Dreamland Dream Comes True!

Reader Marky-Warky, aka Thanet's Greatest Living Rocker, Mark Hewins, will be chuffed to see that his plans for Margate seafront have been taken up, in part at least, by no less a figure than our glorious council leader Sandy Beach!

Mark's proposal included the pedestrianisation of Margate front. Now Thanet Adscene is reporting our Sandy as saying the front will be restyled to give priority to pedestrians. The Save Dreamlanders will be cock-a-hoop too, as Sandy also endorses their plan to put knackered old rides on the site, along with a stipulation that at least 51% of the area be devoted to a funfair.

Now I know in the past I've stood on rather less than firm ground when it comes to Dreamland. As would, apparently, any housing development that might be bunged up there, due to the soggy nature of the terrain. And we know from past experience that any front page lead in the Sadscene, especially one that features a pronouncement from Mr Beach, should be treated with more than a soupcon of salt. But really, where's the vision? Where's the state of the art, digital coasterdrome Margate deserves? Honestly!

Dreamland Campaigner Spits Dummy

Holy roller coasters! I appear to have stirred up something of a hornets' nest over on the Save Dreamland Campaign website.

Ubercampaigner Nick Laister has picked up on my recent SchemeLand post and accuses me of being 'the worst offender for misinformation' à propos the news that a number of old tut rides from some derelict amusement park oop north are being put in storage in anticipation of the 'heritage amusement park' proposal put forward by developers Waterbridge. Clearly Mr Laister is not a frequent peruser of my feeble jottings!

I will admit, however, that I got the tone of my item slightly wrong. I had intended it to be a polemic against our lacklustre local politicos, who have consistently and limply failed to implement the government inspector's report that insisted on a seaside style future for Dreamland, rather than any insinuation that the Dreamland campaigners had hopped into bed with the developers. After all, what I'm most interested in is local colour, and unfortunately neither Waterbridge nor Mr Laister are local. Waterbridge are based in Newbury, and Mr Laister appears to run the Dreamland campaign from 15 miles further up the A34 in Wantage.

SchemeLand

Bear with me, this one's a bit complicated.

According to the BBC Kent website, some old rides from Southport's Pleasureland, which abruptly closed last September, are being put in storage in preparation for the opening of a heritage amusement park on the Dreamland site in Margate.

Now, as far as I can recall, there are currently no plans for a 'heritage amusement park' on the Dreamland site, which has been closed since last year, apart from two tentative proposals put forward by property developers the Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company, aka Waterbridge, aka J Godden Esq (40%). And it's true that one of these proposals mumbled something about putting a few old ferris wheels around the listed scenic railway in order to justify a whole pile of luxury apartments, hotels, 'leisure', the usual old crap.

However, these proposals remain just that, proposals. They are not approved plans, and go totally against the view of a government inspector that the entire site should remain devoted to traditional seaside attractions. So the storage of these rides would appear rather premature.

Premature, that is, until you realise that the Save Dreamland Campaign which has long battled against the developers, has now rolled over and had its tummy tickled by them. Not only do the plans for this 'heritage amusement park' appear on the SDC website, but the SDC's website, in a touching show of mutual appreciation, now appears as a link on the developers' website. So it all now looks rather like a fait accompli.

Still with me? It gets better. Having only been closed for a few months, the reason for putting Southport's Pleasureland rides into storage is because it is being transformed into a '£100m+ Euro Park', according to local sources. Something that Dreamland could only ever, er, dream of it seems.