Not only do Thanet Council seem incapable of running even the basics such as public loos, dredging the harbour etc here in Ramsgate, but now their vision for 2026, which has just been published, talks only about supporting regeneration in Margate and Cliftonville.Don't get me wrong. Both Margate and Cliftonville need all the help they can get. But now Leader Ezekiel seems only prepared to 'invigorate' his northern outposts (I wonder why? Does he get more votes there?), along with putting the rest of his rotten eggs in Westwood and Manston's baskets. What a load of tosh! Even the vision for Margate is questionable. Allowing the high street to contract by granting planning permission for residential units, the Turner, and, of course, the crackpot scheme to put a 'heritage' theme park on the Dreamland site.
Still, this is only the latest of many of Sandy's 'visions'. He's probably had more than Joan of Arc by now. If I had my way, I would burn him at the stake!
Sxx
Click here to read all about it on the Gazette website
Click here to download Mystic Sandy's ramblings (or Core Strategy Preferred Options draft document as they call it)
28 comments:
Betcha wouldn't say that to his face!
I would and I have.
I would have copied some sections from their 'consultation document' to put here, but it has been locked, so you cannot copy from it. Quite why, when it is supposed to be for public consumption and dissemination, goodness knows.
The sections I wanted to highlight were the parts where they still bang the same old drum about the decline of the seaside and the influx of asylum seekers and the unemployed. While this may have been true ten years ago it is certainly not now the case in Ramsgate as I have many new neighbours from the professional classes, all keen and eager to spruce up their fantastic Victorian homes and make Ramsgate into what it should be - a superb place to live by the sea.
In my opinion Thanet Council are using an outdated rationale for their vision, so that they justify their plans for the airport.
do you think the council should find out who is moving to the area these days? The future should be shaped to the people who are going to be living here.
If drug addicts are o-d-ing, gimmers dying and the scroungers sucking the public teat elsewhere, perhaps the area should be shaped for the professionals moving in?
Or is that just common sense?
If professionals are moving in, perhaps we need professionals to run the place?
Because Margate Central and Cliftonville West are the two most deprived wards in Thanet and have a disproportionate impact on the island's resources.
It makes good sense to tackle these two as priority areas of attention and investment!
Seeing as ramsgate is thriving at the moment, perhaps they should take this as a hint and tell manston to fuck off with the night flights request.
Language! You mean 'eff off' surely?
By the way, sorry about the photo of Sandy. I am not as good at Photoshop as Dickie. Who is doing well and is now almost pain free, since you all ask.
I understand that the new soooper doooper Turner Centre will have no paintings by Turner INIT. Perhaps it should be called the Non-turner, Un-turner or Turnip Centre. FACE IT RAMSGATE WE ARE ON OUR OWN !!!!
It's far more complicated than the picture mentioned on deprivation. Yes the 2 Margate wards need money but the deprivation in parts of the Northwood ward I represent are the same or worse. The problem is that statistically the ward is looked at as a whole.
The result is that the Whitehall estate which has just as much need as the 2 Margate wards loses out. Parts of both Margate wards are more prosperous but they gain. Also some of the indicators used to evaluate "need" are out of date or circumstances/life have moved on and they have not changed to reflect this.
No system will be perfect, but local knowledge should mean that a Council recognises the need rather than following a simplistic approach. Thanet DC does not do this and I know there are similar areas of need in other Ramsgate wards. To give but one example, Coleman Crescent recreation Area desperately needs the sort of investment as the great new facilities in dane Park but cannot access them. It's not fair!
Political bias or a lack of awareness? In my view a bit of both.
No political bias or even lack of awareness. I'm afraid the mostly councillor for Northwood is presenting an over-simplistic view and simply trying to engineer a political North/South split. Ramsgate is treated no differently to any other part of the island.
No doubt TDC can publish the criteria it uses to establish which wards are more deprived than others together with a simple list showing how every ward scored. They must have this information available. Cllr can ask for a FOI request.But maybe this is to open but its the only way TDC can be believed. One things for sure with cuts comming no great improvements will be possible anywhere in Thanet so any party point scoring is just plain pointless.
North/South split? Bring it on. Who needs those spunkmonkeys in Cecil Square anyway.
There was a meeting held some months ago, which the Cllr Nottingham did not not attend, although several of his collegues did, which explored some of the problems of the six most deprived wards in Thanet.
Statistically, we know which ones these are and have a very granular detail of information. As a consequence, you would expect the council to focus its efforts on social priorities wherever it finds them.
From my services perspective, island isn't split into Margate and Ramsgate issues but rather into the different wards; i.e. Newington, Millmead, Margate Central, Cliftonville West, etc.
It never ceases to surprise me however, that with all the publicity surrounding the national debt and the public services crisis, many readers here appear unwilling or unable to grasp that without public money and generous central Government subsidies the level of public services that people have become used to in the past become a pipedream.
You need to think back to the 1970s if you can remember that far because that's how serious things are.
Samantha you are not alone in thinking a Dreamland Park/heritage centre is a no go, notice the comma go on notice the comma at great personal expense I bring you a comma I have lived in both Margate and Ramsgate whitehal and Newington have a large population as does prestige ave of people on the lower income scale. I work through church with some of the people in cliftonville west and the problems are totaly different but similar in cliftonville houses of multiple occupation are the crux of the matter and being an ex builder some of the plans passed by the council in the not to distant past are nothing short of scandalous. But that said a developer wants as big a return on a converstion as possible and if the council say its ok he wont argue. The problems arise latter with landlords just after the rent and tenants who by the nature of the area are peripatetic I thought I would throw that in its the only long word I know. Ramsgates problems are similar but the property situation is different the areas of Ramsgate are mainly ex council stock so the converstion of old hotels is not a problem in Coleman cresent but of the occupants as Mark says why cant they have a nice new shiny playground or something to give them a bit of hope.The churches are trying to give the kids in these areas something to do why cant the council. As for the airport bring it on 30 years ago I worked for a while at Crawley and the area had virtually zero unemployment due to Gatwick and the businesses it attracted to the area. I lived under the flight path in the RAF days my kids never got woken up by planes I never had disturbed nights. I dont hold with Sandy I think he should have resigned and dissapeared gracefully but all the time he is elected to do a job let him get on with it so endeth my saturdays virtually unpunctuated rant I will be in saint pauls tomorrow 11.00 am srevice and would love to discuss the North South divide I am easily recognisable I look the same as my photo and will be in my wheelchair its black to big wheels at the back two small ones at the front.
Don, the folk of Coleman Crescent did get a shiny new playground, they trashed it
FFS Don, I like to spend Saturday mornings decyphering the crossword, not one of your comments. Look, a comma represents a pause. Say what you want to say out loud to yourself and everytime you pause, add a comma. Don't rush - we all want to hear what you're saying, so say it clearly.
Thankyou.
anon 11.50 it'll be like the toilets then closed down. Jean this mornings offering was worse than ever after criptic comments about me. off to reead the Dane Valley Matters or as it is also known THE SANDRA HART PROMOTION LEAFLET
would that be the same Sandra Hart who does Clive's hair? if so i will never vote for her
Aircraft noise buggers up your grammar.
TruFact.
Simon Moores has a blue eyed view of the world.
Just as the UK government is too London centric so TDC is too comfortable in Margate.
In classic Simon Moores style he chooses to ignore my point which is that there are pockets of affluence in "deprived" wards which receive better treatment than deprived pockets of "affluent/average" wards.
He says there is not a problem, which just illustrates the sort of complacent approach from TDC that means it is consistently poorly rated.
its very simple. Cliftonville is full of single occupancy dwellings, usually converted from old hotels or large houses.
TDC have highlighted this as an issue.
TDC provide planning permission to allow building/converting of said properties.
TDC just need to stop allowing planning applications for bedsits/cheap 1 bed flats/conversions, and the problems will ease.
Or are those brown envelopes just too hard to give up?
The LDF exists only to support TDC/KCC EKOLLP to sell off land for executive housing at Westwood Town.
Isn't the land on the New Haine Road designated for industrial use i.e. job creation? Didn't Sandy Ezekiel say he wouldn't support the re-designation of the land for housing? Could it be the council, in the current climate, can't attract any industry to that site so thinks hundreds of houses (for whom?) will do the trick?
If the fast train link (that the Tories said would never be built by them) does pull in the commuters then executive housing might pay but wouldn't social housing be of greater benefit to the area removing some of the thousands from the housing list.
Too many are being housed at taxpayers' expense in private accommodation that, due to housing benefit levels, raising rents for all rented houses. It's a well-known fact among those looking for rented accommodation that the link between rents and housing benefit has skewed things for years even here. Someone I know who has rented out an inherited house was advised that she could get a far higher rent than she expected due to housing benefit.
anon 7.55
Well said, house prices could come down at a stroke if that happened. Rents are artificialy inflated due to this .
What a shame that "DrM" cannot ever write anything without being snide and offensive. Perhaps it's why the local Spinmeister has become something of a hate figure.
And what a shame that you are too cowardly to reveal your identity when writing that.
Indeed 07:55 to think how much better off the local tax payer would have been, had TDC applied the proper PGS for Westodd Cross - hang about should the PGS be used for affordable housing?
D11
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