The observant among you will have clocked the new ticker in my sidebar on the right, counting up the number of days since Isle of Man based Auclair Properties gave the listed Marina Restaurant on Ramsgate front a right old, er, developing. It's now been 380 days, 21 hours, 28 minutes and 32, no, 33, no 34... oh you get the picture, since we were promised it would be restored to its former glory. Personally I think it should stay as it is, since it makes a fine addition to the tourist attractions down there, viz:- Lido turned into car park with EU money
- Decade long eyesore that was Pleasurama
- Deserted casino
- Festering Motor Museum
- Smoothie hut
Auclair have submitted plans for rebuilding the joint, albeit with what Prince Jug Ears would describe as a 'monstrous carbuncle' of a modern annex on the side, but this was rejected by the planning department. There's been a meeting this evening about the Marina Restaurant, and TDC's proposed sale of the Maritime Museum and Albion House, so we should hear more on the morrow.
Meanwhile it's not all destruction and desolation here in the Cannes of Kent. Regular contributor Millicent has sent me this photo of a new, Unidentified Frame-like Object that's appeared on the Rec. Apparently it's going to be an indoor basketball court when they get around to finishing it!
12 comments:
At last ECR, getting back to what you do best, showing what TDC does for the towns, nothing. They do far more damage to the area than Manston will ever do.
I used to really enjoy a crepe and coffee at the smoothie hut.
Bloody TDC at work again, they were promised a pitch by the monument if memory serves. I believe it was decided that they were not 'in keeping' with the area. Smoothies and crepes should obviously have been kebabs to fit in :s
Oh well im keeping my tourist £££ in my pocket.
'Annoyed of Whitstabubble'
Tony - that's precisely the trouble with the airport, TDC are supposedly in charge of protecting the environment from over enthusiastic development and they are so clearly unqualified to do so.
You can't expect Infratil to voluntarily curb it's commercial drive for profit in order to protect the area.
And we know TDC are incapable of doing it.
So a reasonable development would seem highly unlikely.
Ergo, destructive development will result.
I just love these idiots who think that everything TDC does is rubbish...except promoting the airport. There's no difference. The airport has been developed without planning permission and without all of the environmental assessement that would be done for a proper airport. All we've ever seen up there is the stuff that no-one else wants. And the idiots think it will save Thanet. Go take a look under the flight paths for Heathrow. These are not rich areas.
The best one I saw was some idiot saying that if I sold my house a BA pilot would move in. Hello. BA pilots live in the leafy suburbs of Surrey. They don't live under the flight paths for Heathrow. The people living in the flights paths are the people who empty the bins and clean the toilets. If Manston expands that's the future for Ramsgate.
And, for the record, if this happens to Ramsgate, the people of Broadstairs, Margate, and the surrounding villages won't benefit in any way. It will drag down the whole area (if you can imagine it being dragged any lower).
Is this an example of the vortex damage Ramsgate can look forward to?
FYI Annoyed of Whistabubble the smoothie shack has been reincarnated next to the toilets there's a picture on ECRs blog here
http://eastcliffrichard.blogspot.com/2009/01/separated-at-birth.html
I see a Green candidate is standing in Rammers in the next Election.
(see Your thanet this week.)
Hooray! At last the cracks begin to show in the incestuous,self serving, nepotistic wall that is politics in Thanet.
Anon. 9:42 you mean to say you don't empty your bins and clean your toilet, not very hygenic.
Tony, I make no apologies for banging on about the airport.
There really is something seriously askew when a listed Victorian edifice can be knocked down, and remain knocked down for more than a year, or a thriving local restaurant wait three months for the planning department to get its act together, and yet a New Zealand company can get permission to fly 747s over my house in a week. From an airport that has never even had to apply for planning permission.
Still, I have no appetite for reigniting the heated debate we had last week, so I'll leave it there.
I take it Tony is not Bignews Tony
Nope - it's 'Big-up The Airport' Tony. (No offence meant, Big T!)
There is however a *new* planning application (Jan/Feb 09) for rebuilding the Marina Restaurant - this time with an 'old style' extension on the side.
It comes complete with a financial analysis showing how it wouldn't be viable to rebuild the restaurant as it was and the profit they would make if they built the extension as well.
See planning applications: F/TH/09/0051 and L/TH/09/0052.
It even has a flood risk assessment !!
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