Dusting For Prince

You know me, I could never be accused of cynicism. Ahem. But news that the Prince's Regeneration Trust has been commissioned by Dreamland developers Waterbridge to scribble yet another report on future uses for the site seems a tad like Charlie's eponymous forbear being asked to fill out a post execution survey for the Choppers' Union.

There have been so many schemes, plans and inspections regarding what is now effectively a deserted piece of prime sea front real estate with a few bits of Grade II listed charcoal scattered about, that most Thanetians have given up wasting their precious head space on the topic. Our beloved council have come out in favour of a 'mixed development', giving over the majority of the site (well, 51%) to a 'heritage theme park', with the rest consisting of the usual luxury apartments etc. Even the Save Dreamlanders appear to have given up the ghost and gone over to the other side, getting into bed with the developers on the promise of a funfair full of knackered old rides that have been bought up from other seaside towns who've been glad to see the back of them.

The Princes Regeneration Trust is no doubt likely to reiterate the same old nonsense. Meanwhile Her Majesty's Rozzers have yet to come up with anything other than a big, fat zero in their arson investigation. So if any of you harboured any thoughts of PC Plod and Big Ears coming to the rescue - dream on! (PS: I have now removed the O' from my name as this post has no doubt put paid to any chances of me copping something in the New Year's Honours.)

Click here for Dreamland story in yourfannit
Click here for press release from the Prince's Regeneration Trust

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

Cripes! My spies on the seedy north side tell me yet another shop in Margate's Old Town has gone west.

Back in April I predicted that no fewer than six outlets in the area were planning to shut up shop, the tally currently stands at four. Harbour Monkey upped sticks last month, Chantelle and Brown Sugar closed a couple of weeks ago, and now my very own tonseurist, Jamie the Harbour Barber, has apparently called it a day. Maybe if some of the 65,000 visitors to Margate's Big Event at the weekend hadn't been bussed straight past the town whose name it bore, the place might have benefited from a few tourist sovs.

Meanwhile if you want to see how retailers generally have been faring in the Arsonists' Playground, take a squiz at this video I found on BoobTube. Entitled Margate - A Town On Its Knees? it's been put together by the chaps at letssavemargate.com, who clearly don't stand a chance as they've signally omitted to link to the island's premier blog!

Closed Shops

Nothing to crow about really, but my prediction back in April that no fewer than six retail outlets in and around Margate's Old Town and Lower High Street area were planning to shut up shop has proved to be at least half right.

Harbour Monkey upped sticks last month, and now Chantelle and Brown Sugar are closed clothes shops. All three managed to cling on until well past the original date they were given for the 'improvements' over on the seedy north side of the Ile, but not beyond what now seem to be endless, continuous, disruptive road and pavement works. Jamie, the excellent Harbour Barber who attends to the old Eastcliff barnet, tells me the rotters have even dug through his telephone cable and want £170 to reconnect him. Apparently any chance of being compensated is 'out of the question'!

(With apologies to Maisiegrace who will no doubt now call me unbalanced and a boring old cynic!)

Open F-All Hours

Presumably some joker has erected this 'Businesses Open As Usual' sign during the ongoing, er, improvements to Margate's Lower High Street. Probably the same joker who's put a stuffed dodo in the window of the defunct M&S, now rebranded the Turnip Contemporary Project Space, along with what look like a few nostalgic pairs of undies, tastefully tarted up with neon lights.

Actually, this shot is very similar to one that appeared in last week's Gazunder under the headline 'Traders Fight To Save Town Centre Shops', about a petition to completely pedestrianise the street, which you will have read about here first (natch). The story also reveals how Margate Renewal Partnership has set up a new website aimed at getting developers to invest in the town.

A quick eyeball of the new site reveals that Margate is 'about to boom', and that the Old Town is 'becoming hip and fashionable'. The Turner Contemporary will, according to the fantasists at MRP, be 'an international art gallery of world class design celebrating the life and work of one of Britain’s best loved artists, JMW Turner'. No mention of stuffed dodos or illuminated pants. Or the fact that none of JMW Turner's works are likely to get within 100 miles to the place.

Of course, here in the Millionaires' Playground we're reduced to our now inevitable, council-inspired role as a port/landing strip/lorry park. The website crows: 'Major investment to radar and lighting at Kent International Airport by new owners Infratil to improve the longest and widest runway outside London, — one of the few capable of landing Jumbo 777's' (sic) — says we are ready for take-off.' It's enough to make you airsick!

Click here to go to This Is Margate website