Wednesday, April 16, 2008

P'd O At PO Q's

First we had the Royal Snail™ delivering the post after most decent folk have gone out to work for the day (not me of course - one of the advantages of being a, er, resting celebrity), now we have queues backing up to Belgium every time we visit our Post Office™ here in the Millionaires' Playground.

Ever since the laughable 'consultation' followed by inevitable closure of our local, teeny-tiny Post Offices™ in January, the main Post Office™ in the High Street has been rammed. A half hour or 45 minute wait before you get to the counter now seems to be the norm. Very annoying when all you want to do is pay in your 45p BBC royalty cheque from a repeat of that brief appearance on Wogan in 1992.

Meanwhile, over on the seedy, smoky north side of the island, our beloved council looks set to dispose of part of Margate's splendid old Post Office™ in Cecil Square. As ever the Uranians are on the lookout for assets to flog, and apparently they own a bit of it. Presumably this doesn't mean the Post Office™ itself will close. Or does it?

Click here to see TDC's cost-cutting, asset-flogging proposals

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

ECR

I think thre is an archive there ... for the files TDC claims to no longer hold ?

Richard Eastcliff said...

TDC say it's yet another of those buildings that they can't afford to DDA. If there is an archive up there then surely they need to find somewhere to put it before they flog the place off?

Meanwhile I hear they're going to use the upstairs of the Margate Museum as yet another venue for their interminable meetings. As if they didn't have enough of those already!

Peter C said...

TDC own the building upstairs from Margate post office. When I had my meeting with them to discuss Botany Bay / Pegwell Bay beaches I was surprised to be escorted over the road from reception & upstairs above the PO.

Incidentally, I saw Tracy Emin snapping away taking photos of Margate on monday (including the dilapidated rear of The Winter Gdns), so at least the place is inspiring someone! : /

Observer said...

Taken from the PUBLIC INFORMATION document on TDC's website,,,

"Many Thanet residents love their gardens, but they produce a great amount of recyclable green waste. Many councils now charge for their service to collect green garden waste. We propose to also introduce a small annual charge for this service in Thanet from summer 2008. This will require considerable capital investment and set up costs by the Council – but we believe this will lead to a valuable, cost effective and environmentally friendly service used by an increasing number of households in the years to come.



Residents who wish to use this service will be asked to purchase a green garden waste bin for £15. After the first year, there will be a cost of £26 to keep using the bin, which will buy an annual green bin licence. This fee is considerably less than the cost of a tank of petrol."

Now unless maths has changed since I left school 15 and 26 comes to 41.
I shall be on the phone tomorrow asking why I was charged £55 or is this yet another example of TDC saying one thing and meaning another !!

Anonymous said...

or maybe another example of some numpty forgetting to add 'Value Added Tax'.

Sysuya.

Anonymous said...

The advertisement in the local press said it would be £25 to 'hire' the bin and £30 a year to have it emptied. Didn't say if that would mean the bin would be emptied the whole year or just in the main growing season. The service was usually suspended in the winter so it could be you'll be paying £30 for only 9 or 10 months so in fact that makes it £35 a year. A neighbour of mine had two delivered. Can't think why as he has a small garden. I don't know of anyone else prepared to pay this stealth tax. Unless you don't have a car it's cheaper to take the stuff to the tip so it's a regressive tax on the very elderly and poor.