Thursday, February 20, 2014

Gone With The Wind?

A busy week on the news front, what with work getting underway at the Ramsgate tunnels in preparation for a June opening, people pissing on war memorials, £10 rail tickets from London to Margate (but not Ramsgate and Broadstairs), and now the news that The Duffers are finally giving the 'developers' of the Pleasurama Eyesore the old heave-ho!

Lord, that I should have lived long enough to see that!

But strangely no local media outlet appears to have given a damn about yesterday's announcement by London Array that they have cancelled the second stage of their Thames Estuary wind farm - because of concern over the potential impact on the red-throated diver. That's a bird, apparently. Which the cynical might say has provided a convenient excuse to scrap something London Array didn't want to do in the first place.

The news that a potential 56 further turbines will not now be added to the 175 already blighting sea views from Margate will probably be received as a blessing by NorthEnders, but here on the sunny south side there could be some wailing and gnashing of teeth, given that London Array are based in the Port of Ramsgate.

Which means despite all the recent positive spin by our beloved council about a great future for the port and harbour based on leisure craft, a £7m loan for a cargo quay, and the wind farm business, we're currently down 50+ turbines, as well as a cross-channel operator. And, er, can we have our 3.4m quid back?

Oh well. Never mind. Something's bound to come up. After all, tomorrow's another day!

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Busy day indeed old chap! I cant believe I am saying this, but I think it looks like TDC made a good decision on Pleasurama. Lets hope it all works out!

Unknown said...

Just seen. "Council to issue new guidelines on HMO's" as a headline as well. I suspect TDC has suddenly been over thrown by rational people all of a sudden!

Thomas Brown said...

Agree it's been a very newsy week - even by Thanet standards! The London Array expansion axe story was covered online by the Gazette: http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Plans-London-Array-expansion-scrapped/story-20658292-detail/story.html

Richard Eastcliff said...

Ah! So that's where it was lurking Mr B! Thanks for the link. I still haven't managed to read the story, however, as a sodding great cruise ship popped up and filled my entire screen just as I got to the end of the first sentence.

Anonymous said...

What happens to SFP owning 199 year leasehold then ?

Anonymous said...

Let's hope Arlington will be demolished soon too.

Good news on Pleasurama but it only brings us back to a derelict site - the towns are looking like scrapyards.

Derelict Port.
Derelict Dreamland.
Derelict Pavillion.
Derelict High Streets.
Derelict Pfizer.
Derelict Manston.

Too many stupid decisions and wasted years: we need a clearout of councillors and civil servants.

Anonymous said...

Duncan I don't know what you imagine "Guidelines on HMOs" will achieve.

Perhaps it is a guideline to landlords on how to make the most troublesome tenants the responsibility of the council to house ?

Or how to evict all occupiers and phone the "Empty Property Officer" of the council offering the building to the council to manage. (The council won't want it by the way)



Anonymous said...

Duncan

Gazette housing report QED

Anonymous said...

Gone with the Wind? We certainly need rid of Windy Gale and some of The Old Farts at TDC!

Unknown said...

Thank you above :) And dont know what can be enforced, but anything to bring the property back up to spec, eh?