News just in from Ramsgate First's impressive cliff top HQ (see above) - head RFer Gerry O'Donnell is apparently on the warpath over the way TDC has been dragging its heels setting up a teeny-tiny council for the Millionaires' Playground.Despite overwhelming support for a parish council in a petition, and in a subsequent TDC-funded referendum, there's still no date for elections, or, indeed, any sign that anything is happening at all. Now Chief O'Donnell has put in an FOI application to the government department for governing local government asking what progress, if any, TDC have made towards getting their balls rolling.
The suspicion is that they'd prefer to kick these particular balls into touch, using recent legislation which gives them full control over local arrangements, but I'm told that, as the Ramsgate decision was taken before the new rules came in, they'll have more luck finding Lord Lucan partaking of a quick snifter down the Belgian Bar!
20 comments:
Lord Lucan? So that's who the dodgy bloke behind the dirty beard down the belgian bar is, eh?
I thought I'd seen him there!
Twice
Do pop in any time and I'll shout you a pint.
I suspect the next thing to come out of TDC , is that we all must be grateful that the parish council result was announced within 24 hrs and we didn't have to wait three weeks.
What is the point of another tier of local government? Fine if all the towns went back to town councils and TDC was abolished but what will this achieve?
tdc abolished, surely our towns would be better run without them, just look at the mess in Margate!!
Seriously what use is TDC to Ramsgate? What have they done for the place? They have allowed our West Cliff Hall to become a ruin, they have allowed Grosvennor Casinos to run the Pavilion into the ground, they have failed to dredge our harbour, they allowed Pleasurama to be a ten year blot on the landscape, they are gung-ho for the airport, they seem more interetsed in Margate. Broadstairs looks great why is that? Is it because they have a parish council or is it because more Tory councillors live there? Ramsgate for Ramsgatonians I say!!!!
And they effectively sat back and watched while one of our Grade II listed buildings was demolished in January. Feckers!
It seems a bit of a toy town mentality if you ask me which i doubt anyones would .
A ramsgate parish council seems a bit pointless whats its purpose
Tony
Its purpose would be to give a quality of life for those that live in Ramsgate - which is sadly lacking.
It would also save us from night time pugilistic adventures?
You're right, Tony. I doubt anyone would ask any person that doesn't consider any opinions other than their own rather ignorant and blinkered ones.
But of course, you won't be having any of that, eh?
We'd essentially just like to see constructive and appropriate (for the area) things happening here.
Who better to decide that than the people who live here?
Would you like to have someone in the next road to you deciding what colour to paint your living room, making sure your kitchen and toilet don't get cleaned and knocking all your gnomes into your pond?
Parish style councils are generally a waste of time, become talking shops for the self obsessed and have no real authority other than objecting to people's applications to build porches on the front of their houses. Some people in Whitstable would like to see a parish council introduced there but so far, happily, that hasn't happened.
Closer to home, has Birchington become a better place for having a parish council in the last dozen years or so? Probably not.
Hard pressed Ramsgate council tax payers will see their tax rise, yet further, by an additional two or three per cent, to pay for the privilege - not good value in my humble opinion.
By all means have parish councils in smaller villages where some, but not much, good might be achieved but a town the size of Ramsgate simply doesn't need it.
AS it is the various charter trustees of Ramsgate and Margate are a throwback to the days of the former borough councils. Their value is certainly questionable in the day to day hurly burly of making sure rubbish gets collected, social housing provided and little old ladies helped across the road (or something).
Nick, Whits
PS look forward to meeting Lord Lucan sometime. Is it true you can be seen riding your horse Shergar across the beach at Ramsgate in the early hours of a spring morning?
Nick, Whits
The situation here is that the people of Ramsgate voted to pay more for another tier of government and talking to local people then and now the reason is pretty straightforward. It was felt that we needed some elected body to represent Ramsgate’s interests as TDC is now Margate centred, as for elected representatives there doesn’t appear to be a cabinet member representing Ramsgate at all so we are inclined to feel disempowered by our elections.
I have tried to have dialogues by email with various cabinet members but find they just peter out when one makes reasonable suggestions or asks reasonable questions about Ramsgate issues.
It is an unfortunate situation that we need to pay for another tier of government and certainly something I would reconsider if I could get reasonable responses from elected members of the current cabinet, even on issues as basic as public safety it seems to be impossible to elicit a response.
I agree that TDC is now effectively Margate Borough Council and they do not seem to care two figs for Ramsgate. I would rather not pay more council tax but am prepared to do so if it means better representation as I am currently taxed and not represented at all. Ideally I would prefer TDC to revert to the three boroughs we had before the merger in the 70s - Ramsgate and Broadstairs stand a much better chance of making a go of things without the Margate millstone around their necks - everything TDC does seems geared to making Margate better and Ramsgate worse.
I have mixed views on a Ramsgate Town Council.
As an elected member for a Ramsgate Ward to TDC, I am a member of Ramsgate Charter Trustees. Like a Town Council, they have the power to raise a precept.
Currently the Charter Trustees restrict their activities two or three things. They elect and support the Ramsgate Town Mayor, (providing him/her with a pa and a part time driver) in support of him/her representing the town both locally and around Kent. They occasionally undertake small items of improvement in Ramsgate. They also distribute a Town grant scheme (about £60K pa) to organisations in Ramsgate.
I have tried to persuade them to act a body to lobby for Ramsgate's interests, but the majority do not wish to do that, prefering to restrict those activities to their District Council roles.
The difference that a Town Council would make is that people would be elected directly, presumably on some sort of platform of ideas for the town. Initially at least they would have as little power as the Charter Trustees. The new Council could decide whether to continue with the Mayor and whether to employ a Town Clerk (both big items of expenditure). If it does both, Ramsgate could see its local precept doubled or even trebled.
I agree very much with michael, the people of Ramsgate voted in a ballot for a town council, it should be honoured.
A little harsh to single TDC out for being slightly slow in dealing with this. It's not as if they're slow in dealing with things is it?
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