and no alterations have been made in response to the Environment Agencies correspondence with the developer in 2008. Any amendments would need to be considered through the planning process.

In 2008 and 2009 we received plans to comply with conditions of the planning permission that were approved in January 2009. These proposals did not result in material alterations to the approved building and I recall providing you with those drawings following receipt. I can confirm that no subsequent amendments have been proposed to the building since that time. In terms of the planning and design statement I consider the scheme still complies with the principles of the original submission.

3 I can confirm that the HSE have considered the cliff survey. In an email to the Council they have confirmed they do not intend to pursue this matter. They have requested that the Council draws up a programme and regime for the future maintenance of the cliff face. This matter is in hand.

Yours sincerely,
******
Major Developments Manager

Subject: Ref 26393 / 1650743

Date: 25/05/2011

From: 

Reply To: 

To: customer.services@thanet.gov.uk

Hi there I refer to my previous feedback request (below) Ref No: 26393 / 1650743 and the promises made in the response.

Work on the site has been progressing very slowly, looking more like a delaying tactic to keep the developers option open and now appears to have stopped altogether.

I have numbered ***’s responses for clarity and am now asking for an update on this issue.

Firstly a general what is going on update.  

1 As there is obviously no intention now of complying with the development agreement schedule, no obvious claw back is occurring progress seems to be sporadic with very few workers on site and no sign of much investment, when does the council intend some action to determine the development agreement?

1a Have you received a revised programme from the developer? If you have please supply me with a copy.

1b Can you provide me with a copy of the a public information programme

2 I understand that considerable have been made to the building design since the latest plans on the council’s planning website, can you please confirm this?  

3 have the Council drawn up a programme and regime for the future maintenance of the cliff? face

Dear Mr Child

Thank you for your further communications which have been received following your initial information request of 24/02/2011 regarding the Royal Sands Development.

I would apologise for the delay in sending this response but as I am sure that you will appreciate, without detailed knowledge of the Development Agreement there was a need for considerable research into the agreement and related correspondence before I was able to reply. With regard to your request for details of officer responsibility for this development I would advise that as acting Estates Manager I will be the most appropriate point of contact until a permanent appointment is made.

The specific information you requested is as follows and is numbered in accordance with your request..

1.    No records are held of changes to the development agreement on this issue.

1a.    No records of a revised programme are held .

1b.    No records of a public information programme are held.

2.    No material alterations to the approved scheme have been proposed or         approved.

3.    Following the refurbishment work undertaken in 2008 and 2009 a programme     of inspections will commence in October this year. The future programme will     be developed following these inspections and until these are carried out the     information that you have requested is not held.

Yours sincerely,

*****

Building Control Manager 

 I also asked the contractor what was going on.

Hi *****

I am just about to do a blog post reviewing the progress of the Pleasurama development, and as you probably remember there was going to be some sort of public information program once the development started.

I will be posting about the perceived ongoing delay, compared with the development agreement and the differences in construction method, compared to the pile boring we were expecting, but mostly about the lack of public information about the project.

Essentially a what’s going on with Pleasurama post, working under the assumption that as very little is happening, both in terms of investment and progress, suggesting that what is really going on is a delaying tactic to keep the option of commencing development proper open. I will also be saying that the lack of public information is because there is probably no positive information for the public and that we are likely to be reaching the grinding that we have had with previous contractors.

This is really just a courtesy email in case you had some sort of different view on the matter or some sort of positive news on the matter, that would change the flavour of the post.

Best regards Michael

Websites

Dear Michael

Thank you for your email.

I am pleased to confirm that the Development is currently on target to be completed ahead of the dates detailed within the development agreement.

There has indeed been very positive interest in the scheme and a large proportion of the residential units have  already been sold off plan with many more under offer.

The Hotel site is also under offer to a very well known Hotel group which is all very good news for the local economy.

From a contractors point of view we are very happy with the timescales that have been set and certainly this project will provide much needed work within the industry for many local tradesmen over the next 18 months or so.

Kind Regards

*****

The heath and safety notification pinned up by the site entrance describes the development as starting on 1^st May 2010 and lasting for 104 weeks with 200 people working on the site.

So far we are about 60 weeks into this period with an average of about 3 or 4 people working on the site, so it seems fairly obvious that things are not going to plan.

Reading the correspondence so far, it seems in need of some sort of interpretation, perhaps if it would have taken 200 people 2 years to build it, it will take four people 100 years.  

It is possible that the contractor genuinely thinks that the development is on target, this is a very worrying thought.

Of course the land is still owned by the council and reading their last response I would guess that they will have to take some sort of action, this is a large publicly owned site and they have already invested £1m in cliff repair work there, so there must come a point where the council are obliged to generate some sort of return for this site. 

In all of this I think the developers most serious error though has been the absence of the public information program that was promised, there seems to be no sense whatever of trying to take local people along with this major development on publicly owned land.

It would now seem unlikely that there will ever be a program of public information, as the promises relating to this seem to have been made and verbal agreements with council officers who have now left the council.

Is suppose the real problem now, is where do we go from here?

Ten years is a very long time for a developer to be engaged with a council owned site without producing a viable development.

Obviously many people in Ramsgate are not happy about this development, partly due to concerns over the height of the building and the effect on the view from the cliff top, partly because this has traditionally been Ramsgate’s key leisure site.

My own concerns have concentrated on the developments safety as it falls between a cliff with a history of stability problems and the sea with a history of tidal surge storms and wave overtopping.

Neither the council nor the developer ever seem to have properly addressed the environment agency’s concerns relating to storm protection and pedestrian escapes. On a more practical level anyone who saw the repairs to the cliff shortly after the council had spent £1m on repairing it and had pronounced it safe, will be aware the cliff façade condition is unpredictable and needs more than the 5 metre gap between the cliff and the building to repair.

So far since the £1m contract to repair the cliff, cliff maintenance work there has had to be carried out on two occasions because I have pointed out dangerous looking parts of the cliff wall.      

My own feelings are that both the developer and the council should have noticed cracks in the cliff wall and lose bits of masonry before I did and that in an ongoing sense, with people working and living so close to such a high cliff, much more interest should be taken in the cliff condition.

The weight limit for vehicles using the top of the cliff, that the council promised to instigate several years ago, still hasn’t been imposed, something I also find cause for considerable concern.

The flood and storm protection is a difficult one, neither the council nor the developer appears to have had the flood risk assessment strongly recommended by the environment agency, carried out.

The flood risk assessment for the adjacent build (Granville Marina Restaurant) resulted in a pile bored development with a base line about 1 metre higher. Historically the site is known to have been subject to wave overtopping and damage, the sea defence in front of the site seems to have been made up in bits and pieces since the 1860s when this part of the beach was raised with the chalk spoil from the tunnel excavation to provide a site for the station.

Foundations Found at Royal Sands Ramsgate Pleasurama. An Apology and Thanks from Me

It’s all too easy to publish to the internet, unless Conroy Maddox has been using your keyboard as I am sure all of the art lovers who attended the Turner Contemporary will understand.

Many thanks to the contractor Cardy Construction for chipping the chalk off of one of the foundations to a support pillar, that is part of the concrete structure of the arches, part of the Pleasurama cliff façade and sending me a picture.

I genuinely think that it is safe to walk on the cliff top footpath now, something I will be doing again.

Here is the picture and this is what they have to say about it.

“Dear Michael

As recently discussed please find the attached photograph of the exposed column foundation.  The location of concrete highlighted in red extending below the excavation level passed the dotted line would indicate the foundations are built as described within the historic drawings.  It would appear that the concrete was originally cast against chalk and not shuttered therefore causing the surface of the concrete to appear uneven.  We have washed the concrete off as much as possible and driven steel rods into the foundation which appears to be of sound construction.

Regards,
Michael”

This, like so many historical engineering puzzles, has a solution that probably involves practices that wouldn’t occur today.

What happened in this case was that having cut a slot about three feet wide and about three feet deep, going up the seventy foot high bare chalk cliff above, they got some poor chap to get in the bottom of the slot and dig a hole eight and a half feet deep in solid chalk.

I think this picture (I have put coloured lines on the original 1930s plan and sorry about the drawing of the bloke, my children are better at using MS Paint) explains what this is about.

Viewed from the side on.

The red line is the outline of the concrete pillar.

The green line the original line of the ground before the contractor dug out the ground next to the cliff about a fortnight ago.

The brown line about where they have dug the ground down to now.

The blue bit shows where the concrete block walls between the arches are.

Having solved one problem that is a mixture of industrial archaeology and civil engineering, like so many other things in life that leaves us with another problem and more questions.

Can anyone think of a way that they could have got the foundations in for the infill walls between the arches? The most they could be are nine inches thick, I think, not room enough for a man to get inside.

You can see from on the right hand side of Cardy’s photo that the virgin chalk seems to go right up to the bottom of the block wall.

Are there any foundations under the concrete block infills? If there are, do they extend down as far as the contractor has dug down? Are the concrete block infills tied to the pillars either side? In the simplest terms, is there a danger of block infill walls falling on the people working on the building site next to them?

I don’t know how far down you can dig a nine inch wide foundation trench in solid chalk with a shovel, but would doubt it is as far as the chalk has been dug down next to bottom of the block wall.

The pictures should all expand if you click on them.

Royal Sands Development, Pleasurama Site Ramsgate Cliff Safety Response From Thanet District Council.

I have received a response from the council which they have asked me to publish on this blog relating to my concerns about the foundations that support the cliff façade, the base of which has recently been partly exposed by the contractor.

I have also received a response from the contractor via Laura Sandys MP, who is the MP for this constituency.

First an explanation for anyone who either hasn’t been following this issue or hasn’t understood it properly.    

The two pictures above show the bottom of the concrete cliff façade support pillar marked with red dots and what appears to be virgin (undug) chalk below it. 


The picture should get bigger if you click on it and even bigger if you click on it again. 

This picture shows you where this is and I have drawn a red line around the area shown in the two first pictures.  

This is a detail from the original design plans for the pillar supplied to me under foi legislation from the HSE, it is a side on view of the pillar.

I have added coloured lines to it to help explain what is where. The red line shows where the front of the pillar should be. The green line the ground level before the contractor started excavating. The blue line is roughly where I think they have dug down to. The purple line roughly where the virgin chalk has been cut back to.

As I can’t work out how the foundation was put beneath the virgin chalk, without digging it up and the front of the pillar doesn’t follow the line shown in the design drawing I have concerns about the integrity of this structure.

I discovered this situation last Saturday and asked Kent Fire and Rescue if they would examine it and close the footpath above it while more detailed investigations were made.

Kent Fire and Rescue investigated the area, confirmed that they couldn’t find and sign of foundations but told me that as the council had told them that the cliff was safe, they were not able to close the footpath.

Below is the response I have received by email from the council’s engineer Mike Humber signed by the council’s Director of Regeneration services Brian White which they have asked me to publish here.   

"REGENERATION SERVICES

Michael.child@aol.com

15 April 2011

Our ref: BJW/BH

Your ref:

Dear Mr. Child

‘PLEASURAMA’ CLIFFSIDE, RAMSGATE

I am writing in response to your interest regarding the cliff wall to the rear of the Royal Sands

(formerly ‘Pleasurama’ site at Ramsgate. Your concern being that the cliff wall has no proper

foundations, and is therefore at risk. A site visit was made on Monday 11 April by Mr. Mike Humber,

the Council’s Engineer and myself. The ground has been excavated adjacent to the cliff wall in

recent weeks to enable work on the foundations to the Royal Sands development to proceed.

Consequently chalk is visible in places at a level beneath the cliff wall façade, and this has led you to

believe that there may be no foundations supporting the cliff wall itself.

However the point that you have missed on your inspections is that there are substantial concrete

foundations, to a minimum depth of two metres, beneath each of the main supporting columns to the

cliff wall. This was verified during our site inspection.

Records exist of the design of the original cliff wall dating from the early part of the 20th century in the

form of a construction drawing and I believe you already have a copy of this. The observations made

on site this week confirm that the foundation provision appears to be as described on the drawing. It

can be seen that the foundations and columns were both cast insitu with the columns exhibiting a

regular finish from timber formwork whilst the foundations were cast against the hand excavated face

of bare virgin chalk. I suggest that it is this interface between these two very different concrete

finishes that you have misinterpreted as the base of the concrete structure. Although recessed a

little, the foundation does continue well below this elevation as confirmed above.

I do trust that this letter draws your concern to a satisfactory conclusion. Thank you for your interest

in the subject. Perhaps you might post a copy of this letter on your blog.

Whilst writing, because of your interest also in the engineering history of Ramsgate Harbour I thought

I would draw your attention to the pending completion of a new floating concrete breakwater in the

Outer Harbour area. This is the single biggest investment the Council has made in the Harbour for

some 20 or so years. The new floating breakwater will not only protect the Eastern Marina, it will also

provide satisfactory berthing for work boats used in the construction and ongoing operation of the

London Array offshore windfarm. The Council is very pleased with the new structure, a large portion

of the funding was provided through European Union grant.

Yours sincerely

B White

Director of Regeneration Services

Email: brian.white@thanet.gov.uk

Tel: 01843 577007

cc. Cheryl Pendry

Mike Humber"

Below is my response to them 

"Dear Brian and Mike.

I have to admit the saga of this cliff wall is a bit of a difficult one, but as the wretched thing doesn’t conform to the design drawings I feel it best to err on the safe side. Most particularly as the previous two problems I reported to the council, the bulging panel and the 1860s balustrade both resulted in council action to repair the problem.

God alone knows how that 1860s balustrade is supposed to work, if it has foundations and how much water is getting in from behind. Did you know that when the railway extension from Herne Bay to Ramsgate was put in, in the 1860s the government inspector, Captain Rich condemned much of the civil engineering work including several of the bridges, which had to be rebuilt?

I am still concerned that I haven’t got any evidence that there is sound concrete all the way between the bottom of the visible concrete pier and the rough cast concrete that you have discovered at the at the bottom of the recent excavation.

Have you either exposed continuous concrete between the bottom of the pier and the bottom of the excavation, carried out a driven rod or bore test this in this area?

The reason I ask this is that the chalk at the bottom of the pillar doesn’t have the appearance of made ground and I can’t see how the back of a load spreading foundation or the bottom of the pillar could have been constructed without disturbing the chalk.

As we have discussed before the façade isn’t a load bearing structure and I am particularly concerned that heavy vehicles are accessing the cliff edge while below excavations are being made of foundations that don’t conform to exactly the design drawings i.e a uniformly cast liner pillar extending down to the foundations.

After the arched part of the façade (visibly the most sound and professionally constructed part) the contractor will presumably excavate in front the less linier portal part of the façade where both the pinning took place and the contractor has already discovered and documented one pillar with inadequate foundations sitting on made ground.

In short the risks of a normal building site appear to have been adequately addressed apart from the added problem of the proximity of the public footpath to the edge of the cliff.

I am not asking that this be permanently closed while the building work is in progress, something would I think be unnecessary and damaging to the town’s economy.

Just that the parts above excavation of any part of the base of the façade that doesn’t conform precisely to the design drawings is closed while investigations are made and of course some emergency signage warning people not to drive anywhere near the cliff edge.

Best regards Michael"

I have also had a response from Laura Sandys informing me that the contractor, Cardy Construction will “further expose a section of the foundation and provide Michael with photographic evidence of the existing foundation,”


I have added a link to a series of linked webpages showing some of the various technical reports on the cliff façade structure http://www.thanetonline.com/cliff