Holy breakfast meetings! I've just received a full transcript of the presentation to local businesses that Our Sandy and Deputy Rodge gave at 7.30 this morning over at Frank T's Pegwell Bay Hotel. And there's enough hot air in it to warm up a gross of croissants! How about this for starters (you'll have to imagine the Powerpoint (yawn) slides that Rodge is referring to):
First off our current opportunities. China Gateway. There has been a lot of bloggers going out with all sorts of stories of doom and gloom and how dreadful this all is and we shouldn’t have it. (Surely he means today's Private Eye? - Ed.) But we are talking about jobs. We are talking about a serious amount of jobs. This is a joint project by KCC and TDC and managed by a company called EKO LLP of which I am a director. Our aim is that having bought this land, we will market it and put the money back into both our coffers and make a profit. This is the plan, and we are going to put there, just by the entrance, the China Gateway building which is a shopping centre which companies would locate into to showcase all their items. That is China Gateway and it is Phase 1. Phase 1 is going on to there. This is the China Gateway building and this is the sort of quality of building that will be built.
Slumped into your cornflakes yet? There's more:
Let's go now and look at the current position with China Gateway. Recently an extraordinary Council meeting voted 41 for and 10 against. Chairman Hoo (Who? Surely Hao? - Ed.) of the Aigo company was over here on a visit and The United Nations are firmly behind this plan (Does that make it UN-inspired? - Ed.) and working closely with Chinamex and CGP, they are partners and are 100% behind it. Chinamex is the supportive arm of the Chinese Government and are looking at globalisation opportunities and they have got a very close working relationship with CGP. And Chinamex are absolutely adamant that the funding is in place . So what is the next stage? The next stage now that we have planning in place, you will see bricks and mortar coming out of the ground at Manston.
It goes on, but if you're like me you've probably lost the will to live by now and are busy stringing rashers of bacon together to form a makeshift noose. If you want to see the rest, including how the runway at RAF London Kent Ramsgate Manston International Airport is going to be extended as far as the Somerfield roundabout to accommodate the new Airbus superjumbos, let me know!
38 comments:
I was invited to that shindig but declined - the thought of those two glaring at me over my eggs and bacon or whatever else was on offer was just tooooo much! I thought councillors weren't supposed to be directors of projects they are proposing even though Woger has declared an interest?
Anyone who did go paid £11 for the privilege of listening to this drivel was robbed.
Interesting Roger referred to 'our coffers. Did he mean EKO LLP's or the council's?
The only person who benefited must be Frank Thorley at whose venue it was held.
I understand some of CGP were also there in the front row.
I heard that a few of the breakfasters brought their own certified cyclohexanone-free bottled water. And their own free range certified as non-Thanet produced eggs.
And Frank still did not give them a discount.
So much for the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs in the invitation. The breakfast was one sausage, one piece of bacon,one egg, half of a tomato,spoonful of tinned mushrooms, piece of toast and one cup of tea for £11 a head.
You could get that in a Ramsgate café for £2.50 and not have to put up with Roger and Sandy.
"This is a joint project by KCC and TDC and managed by a company called EKO LLP of which I am a director."
Erm, shurely shome conflict of interest...
What has the United Nations got to do with all this?
Are they going to send peacekeepers in those jolly blue berets to keep warring factions apart?
What's all this 'we are going to' stuff? I thought the development was by a company, CGP, so when did EKO LLP start planning to put its buildings there? I know it was an early meeting but had Roger woken up or was he still dreaming about 'putting profit into our coffers'? Does he mean we taxpayers or himself and his fellow directors in this anonymous company that no-one can find out anything about?
I smell a rat
This would be really funny as a comedy sketch but as this is the Deputy Leader of the council it suddenly loses its appeal in laughter terms.
What's all this 'we' business anyway? I thought it was a development company not the council or KCC that's supposed to be taking the risks and the profits.
Did I miss something along the way and is it now a joint venture between EKO and CGP and Uncle Tom Whatsit and all for their benefit and not ours?
I was also invited to have breakfast with Ezekiel and Latchford... but as I really enjoy my food I did not wish to waste £11by bringing the whole meal when the two puppets spilled yet more lies to the members of the Public. Expecting the public again to believe. How can anyone accept what they say, when both will benefit financially from phase 1 and especially 2 & 3. Do they really think people living in Thanet are that nieve.
These two ...Men.., have been put into power to act for the people of Thanet, when are they going to start? Ever since they have held the position of Leader and deputy Thanet has been slowly destroyed. We will not put up with any more.
Until all the safe guards have been implemented at Phase 1 of China Gateway we will stand firm and fight you all the way. Have you ever thought of early retirement Sandy & Roger? it will be less humiliating than being voted out.. Just a thought.
Hi there
Why do so many people seem to post their comments on your blog as Anonymous? I would have thought that if you were ashamed to say something you shouldn't say it? Or maybe I don't understand blogging?
Kind regards
Chrissie
TEKBA
Re the above, TEKBA (Thanet and East Kent Business Association) was the organisation who put on this jamboree yesterday morning.
EKBA, who also support the Gateway Scheme in its entirity without a thought for the environmental and other far reaching impacts, clearly doesn't like blogs and bloggers either!
Lord Lucan
I did not know of this meeting, might have attended if invited, but more importantly, would have listened and not commentated. and Christine, yes I agree, anonymous is a cop out, and negates anything the contributer has to say
As a local business man who attended the meeting I find it very hard to accept the distasteful nonsense and lies in comments on this Blog, the comments are obviously the work of a small number of people whose sole aim is to try and discredit the excellent work currently underway in the Councils Regeneration programme.
Not one word has been spoken about the dire state of our Country at this time and also the impact it is having on Thanet
No mention has been made that the talk was "Thanet Open for business" which highlighted all
the major initiatives underway, Ramsgate Port, Thanet Earth, Windfarms,Manston Airport, Turner, all creating employment.
If I was the two Councillors who devote so much time and energy for the good of everyone in Thanet, I would report the Bloggers to the Police for harrasment and in some cases defamation of character. These cowardly attacks are totally unacceptable.If you have a gripe then do the honourable thing and seek an appointment to discuss your problems I am quite sure both Councillors would just love the opportunity to meet you, who ever you are.For the record I thought the presentation was open frank and very informative and I would like to go on record to congratulate them both
Regrettably I have to ne anonymous as it is clear that I have no wish for my business to be attacked in the same way as the two councillors are being attacked.What a sad state our country is in.
Sorry, Ken, being anonymous doesn't negate an argument and I have to say your own argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny. One of the benefits of blogging is that anyone can put forward an argument without fear of reprisals. The worst that can happen is someone like you removes anything they don't agree with. At least Richard and others leave postings on for all to see.
The transcript that ECR uses quite clearly shows EKO LLP, an organisation it's impossible to find out much about, is planning to fill its own coffers with development on the land they own. I thought any profit would be ploughed back into the council's services but that's not how it reads.
Your own view on China Gateway is well-known so at least you saved yourself £11 for breakfast. I thought the meeting was to show how China gateway would benefit business locally, not EKO LLP.
If people couldn't and didn't post anonymously, you wouldn't get any really good info. Did Watergate teach you nothing? (To mention just one)
Blogs would be much less useful were it not for anonymous posts.
I'm sorry, 12:09pm, but under what possible grounds should bloggers 'be reported to the police for harassment and in some cases defamation of character'?
Leaving aside the fact that defamation is not, as far as I am aware, a police matter in this country, are you seriously suggesting that people should be dobbed in for expressing an opinion, whether it be anonymous or not? It's called freedom of speech, old chum.
Crikey! I knew we had a Politburo on this funny old island, but at this rate we'll be getting the Stasi too!
what a waste of my time. That's the last time I get up at some ungodly hour to sit next to some aging sweaty pan-handling Dynasty fans to listen to some very poor stand-up comedy.
I was hoping that the dodgy local duo would do some improv' and it would be just like whose line is it anyway, but no, it was spectacularly unentertaining.
The food...oh my god the food. If you can't make something better than you can find in the bins outside Beano, for an expensive show for the brightest and best of Kent, then FFS how are you going to compete with all the quality restaurants and gourmet pubs that will be coming here when all the rich commuters come here when we get a faster train that we had in 1937? The food, the people, the desparation of it all in no way helps Thanet, it merely highlights how lost the area is and how removed from that reality our esteemed leaders are.
On a brighter note, someone in the toilet did offer me some white powder. I suspect it was beechams or something like that.
Dear 12.09. You are not a local businessman, you are a councillor, or council employee!
Your leaders are liars, and that is proven beyond doupt! The royal 'we' when talking about the planning ideals shows that they are up to they're necks in it! So lets not have any more of your pontifications, and lets have some honesty from above!
By the way, freedom of information means we WILL find out the truth!
For Mr Anonymous Business Man. I quite agree with your comments about the disgraceful state of our Country and yet you wish to compound an already poor situation, by having people, who are exercising their democratic rights to speak freely, reported to the Police! One MORE step on the sleepwalk to dictatorship! I am not afraid to use my name to express an opinion. I spent my £11 for the breakfast meeting and learned absolutely nothing. Bloggers and people who really care about their environment and Thanet have posted the facts relentlessly for the past few weeks. The relationship between the Developer, The Council, the County Council and Chinamex is too cosy for comfort, this came out loud and clear yesterday. Where were the "serious amount of jobs?" Where are the promised companies who will locate to China Gateway? If you don't know the answer to this you must have been burying your head in the sand. Did you come away from that meeting enthusiastic and in the sound knowledge that your business will prosper from China Gateway in the near future? NO. As for fearing reprisals to your business for expressing a view, you have a very poor opinion of bloggers, who are ordinary people who actually care enough to try and do something towards change. They are not simpletons who are gullible enough to believe that the leaders of this Council are the Mother Teresa's of Thanet. More like an insult to her memory.
Mollie
12.09,or should I say 'Woger'.I think 11.57 has you sussed! You sound more like Latchford OBE than a genuine business person.
You give yourself away with the reference to come and have a chat (over a nice cup of tea perhaps?)
There is no defamation of character on recent blogs, just a critical view of the way our Council fails to reflect the wishes of its Cllrs or electorate whilst pursuing the Gateway scam!
The SE Development Plan shows quite clearly that regeneration of our sea-side towns should be TDC's priority so whilst the key site to Margate's regeneration is burned and fenced, TDC is pre=occupied with a speculative devlopment on Thanet's agricultural land and aquifer.
Shame on you and your attempt to defame those who disagree with your specious arguments.
Basinessman? Hahaha what a joke. Even in this area of poundshops and scummy supermarkets, only a lunatic would describe a threadbare carpet seller as a businessman.
If I post anonymously it's a 'cop-out' according to Cllr. Gregory but when 'anonymous businessman' does it, that's ok as he 'fears reprisals.' No, more likely he'd be giving the game away that he's not a businessman at all, but a stooge for CGP or TDC.
If it was so informative and uplifting how come Mollie and whoever did the transcript see it differently? It was advertised as informing businessmen how their organisations would benefit from the development but there seems very little evidence of that in the write-up. It was more about how EKO would benefit. I'd like to find out where their profits, if any, go. Back to council taxpayers or into EKO's directors' pockets.
Knowing as I do the inability of TDC Labour councillors (particularly) in Thanet to keep their opinions to themselves, I have no doubt that the vast majority of "Anonymous" are really Labour councillors in disguise,probably with a few Tories thown in for good measure.
So it seems that apart from Matt B and Michael Bookshop, the blogs in Thanet are mainly politicians or ex politicians talking to themselves, rather than a truly representative selection of Thanet's community airing their views.
So should anybody with any authority at TDC give a monkeys about these monkeys - I think not.
It's amazing how many experts there are out there who know that anonymous posters are councillors of either hue. How do they know that? I post anonymously but am not a councillor nor ever likely to be one, so there, Anonymous 3.20
haha, I've heard some crap posted on here but: if the local tinpot tory councillors believe that the only people who feel pissed off by the ineptitude and pathetic spin of the dunces and failed shop-keepers who try to run TDC are the equally inept labour local councillors, then they are more stupid than I thought.
It's obvious to a monkey that the current TDC adminsitration failed the area, even in a time of over-inflated global boom. It still managed to keep the place looking like a recession-hit slum when elsewhere was booming. The idea that the half-educated grocers and carpet sellers at TDC are going to rescue us by pimping the arse end of Kent to a third world dictatorship is as ludicrous as it is abusive to every man, woman, child, fish and cabbage plant that lives here.
The sooner half of TDC pops their clogs the better.
10.39 What a great post and so true. Anti campaigners managed to stick together without party politics coming into it. I have always been a Tory, but am totally ashamed of the lot at TDC. Party politics should be put aside for all major issues and for the good of the people. As you rightly say why haven't they managed to turn the fortunes of Thanet around in the "good" times? Even now at a time of global food shortages, they want to concrete over prime farm land, in the name of a few non-existant jobs and a fast buck for whom I can't work out yet! While I'm still in the mood for a rant, what raving idiots would be selling off our assets in the middle of a global economic crisis of proportions not seen since the
30's and 40's? I am going to join the Monster Raving Loonies Party to try to get them out at the next elections.
Mollie
If they aren't acting in the interests of the people who elected them, who are they acting for?
Why would they be acting on behalf of people who they don't represent?
Anonymous 4:12 but we'll never know the truth, because you are Anonymous.
And as for some of the other Anonymous', I don't know whether they are persons of integrity or not, but I suspect not because they seem to suggest that everything that Tory councillors do is rubbish just because their views are different from their own.
From what I have seen of all councillors they are just ordinary folk, with ordinary jobs and ordinary experience. Same as most in Thanet.
And if the leader has a carpet shop at least it shows that he is trying to make his own way in the world, rather than cling to someone else's apron string.
As for the bloggers who scream "liar", not only are you sad and deluded, but you also lack any understanding of the way audit in any organisation works.
You are the ones who are trly despicable for the disinformation and tat that you peddle. I have no doubt that the good people who live here will always ensure that the correct and honest view prevails.
Can I just point out that, speaking as the only Lib Dem in the village, I have never been, nor am I ever likely to be, a councillor in these parts (or any other parts for that matter). Nor do I have any ambitions in that direction. The media may be a vipers' nest, but it seems much friendlier than local politics if you ask me!
I think it would be useful for someone in the council to compile a list of the positive steps for Thanet that have actually been taken - westwood, er, can't think of anything else - that have actually come to fruition over the past years. If bloggers and posters are just neigh-sayers, lets put the truth out there on what has actually happened during the past 17 years of unparralled economic growth in this country, in Thanet, and created by our loverly council.
Think you are right Steve. Why not post a list of the successes for the past 17 years and let that be the end of it. However, I still can't understand why in the years of unprecedented growth in the Country, Thanet has lagged so far behind.
It is a great shame that any debate on the issues facing Thanet - however hotly contested - gets derailed by someone - usually supporting the Council or the political right - waving the anonymity card.
As several have observed, many good comments would not appear if everyone was forced to reveal their real identity. It is true - and accepted - across the communications world, not just blogging that many will want to contribute views in this way.
Tory Ken Gregory lambasts those who contribute anonymously and says their views are worthless - when it suits him. He made no attack on the "anonymous businessman" nor on anyone else who has commented anonymously but who agrees with Ken. Funny that!
And as for the suggestion about the police, defamation of character/slander/liable - which I do not believe are happening here -are civil matters and so not for the police. Corruption is, however, and I would hope that if there is any evidence of that locally, they will be hot on the trail of it.
Anonymous because I choose to be!
The idea that those attacking the "corrupt tories aka Sandy Beach and co" are Labour is ridiculous - dream on Ken G in fact i think you will find it is "disaffected" local honest tories who are shocked to the core by those few in TDC who are the tory leaders and are not what a genuine tory stands for - public service etc - simply out to line their own pocket and think the rest of us are mugs? Blogs have hightlighted a growing hard core of us who arent corrupt and hate to see it all around and have the good of Thanet at the heart Bloggers unite and stand for "Conservatives with integrity" in the next local council elections i say!Another idea is to stand en masse as independants and rout both sides and obliterate politics from TDC that would probably be the greatest idea - just do what needs doing - urgent improvement of Margate and Ramsgate town centres first.
Will done Chris for sticking your lovely, large, bearded neck out.
It's true that there are a couple of people in the tory group who aren't dodgy dunces, money-grabbing shop-keepers, mentalists or fearful neurotics.
Actually, I can only think of two who are reasonably sane, but I wouldn't want any of them to look after my kids. To be fair though, I can't think of a single local cllr in Thanet who I would trust to look after my dogs, let alone my kids.
Funny how we let these people control our area.
Just to tell you 1.36 was me anonymous certainly not a councillor until i see the back of some of the shady ones - just someone speaking with heartfelt abhorence at what is going on with the Thanet Tories
Put you right - think you will find most of the bloggers are not labour but disaffected tories who currently wouldnt dream of voting for most of the current councillors who wave the blue flag although they would vote for Roger and Laura so there you have it Sandy and co - you are hated - only your own self indulgence keeps you there - dream on and get a shock!
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