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

Preston Steam Rally, the main local event this weekend.

This is one of the largest local events, just outside Thanet on the road to Wingham and is on tomorrow and Sunday.

Hare are the links to the pictures of last years event:

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/preston2010/

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/preston2010/id3.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/preston2010/id4.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/preston2010/id5.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/preston2010/id7.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/preston2010/id8.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/preston2010/id9.htm

here is their website:

http://www.prestonrally.co.uk/ you may note this site doesn’t work properly in Internet Explorer.

If you have looked at some of the pictures then I don’t suppose there is much I can do to explain the event further, certainly if you were thinking of camping this weekend it’s well worth considering doing so there and if you want a day out it’s a good one.

Preston Steam Services has a museum run by the same charitable trust that wants to run Ramsgate Maritime Museum http://www.thesteammuseum.org/

When it comes to the Maritime Museum that closed two years ago, it is very hard to see how the blame for its continued closure doesn’t mostly belong to Thanet District Council.

My understanding is that for several years now the steam trust, which is a charitable trust, wants to run the museum for the benefit of local people, has been negotiating with the council.

I think the stumbling point is that the building is one of Thanet District Councils iconic Ramsgate assets, others are or were, Albion House, The Royal Victoria Pavilion, Westcliff Hall, The Pleasurama Site, Nero’s, The Eagle Café and The marina Swimming Pool.

This is particularly ironic while the council is engaged in making a compulsory purchase of the Dreamland site in Margate, while these council owned assets in Ramsgate suffer their various fates at the hands of the council.

What is certain is that for the steam trust to run the museum they need grant funding and to obtain this they need security of tenure in terms of a reasonable lease from the council.

More irony here as at the same time as the council pulled out of the lease they had promised the trust on the grounds that long leases had to be seen as asset disposals and would therefore have to go through a long and probably expensive asset disposal process, they handed out a 199 year lease to the Pleasurama development developer without going to asset disposal.

Since then my understanding is that the trust said they would accept a shorter lease and this lease has been subject to a further couple of years prevarication by the council, now I think it likely that the trust may have given up the idea. Mostly on the grounds that the council are just to difficult to work with.

Whatever the ins and outs the museum remains closed and anyone seeing the obvious resources that the steam trust has to offer would be forgiven for wondering why the council are not welcoming them with open arms.

I would say that the main thing now in Ramsgate’s favour is that we really haven’t got much else in the way of council owned assets to lose, what remains at best is empty and at worse derelict, demolished or abandoned.

Update I have just heard from the council with an update on the situation that sounds encouraging:

“I am pleased to advise that latest iteration of the proposed lease  setting out 

the Council's preferred position as prospective Landlord, is  now with the Steam 

Museum Trust for consideration.

I hope that if there are still some issues to be resolved between the Council 

and the Trust, none of them will be too difficult to overcome.”

I will add to this one as I get time

Thanet Life, Simon Moores Moves the Goalposts, is it a new Thanet Blog Wars?

I have been commenting on Thanet Life blog since sometime in 2006, sending Simon information and pictures that he has published there since that time too, so I was pretty much gob smacked when I got an email from him today saying that he was refusing to publish a comment I had made there. This hasn’t happened before and I am not certain if I will ever be able to comment there again, or for that matter if I will even bother to try.

This relates to a key Thanet issue that Simon raised on his blog about consultation over the disposal Thanet’s council owned leases.

Here is what the said:

“DrM. said...
Andrew, the most fundamental change is the treatment of long leases of 25 years or more as part of the overall asset disposal process.

The emphasis is now very much on consultation as part of such a process to avoid circumstances where the council is seen to be over-riding the wishes of local people without proper consideration of their arguments. 1.37 pm.”

Now an important point here is when this change came into effect, because of some of the disposal issues that have come up recently in Thanet. There have been many contentious asset issues in Thanet, part of Hartsdown Park in Margate being the most recent.

Here in Ramsgate there are several large council owned assets in prominent positions and some of them have been effected by this rule, Pleasurama where the council granted a 200 year lease to the developer without any consultation, The Maritime Museum where the council invoked this rule in a way that caused the closure of the museum, the slipways where the council used this rule to prevent a developer obtaining a long lease to build a bar complex there.

This is essentially an issue about money, as developers need leases longer than 25 years to finance developments on council owned land, hence the council are able to effectively halt the Margate Football Club development, that has planning permission, by not offering the club a long lease. This can also effect grant funding for charitable organisations wishing to run council assets. There is also the common sense side of this, it you are going to run a museum or theatre, you are in for the long hall and can’t invest heavily when the building’s security is a matter of the council’s whim, even if you could I doubt the charity commissioner would let you.

Anyway here is the link to Simon’s blog post http://birchington.blogspot.com/2011/02/lost-in-translation.html and here is my comment that he refused to publish.

Michael Child has left a new comment on your post "Lost in Translation":

Thank you Simon for the information, did you mean 26th July 2010 or 2009?

This is a quote from an email I received from the council in February 2010.

“The position regarding the Clock-Tower Building, occupied by the Steam Trust is as follows. The subject was discussed by the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny (Asset Management Working Party) in view of the length of lease sought by the Trust.”

With relation to your pervious replies the difficulty here is that you are different from the other bloggers, in as much as you are privy to council information that we are not.

In an ideal world the council’s information department would have a forum where major local issues could be discussed openly on the internet, it is the perception from outside the council, is that the councils information department exists exclusively to control the information that is available to the public.

I suppose in a way even that would be mostly unnecessary if the council published all of the information it held, apart from the information that would be refused in a foi request, as the council receives it, onto its website.

This could be achieved with considerable savings in costs to the council, by the council insisting that all information sent to the council, was supplied in preferred file formats, with the council levying a charge to commercial organisations either sending information on paper – so it has top be scanned in – or in a file format that has to manual converted for web publication.

In this instance I would say that you are as much a victim as the rest of us, in as much as the changes to such a fundamental rule about the way the council conducts its business, should have been publicised and the rules governing the way the council rents out its properties should be clearly and openly available on the council’s website.

The discussion I had with the leader of the council isn’t pertinent to this issue as it relates to a lease of less than 25 years and not the older lease that council didn’t issue due to the new rules. However it demonstrates very clearly what I am saying about information that you are privy to and we are not, put the shoe on the other foot for a moment and consider the situation if I was privy to your conversations with the leader of the council and said to you. “Simon. I understand the Leader of the Council called you to personally explain the issues surrounding such and such an issue, and hopefully that should have answered most if not all of your questions.” By way of an answer to a question you had asked me on a blog

Comment posted 11.18 am 2nd March 2011-03-02

Don’t misunderstand me here I delete comments that are potentially libellous, offensive or containing personal abuse, I suppose all bloggers do, but to delete a comment because it disagrees with your point of view, well that is another matter altogether.

When a local councillor who claims to support transparency and impartiality does this, then one can only form ones own conclusions.

Sunday ramble

First a look at the other blogs for some local news.

I am starting from the top of my sidebar as it appear now, this of course will change as it updates automatically.

Don has a Ramsgate event that I didn’t know about on his promote Thanet blog http://promotethanet.blogspot.com/2010/12/ramsgates-christmas-extravaganza.html and some thoughts about our town centre shops.

His use it or lose it philosophy is pretty near the mark, if it relates to a town where you intend to live for a while, you may do well to consider it.

Next is Simon on Thanet Life with a post called about money see http://birchington.blogspot.com/2010/12/all-about-money.html this seems to be related to a Bignews post, I will stick to working to going down the sidebar and come to that in a bit, Simon says that council only gets to keep 20% of the £9.75 million raised in council tax that is under £2 million.

This means that the council spent half a years council tax on repairing the Pleasurama cliff façade, perhaps taking a look at it and trying to get your money back is one approach.

The main point of his post though seems to be about the closing of our museums, we had three museums in Ramsgate when I opened the bookshop here in 1987, now we haven’t got any.

In that time the interest in history as a leisure pursuit has increased markedly if history related book sales are anything to go by.

The only museum that I know much about is Ramsgate Maritime Museum, here are some of my previous posts about it.

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-thanet-district-council-taking-up.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/09/ramsgate-maritime-museum-whats-gone.htmlhttp://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/ramsgate-maritime-museum-closure-update.htmlhttp://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/04/ramsgate-maritime-museum-will-probably.html

The bottom line here is, the council isn’t being asked to run this museum, just to grant a reasonable lease to the charitable trust, that want to run it for them.

Well on to Bignews Tony’s post http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/05/is-thanet-district-council-taking-up.html the comments seem to be mostly about freemasonry something that I don’t really know much about.

Perhaps I had better switch to the local papers, for me it’s the Isle of Thanet Gazette that does it this week, the lead is every schoolchild’s dream, see http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/where/thanet/Leader-defend-remarks-congestionStudents-shut-schools-web-hacking-prank/article-2964464-detail/article.html

How well I remember the cane, the nearest I came to this was jamming the light program when the BBC were jamming the pirate radio stations, I see the Marlow Academy seems to have been left out.

I looks like they have hacked the Gazettes website too as the title has got all jumbled up with the story about the council’s leader defending his remarks about consultation.

The Gazette bless em have also covered my main story this week about electing the council leader, see http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/where/thanet/Mayoral-election-plan-voters/article-2964461-detail/article.html this article involves more quotes from our illustrious leader:

"This could create weaker leadership because someone from another party could be elected as leader.”

"In a way the public already elect a leader by electing their councillor who in turn selects the leader."

What was it he said last week?

“How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.”

Silly me my mind must be wandering it was Hitler who said that, our council leader said;

“residents in Thanet do not know the meaning of congestion, they do not know they are born”.

My car didn’t like the cold weather so I had to change a radiator hose and fill it up with a mixture of antifreeze and water and then drive round the town to stir the mixture up.

So I didn’t get a walk, but did stop a couple of times and take a few pictures.

Much hard hat activity on the eastern undercliff, here are the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/netbook1210/ apart from the funny ones of the padlock hasp, this is how the council have secured a dangerous building.
I will ramble on as the day progresses.


A couple of thoughts on the pictures below coming next, blogger doesn’t like adding pictures to a post that’s been completed, so they may not enlarge when you click on them, they are also in the batch that the link above goes to.
You may remember I have been concerned about the cliff top drainage above the eastern end of the Pleasurama site, note the wet patches forming on the cliff façade there.

There may be added problems related to the cold forecast, if the water freezes the expansion may cause stability problems.

Why the council refuse to unblock the drain there defeats me entirely, the eventual cost of this inaction could literally cost millions of pounds and even lives.
What does it cost to unblock a drain?

Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t know if it will collapse I just don’t think the council’s engineers do either.

Drain the antifreeze out of your car fill the cooling system with water and a small amount of antifreeze and play Russian Roulette with the winter if you want to.

It’s just what the council are doing by not unblocking the drain.

This other picture is of the cliff façade behind part of the building that will replace the Marina Restaurant, they are building in front of this at the moment and the condition of the cliff there doesn’t look too good.

This business of building in front of our cliff facades is something that has been done on only a few occasions in the past and every time before it has been in front of a brand new cliff façade.

Just like the Pleasurama development no one has produced anything in the way of a convincing argument to persuade me that these people know what they are doing.

Now I come to the problem that has been shadowing me all week, that of the council leadership.

However this one goes after May the leader will be much more powerful as the 2007 act is still valid, the government have been saying behind the scenes that they intend to repeal this act with primary legislation.

I don’t think they have announced this to the press yet, so my apologies to them for blowing the gaff, if that’s what I’ve done. The word is that they aren’t too keen on the elected mayors, so watch out Boris and Ken.

But at the moment the law is the law and we all have to abide by it even the council.

Primarily the leader of the council should be the main representative of us the electorate within the council, essentially where the buck stops, he should be my main representative the person who will take up issues for me that are beyond my ward councillors.

The bloke we have at the moment doesn’t even acknowledge it when I write to him, let alone respond. Perhaps I am being unfair and his comments to the local paper about the mayoral election issue, that I raised, were a round about way of responding.

Perhaps he genuinely thinks that I do not know I am born, he evidently has decided to treat me as though I was not.

Whatever all of this is about, for me it means dealing with the electoral commission, secretary of state, people who will be prepared to raise a referendum petition, when I would much rather be working on another local history publication.

Ultimately here in Thanet we must have some sort of strong leadership that is in some way accountable to the electorate and the only way I can think of getting this arrangement is if we have the power to remove a bad leader.

Getting a safe seat and ingratiating oneself with party members is hardy democratic and evidently results in despotic behaviour.

The Little Ship Sundowner back in the water.

As you can see from the picture Sundowner is back in the water after the disgrace of Dynamo Day see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/05/dark-and-dishonourable-day-for-ramsgate.html

With our wonderful open local government of course it will only be a matter moments before the council tell us exactly what happened and why.

Perhaps it will also only be a matter of days before the maritime museum is open and the historic ships returned to The King George IV Maritime Heritage Pontoon.

A few more pictures around the harbour this lunchtime http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id19.htm

Pictures of Ramsgate and some thoughts

This first batch were Wednesday I think, it’s good to see the seagull proof rubbish bags, their effectiveness evidenced by the lack of rubbish strewn all over the road.

You can also see the vegetation growth in the cracks of the cliff façade behind Pleasurama is building up as the season progresses, I am afraid looking at this and considering that £1m of council tax money has recently been spent on filling the cracks and coating the façade surface, makes me rather annoyed.

The Pleasurama roof drainage pipe is progressing slowly through all of the various underground obstacles along Harbour parade. I have noticed that the reinstatement work to both the road and the footpath is of such good quality that you can’t really see where they have been.

The situation with the coloured concrete dance floor surrounding the eastcliff bandstand is getting very bad indeed, the severe cracking displacement and vegetation growth can’t be helping with the cliff stability there. There is a maze of caves and tunnels in this area, many associated with the world wars, particularly HMS Fervent.

Click on the link for the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id8.htm

This next batch were taken yesterday, it is sad to see the commemorative plaques around the town being stolen for scrap metal, suppose it is synonymous with our broken society that our heritage is reduced to its scrap value.

The King George IV Maritime Heritage Pontoon is still empty after the council deciding to charge nearly full harbour fees to the historic vessels, meaning that they have all left.

Then there is the business of the maritime museum, I have re written Parkinson to illustrate what may of happened here.

The councillors and council executives meet to discuss two new projects: a modern art gallery and a museum. None of them understand modern art and the gallery is bewilderingly expensive, and non-experts risk embarrassment if they speak up, so it gets approved in two and a half minutes. But everyone knows about museums and local history, and everyone has an opinion. The museum, "will be debated for an hour and a quarter, then deferred for decision to the next meeting, pending the gathering of more information.

Don’t underestimate the bewilderingly expensive factor here, every one can relate to the difference between charging an historic yacht £20 per week and £80 per week to tie up outside the café culture, however say £2m for an historic project in Margate, well the figure is so large that it is meaningless to most people.

Click on the link for the pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id9.htm

Bank Holiday Ramble

Another dull and dreary Bank Holiday on the type of weather front, we took the children to a boot fair this morning and I have just finished doing a few chores and reading the local blogs.

A few rather rambling thoughts here on this and that as I try to work out some sort of strategy to get a bit more for Ramsgate out of local government, in terms of the council owned assets in Ramsgate.

First the council leadership and cabinet reshuffle, I gather that the intention here is to reshuffle it again and that Simon Moores will probably not retain the Ramsgate Marina portfolio.

I think the intention here is to move this responsibility to the leader of the council Cllr. Bob Bayford, at the moment this presents me with something of a problem as so far he doesn’t appear to acknowledge or respond to emails.

To be fair this is just as likely to be due to some glitch in TDCIT as any intention to ignore local people. I do think however that there is some something wrong with the way that the leaders office is working when emails from local people about local issues to leader@thanet.gov.uk don’t get any response at all.

The harbour and most particularly the marina is the key to regeneration in Ramsgate and at the moment it is in a fairly rundown state, there are some fairly controversial plans for closing two of the slipways and building a leisure complex on them.

The problem here is that with competition from the ports on the coast of northern Europe it is becoming increasingly difficult to run the slipways at a profit, conversely the slipways are essential for profitable aspects of the harbour, like the expanding windfarm business.

There is also the council’s peculiar attitude to heritage, failure to grant security of tenure to the maritime museum and the reduction of the concessionary mooring fees for historic vessels, meaning that they have all left their dedicated pontoon.

I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding in local government about the way the marina and royal harbour relate to the town, tourism and heritage.

The heritage aspect of the harbour, if properly managed should attract considerable grant funding, bring plenty of tourism and make the harbour more a more desirable place for people to keep their boats than other harbours without the strong heritage aspect. Driving the heritage part away, not only makes it less interesting for tourists but also is likely to mean less revenue for the council.

Partly I think the problem is that the council has got itself into a situation where it considers that the greatest return and therefore the best way out of the present financial problems, is to view every council asset as something where they are looking at the maximum return in terms of either disposal or rental return, that will produce the most overall short term return in terms of income for the council.

The Council legal bill for fighting the Montefiore Village Green Application see http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2010/05/council-legal-bill-hits-80k-fighting.html is a case in point. Now I know this is an opposition press release and as such may have over stated the point, the problem is however one looks at it, when adding up the figures, it looks like there is an uncomfortable parity with the amount of money the council has spent so far in a legal wrangle over selling it and the amount they would ultimately realise if they sell it. I say this setting aside any thoughts about what local peoples wishes are and just looking cold and hard at the balance sheet.

I would imagine that the council’s legal and financial departments must have understood the cost that would be incurred before embarking in this procedure.

Management of council owned assets in Ramsgate seems to have gone a bit wrong, Westcliff Hall, The Café on the end of the east pier, the dry dock, slipways and winding houses, the marina, the maritime museum, Albion House, the pavilion, the Pleasurama site, well the list could go on. Perhaps one or two of these could be excused but all of them seem too much to be a coincidence.

I am hoping that the new cabinet will have a new direction when dealing with these things. Perhaps the first step should be much more openness about what they are doing and why.

To expand on this a bit more, the thing in terms of local council assets that I have the most in depth understanding of is the Pleasurama development. Information about this comes my way in dribs and drabs and frankly much more of it doesn’t make sense than does.

Now one aspect of this that is pretty much beyond me are the financial arrangements between the council and the developer, unlike the cliff façade and the flood risk problems that I understand, up until now I have had to take the councillors word that they are taking the best advise and acting in the public interest.

Now I have firm written confirmation that the council’s director of finance advised the cabinet not to proceed with the development and that the cabinet in a secret closed meeting decided to ignore that advice and allow the development to proceed.

It is now almost a year since that decision and still we have the situation that we have had for the last few years, when asked the council says the development will start within weeks.

No proper consultation, no accurate information for the people of Ramsgate, nothing approaching open government, but worse of all when things like this leak out and as open government becomes more widespread they surely will, no sensible explanation.

I have put this to two cabinet members, past and present, one who normally replies didn’t and the other replied with, no comment.

I should remind people that at this time the cabinet members were aware that the environment agency had strongly recommended not proceeding with the development without a flood risk assessment and emergency escapes to the cliff top.

I believed their position on this was that although they didn’t like the situation they had no alternative but to let the development go ahead even if the environment agency considered that it could be dangerous.

There is of course the issue of the cliff façade too but try as I have there doesn’t seem to be any government agency willing to comment on that one. I should point out that the various faulty bulging bits get this way because of cliff falls building up behind the concrete until there is a sufficient weight of chalk to shift and crack the concrete.

Let’s suppose that there is nothing much wrong with the cliff façade for a moment, if any of you have a few moments to spare go onto the TDC planning website http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet and look at the latest plans F/TH/03/1200 ground floor sheet 23 Jan 2009, take a kook at the lorry in the 70 foot deep 13 foot wide canyon and consider what would happen if it caught one of the protruding support pillars, for the cliff façade.

The picture is of the café on the end of the east pier, one of the long-term empty council owned assets.

Pictures of the Dunkirk Little Ships in Ramsgate Harbour for the Operation Dynamo Commemorative Crossing to France May 2010.

Here are the links to the pictures taken this morning

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id15.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id16.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id17.htm

they are publishing to the internet as I write so you may have to wait a while for them all to appear.

Some thoughts on the pictures at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id17.htm

The first event was at 1100: Dedication of the George VI Memorial Pontoon, Ramsgate Royal Harbour by Celia Sandys, Grand Daughter of Sir Winston Churchill. This pontoon was put there to display historic vessels.

I should point out that this pontoon isn’t a desirable mooring being immediately opposite the late night hostelries, it is subject to ate night noise and projectiles, glasses bottles and even on occasions pub furniture. It has no proper plumbing and a very limited electricity supply.

The idea was that by granting historic vessels free of or concessionary mooring fees an otherwise useless part of the harbour would have a display of historic vessels opposite the emerging café culture.

Recently by raising the mooring fees there until they are now pretty much the same as the rest of the harbour, Thanet District Council have effectively evicted all of the historic vessels and now have an empty pontoon.

The Visitor Information Centre.

After Thanet District Council closed Ramsgate’s Visitor Information Centre a new privately run one has opened in the Custom House, this is to be funded by an associated gift shop, which among other things will be stocking some of my publications about Ramsgate.

I was somewhat amused to see Thanet District Council officers erecting a temporary visitor information tent right outside the Custom House, as were the people running the new centre inside.

The William and Katy Johnston lifeboat.

This historic vessel is due to take part in the run to Dunkirk tomorrow and has been on one of the harbour slipways that were built for the maintenance of costal command vessels during WW2, this seemed rather appropriate to me.

She was on the slipway when I first arrived this morning, the topsides had been given a new coat of paint but not the bottom, so I was quite surprised to see her being tied up at the George VI Memorial Pontoon an hour later and just in time for the dedication.

To my mind a protective coat of paint on her wooden hull while she is out of the water is far more important than having here there to decorate an otherwise abanond pontoon.

The Sundowner Ramsgate’s Historic Little Ship.

What I feared would happen and have mentioned a few times on this blog Sundowner won’t be going to Dunkirk this time, there is a post about this here http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2010/05/little-ship-nazis-couldnt-stop.html from some of the chaps at the council.

To me as someone with some experience with historic vessels, from a purely practical point of view, what they have to say doesn’t entirely make sense. There are two reasons for this that are visible and suggest and suggest short term fixes for this event rather than a long term concern for an historic vessel.

The first is that although all of the part you can see has been repainted, the bit under the water hasn’t, this seem a bit strange as she is out of the water but isn’t life threatening.

What is life threatening is that the sacrificial anodes haven’t been replaced, so despite what they say she isn’t ready to go into the water.

Bit of explanation, wooden boats are held together with metal fastenings (screws nuts and bolts etc) and the effect of the electricity and the salt water is similar to what happens with electro plating.

This electrical action means that the fastenings just dissolve over time and the boat falls to pieces. One over come this by fitting sacrificial zinc anodes that dissolve instead and the ones on the Sundowner are almost completely dissolved.

I managed to get out of the bookshop for a bit and take some pictures of the military vehicle display and the some of the reenactors click on the link for them http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id18.htm

Dunkirk evacuation model tug display at Ramsgate maritime Museum

One of the high points of Saturday and Sunday’s events at Ramsgate Harbour was the display of models of some of the tugs that were at Operation Dynamo.

The models were made by members of the Chantry Model Club that meets at Bluewater (lake 7). Contact details George Boyd (Chairman) 01474 323398 Paul Smith (Secretary) 01474 351361. if they have a website I can’t find it.

Click on the link for pictures of the model tugs http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id13.htm

Ramsgate Maritime Museum pictures and reflections.

As I promised I spent a couple of hours yesterday photographing the maritime museum and the Cervia. The first batch of pictures are of the Maritime Museum, considerable problems with reflection as like most museums a lot of the exhibits are behind glass, anyway I did my best to record the museum as it is now.

As far as I can see things with the museum could go one of two ways. Either the council will fail to grant the museum sufficient security of tenure to obtain grant funding and it will close. Or the museum will be granted a lease on The Clock House and the first thing they will do will be to expand the museum into the parts of the building that are not used for anything much, so either way I won’t be the same again.

Anyway here are the pictures, taken yesterday.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id9.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id10.htm

We had a very similar situation with Ramsgate Motor Museum, the council made promises of support and then broke them, I think the final straw there was the council moving the bucket and spade run to Margate, of course now the museum has closed they have moved it back to Ramsgate. The owners then removed all of the exhibits and since then a large council owned building has remained empty. Before the Motor Museum closed I wrote their website for the museum, I am afraid at the time digital cameras were not what they are today so the pictures of the exhibits are rather small, click on the link to see what we lost http://www.thanetonline.com/RamsgateMotorMuseum

There is a ghastly irony here that the council are spending £2m on a heritage project in Margate, when people of Ramsgate are asking to be allowed to keep their last remaining museum.

It would seem from experience that the council’s most likely agenda here, is to have another iconic Ramsgate building empty for years, progressively becoming more derelict.

This link takes you to a few pictures round Ramsgate taken yesterday and this morning, they got a bit muddled up but the point here is how busy Ramsgate is in the area around the museum, and how much having it open with events on there enhances the town’s economy http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id11.htm

The Steam Tug Cervia Progress.

As I pointed out yesterday both Ramsgate Maritime Museum and the last remaining ocean going steam tug are open to the public in Ramsgate harbour today and well worth a visit, entrance is free.

This link takes you to a few pictures of her that I took late yesterday afternoon http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id8.htm as you see a tremendous amount of work has been done since I last took pictures of her in July of last year, click on the link for the pictures of her then http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/cervia/

Ramsgate Maritime Museum and Steam Tug Cervia open today and tomorrow, free entry

My understanding is that a group made up of the museums volunteers, from when the museum was open, have taken matters into their own hands and opened the museum without getting permission from Thanet district Council.

There is something of an Ealing film atmosphere, reminiscent of “The Titfield Thunderbolt” to the occasion. Very much a sense of the museum belongs to the town of Ramsgate.

Many the people engaged in this act of civil disobedience are local old age pensioners, this is what it has come to here in Ramsgate where the Dunkirk spirit is still alive.

There even appears to be a Dunkirk exhibition, there is also an historic lifeboat on the slipway, various Little Ships to look at and of course the sea and the sand.

I will endeavour to take more pictures tomorrow when I hope to have more time here are the ones of my lunch time walk http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id7.htm they include several of the harbour event.

Is Thanet District Council taking up piracy at sea? The sage of Ramsgate Maritime Museum update.

The museum’s artefacts and the vessels Cervia and Sundowner are owned by a charitable trust – The Preston Steam Trust - that already runs another museum.

For the museum to be able to function, obtain the grants necessary to fund it needs security of tenure for the council owned building that houses, “Ramsgate Clock House,” it and my understanding was that the museum wasn’t to open again until that security of tenure was granted by the council.

So I was very pleased when an Isle of Thanet Gazette reporter interviewed a council spokesperson about this and was told that the council were prepared to grant the museum a 25 year lease, this was published in the Gazette three weeks ago.

I was further pleased to hear that the Little Ship “Sundowner” was being prepared to take part in The Operation Dynamo commemorations see http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2010/05/sundowner-gets-ready.html

Anyway wandering around Ramsgate with my camera I noticed that some of the people restoring The Steam Tug Cervia were onboard, so I mentioned to the how pleased I was to see things finally moving forward.

They were surprised at my comments and pointed out that all was not well, this is one of those only in Thanet stories that one would never have the imagination to make up.

What seems to have happened is that the council, not wishing to face embarrassing questions about why the museum was closed and the Sundowner not taking part in the commemorations, have started to engage in some unusual activities.

The most bizarre of which is taking over the Sundowner without the owner’s permission and preparing her for the commemoration voyage to Dunkirk.

They have also advertised that both the museum will be open over the Operation Dynamo weekend and that The Sundowner will be taking part in the voyage.

My understanding is that this is pretty much the last straw for The Preston Steam Trust and that they will pull out unless the council comes up with a reasonable and workable future for the museum.

This is a strange story and one that I have pieced together as best as I can, so any corrections would be appreciated.

Any of you who aren’t aware of the story so far may wish to read my previous posts about it by clicking on the links below.

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/09/ramsgate-maritime-museum-whats-gone.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/ramsgate-maritime-museum-closure-update.html

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/04/ramsgate-maritime-museum-will-probably.html

Sunday ramble and another old map of Ramsgate.

Click on the map above to enlarge it then click on it again to enlarge it even more.

I suppose the results of the general election are fairly high in most people’s minds at the moment, so a few thoughts on that first.

I have been an advocate of electoral reform for some time, although what shape that reform should take is something I am not certain about.

Had the election taken place with proportional representation and people voted roughly the same way, we would now be being governed by a Labour, Lib Dem coalition, or at least cooperation, of some sort I would imagine.

Is that the will of the people? Well I don’t know the answer to that one.

It does look as though, at the moment, if the Lib Dems get into bed with either of the two major parties, it will be to make a short term government, members of which are likely to have made themselves unpopular, by the time we get another election, probably in less than a years time.

Certainly at the moment it does look as though, with Europe coming unstitched economically, we are in for interesting times.

I terms of local issues, I have already forewarned our new incumbent, here it Thanet South, that I will be sending her a multitude of problems and have had a positive response.

Pleasurama is still not going anywhere much, I am pretty sure that pile boring should be well underway at the moment as I was assured by TDC planning on the 13th of November last year, that this would start early this year.

Perhaps the developer is waiting like me, for some sort of written report on condition of the cliff façade from TDC, perhaps they haven’t yet had one done and I suppose they would require some sort of reassurance that it won’t collapse on them before they start work.

My complaint about this to the local government ombudsman is coming to fruition and one aspect of this surprised me; the following is a quote from their latest letter to me.

“The Local Government Act 1974 says that the Ombudsman shall not investigate a complaint that concerns something that affects all or most of the inhabitants of the area of the Council involved. It seems to me that the situation you describe affects most Ramsgate residents to some degree.”

As when I complained about the flood risk implications, they acted on this and this produced the EA letter at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ea/ it raises some interesting thoughts, not the least of which, is did they act outside of the act last time?

I am putting together information about Ramsgate gasworks at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/gas/ this is in the early stages and any help on this one would be appreciated. I have just received the land registry documents for the site and have discovered that it is still owned by two different gas companies.

That’s enough about public safety issues here for one day, so on to other things.

I am hopeful that the council will be granting security of tenure for the maritime museum, before the Operation Dynamo commemorations, so that the museum will be able to be open for them and The Sundowner take part. The promise from the council to grant a 25 year lease, in the week before lasts Isle of Thanet Gazette was encouraging, but I haven’t heard any more yet.

Update I have just noticed a sign on the maritime museum saying that it and the steam tug Cervia will be open for the two days of the Operation Dynamo commemorations.

I have had a positive response from the council that the café on the end of Ramsgate’s East Pier will soon be back on the market and hopefully open again.

I may ramble on some more, depending on how the day pans out.

Betting on the general election in South Thanet and some pictures of Ramsgate with some comments on them.

One of the aspects of press coverage about the election that interested me this week was the Daily Mirror’s guide to tactical voting, see http://videos.icnetwork.co.uk/m4/Tactical%20voting%20guide.pdf with so many people talking not so much about who the want to win the election, as who they don’t, I was surprised that Thanet south didn’t figure in this guide.

The betting odds see http://sports.williamhill.com/bet/EN/betting/g/136946/Constituency-Seat-Winner.html have the Conservatives as odds on favourites.

Talking to local people this doesn’t seem to be the case so at 7/1 a bet on Steve Ladyman may be quite a good price, or perhaps a flutter on the Lib Dems at 100/1.

Once again I am reminding people of the BBC poll indicator (click on the poll and it shows the result) at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm as I look at it every day it’s handy to have the link near the top of the blog.

On to today’s pictures of Ramsgate see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510/id4.htm AMCO Express another small supermarket is to open in Queen Street, something I find interesting, one wonders if Tesco were wise to pull out when they did. The centre of the town was too busy to take photographs today.

The council seem to have got rid of all of the large unnecessary and unsightly road signs in the harbour area apart from one, I wonder if they just missed it.

The town council still haven’t appeared in The Custom House.

The roof drainage pipe is still being laid from the Pleasurama site to the harbour, I gather they keep encountering problems.

Where the trees were planted on Harbour Parade has been paved over, so presumably there will be no more trees going there.

Work still hasn’t started on the Pleasurama development, despite assurances from the council that it would start in January.

The Maritime Museum is still closed, let’s hope there is some progress on this before the Operation Dynamo commemorations and it would be a great shame if it wasn’t open then.

Ramsgate Maritime Museum, full steam ahead?

I was most encouraged to see in yesterday’s Isle of Thanet Gazette an article that quoted a Thanet District Council spokesperson as saying, that the council are prepared to offer The Preston Steam Trust a 25 year lease on Ramsgate Clock House.

The article hasn’t yet appeared on the Gazette’s website so I am unable to link to it.

This is the building within the harbour area that has housed the maritime museum since it first opened, and because of its proximity to Smeaton’s Dry Dock, which I believe would also be likely to be leased to the museum under the same terms, is really the only practicable building to house the museum.

I have made some enquiries and gather that a 25 year lease would be sufficient to allow the museum to obtain the grant funding that it needs for the work it intends to do to the steam tug “Cervia”, the dry dock and museum.

The steam trust has the resources to offer a considerable amount of leisure activities for Ramsgate apart from the museum and the vessels I gather that it intends to hold a series of events in Ramsgate.

For those of you that are interested in what this could mean the following links take you to some pictures and videos of past events that they have held, adjacent to the other museum they run, at Preston near the village of Wingham in Kent.

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/06/preston-steam-rally-videos.html

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/psr2008/

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/prestonsteamrally/index.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/prestonsteamrally2009/

For those of you interested in the last surviving ocean going steam tug “Cervia” click on the link for some pictures video below, these were taken before the recent restoration work, I promise to get down there and take some updated ones soon.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/cervia/


For those of you who prefer something more professional, than the disorganised web publishing of a deranged shop assistant, here is the link to The Preston Steam Trust website http://www.thesteammuseum.org/

For those of you who haven’t ever visited Ramsgate Maritime Museum click on the link for some pictures of inside it.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id4.htm

For those of you interested in the early history of Ramsgate harbour and Smeaton’s dry dock click on the link to read Smeaton’s report.

http://www.thanetonline.com/AnHistoricalreportonRamsgateHarbour/

Ramsgate Maritime Museum will probably never open again.

Some of you will have noticed that Ramsgate Maritime Museum didn’t open over Easter as expected, after what we thought was a successful campaign to keep it open, Thanet District Council appear to have developed a Catch 22 strategy to finish of Ramsgate’s last remaining leisure facility.

This is a sorry tale put together after a week of on and off the record discussions with councillors and council officers, I think I have now got all of the information right but am open to any corrections.

The museums artefacts and the vessels Cervia and Sundowner are owned by a charitable trust – The Preston Steam Trust - that already runs another museum.

The previous trust (EKMT now disbanded) was funded by Thanet District Council and ran Ramsgate Maritime Museum and Margate Museum on a council grant of about £100,000 per year.

The previous trust (EKMT) failed to renew the lease on The Clock House, the building in Ramsgate Harbour that houses the museum.

The council now has virtually no money or staff to run any of the museums, apart from a small amount to keep Dickens House in Broadstairs running.

The Preston Steam Trust wants to run the museum, restore and maintain the vessels and dry dock, using outside grant funding at no cost to the council.

To obtain this grant funding they need security of tenure or a freehold interest in The Clock House and dry dock.

The council put The Clock House on the asset disposal list and asked for public consultation about future use of The Clock House.

Those who responded to the consultation said that they wished The Clock House to continue to be used as a museum.

The Preston Steam Trust then offered to buy the freehold of The Clock House with a covenant that The Clock House would be used as a museum in perpetuity.

The council then removed The Clock House and offered The Preston Steam Trust a long lease to which The Preston Steam Trust agreed to accept the lease .

The council then withdrew the offer of the long lease, which meant that The Preston Steam Trust couldn’t obtain grant funding to run the museum.

The council would like to see the museum open and would be prepared to let The Preston Steam Trust run it under licence, without any security of tenure with The Preston Steam Trust paying all of the operating expenses.

Of course The Preston Steam Trust can’t do this, as without security of tenure they can’t raise any funds to run the museum.

It would seem that the only option that the council has left The Preston Steam Trust, is to remove their artefacts and vessels from Ramsgate, with the current boom in UK leisure I would imagine there would be a great many towns that would welcome them.

Now at the moment Thanet District Council is run by a Conservative administration and I am being extolled upon to vote Conservative, the reasoning here would seem to be that they consider Conservatives run things better.

So here is an open question to the local Conservative politicians.

Either you think that the majority of local people don’t want the museum to remain open and you think that what is going on here is in the furtherance of local peoples wishes and interests.

Or you think that the majority of local people would like the museum to remain open but you think it is in best interest to close it.

Or you have lost control over the actions of council officers and it is they who are running the show and not you.

Or there is some other option that hasn’t occurred to me that in some way makes sense and you can explain

Well guys and gals which is it?