Car Park Lark

As I'm currently 'off-territory' here in Bournemouth, I thought I'd go the whole hog and bring you an item about Broadstairs!

I'm indebted to the excellent Broadie magazine for this one - click on the pic to big it up. It's a press release from Isle Homes about the company's 'exciting new development' of 14 houses on the Vere Road car park site in the town. But, as the Broadie says, what about all the disruption during the build, which starts in the New Year and will continue until autumn 2014? Not to mention the future lack of parking facilities once 14 houses have been plonked there!

Oh well, at least Boredstares will get a new public toilet block out of it. And as for parking, well, I'm sure all those lovely summer visitors will be able to find plenty of spaces in the Millionaires' Playground, where our buildings seem to have turned into car parks over the years, rather than the other way round!

Update: Despite me being told at the time that this was an old story and a 'non-issue', it seems that it has subsequently (Jan 2014) exploded into a ball of angry, disgruntled fire that is threatening to engulf the whole of Boredstares in the flames of outrage and revolution! Well, sort of. Click here for more.

Signs Of The Times

Apologies, ECR fans, for the lengthy lacuna!

I've been having such good fun working with my new best chum Clive Anderson that time has fairly whizzed by!!! Then, of course, there was all the kerfuffle at Dreamland yesterday. Following that I fell in with Antiques Roadshow expert Mark Stacey, and we both decided to take a snoop around Albion House here in Ramsgate, which was open to all-comers today as part of the lovely Emma Irvine's initiative to turn it into a boutique hotel by next June!

Phew! It's a hard life being a sleb!!!!!

Any-old-hoo, poking around Albion House, where, as we know, the young Queen Victoria used to hang her bloomers out on the balcony to dry during her summer hols, I couldn't help noticing that there was still some evidence of its more recent incarnation as council offices. If you've ever wondered why the duffer at the end of the line doesn't appear to be taking your call about that dodgy lamp post very seriously, wonder no more!

And speaking of the Highways Department, here are some other signs I've spied in my recent travels around the Millionaire's Playground:

I particularly like the full stop after 'NO'. And the miniscule 'K' as a half-arsed attempt at rectifying the typo!

The next is pretty self-explanatory:

And it appears to have worked! Hurrah!!!

A Fine Way To Welcome Visitors

One of my foreign spies has emailed me in disgust at the way he's been treated recently by Thanet's parking Nazis attendants.

Arriving here in lovely Ramsgate on Saturday, our friend from across the water checked into the Travelodge on the harbour and parked in the Leopold Street multi-storey. Which, as we know, is free on Saturdays, so no need for a ticket. My correspondent continues:

We had a great time and spent a lot of money in the local pubs and a restaurant. After having a breakfast in the hotel we left at 08.30 in the morning only to find a fine attached to the windscreen. The attendant wrote the fine at 7.30AM. So Leopold Street is a jackpot for TDC, nobody in the hotel will get up early in the morning to put money in the machine. The proof was the many fines posted on the windscreens, many probably Travelodge guests.

The problem is that if you put moeny in the parking machine on the Saturday, you get a ticket which says you paid for the Saturday, which is free.

He goes on to say that the next time he fancies a sojourn across the Channel, he'll be staying in Deal or Dover, or any of the other locations where you can park for free on a Sunday, and not have to worry about getting up at sparrow's fart to feed a ticket machine.

Clearly the machines need to be re-programmed so that, if you put money in on a Saturday, it gives you credit for Sunday. But then Thanet Council would lose out on some of their £200,000+ a year parking fine revenue, wouldn't they? After all, they need to do something to make up for the zero beach littering fines and four dog mess fines they issued last year!

Our foreign friend signs off with: 'Leopold Street car park also has an unpleasant stench of urine.' He's not wrong there.

Never Let A Dayglo By

These bright orange 'Private Parking' signs in Pier Yard make an attractive addition to the heritage architecture, doncha think? Still, if I was paying close on a grand for the privilege of parking up my Priapus, I suppose I wouldn't want the oiks hogging my space either!

East Cliff Reopened By Little Old Lady

Hurrah! At long last the barricades have been torn down and millionaires are now free to roam at will along our once crumbling, now repaired cliff top! Well, er, actually it appears to have been an act of defiance by one of the local grans, who's clearly been taking her iron tablets:

Either that or Her Madge (gawd bless 'er) had been booked to do the honours. Didn't spot any corgis, though.

Meanwhile, regular contributor Steve has also been out and about this afternoon, and sent me the latest piccies of the Western Undercliff (unofficial) lorry park via his mobile:


As you can see, the trucks have parked where there should only be cars, so the cars have been forced to park where there should only be grass. Our beloved council have recently, er, parked a scheme to prevent this situation, caused by foreign (and hence 'untouchable') truckers waiting for the ferry, by erecting lorry-unfriendly bollards. Instead their new masterplan is to have a 'three month monitoring period'. Yes, of course, 'monitoring' it will make all the difference, won't it!

Voice Squad

I've had a leak. From our beloved council, that is. It seems that, following the recent huge hike in parking charges and the successful trial in Tunbridge Wells of talking ticket machines featuring celebrity voices, they're going to invest in similar devices here on the island. The document I have in my mits outlines a series of welcoming messages, some of them tailored to local sights, and a TDC officer appears to have scrawled comments next to some of them. Here's a selection:

Richard Eastcliff: You can't get rid of me that easily! (Not appropriate)
Lady Penelope: Parker - well done.
George Formby: Burned out nice again! (No)
Brucie: Didn't she do well? (May be objected to on sexist grounds)
Mr Humphries: I'm not free!
Harold Steptoe: You dirty old van.
Sir Alan Sugar: You're fired! (Not on Margate seafront)
Homer Simpson: Dole! (Definitely not)
Frank Spencer: Ooh! Jetty!
Hannibal (A Team): I love it when a planning application comes together. (That's enough catchphrases - Ed.)

Trucking Hell

Apologies for the hiatus but I had to pop into A&E a couple of days ago. It was only a stubbed toe, but during the wait in reception I was exposed to an entire episode of Deal or No Deal, and consequently succumbed to that bloody awful Noelovirus. I haven't been able to stray more than a few yards from a lavatory for the last 48 hours.

So there's a fair amount of correspondence to catch up with. Let's start with this email from reader Samantha:

I photographed these tractor units (see above) parked on the East Cliff yesterday. There used to be one, but now there are regularly two parked there. I always thought it was illegal to park these things on residential roads. Of course nothing will ever be done about it as parking and vehicles are never policed around here apart from the occasional blitz on tax dodgers. What's the point of the area having conservation status when people can get away with this sort of thing?

Is there no room for these things to be parked down at the port where they belong? Or are the owners just too cheapskate to pay for that? By the way, the units purport to belong to a Belgian company called Eurolines, based in Zeebrugge.

I agree Samantha, these things are a blot on our architecturally stunning Ramsgate landscape. Maybe it's time for our caff-crushing, car-crushing councillor Dave Green to diversify into a spot of, um, cab-crushing!

Bussed Up

When you're a celebrity, like me, you don't take public transport. The hoards of fans and autograph hunters are just too much to bear. I have noticed, however, that we're pretty well served for public transport here on the Ile de Thanet, and have often wondered what it would be like to travel on the Thanet Loop. Well last night I got my chance.

Meandering along the grimy back streets behind our beautiful East Cliff in search of a late night bottle of Chardonnay, I came across a single decker bus attempting to negotiate the junction of D'Este Road and Truro Road. I wasn't aware that this was a normal route for this service, and it soon transpired that the driver wasn't aware of the normal route either. He had become wedged between the cars parked on all sides of this narrow junction, and was stuck.

Quick as a flash he leapt out of his bus and beckoned me over. 'I was on my way back to the depot and took the wrong turn, Can you help? You'll have to get up the back and give me directions.' As the vehicle was empty, I was happy to oblige. Which was how I got a free ride, in reverse, all the way to Victoria Parade, a distance of at least 50 yards.

Well, as they say on their buses, you'd be loopy not to, wouldn't you?

Update: As some of you have pointed out, the entire episode was rather reminiscent of this:

Park Strife

Call me a boring old sausage ect. Yes, I've banged on before about illegal parking here on Ramsgate's trendy East Cliff. Double yellows not enforced, restrictions ignored, blah, blah, blah.

But you could have knocked me down with the proverbial after two years of never witnessing a parking attendant anywhere on the Ile, yet alone the East Cliff, when I clocked two traffic wardens adorning our local white van men's finest with the old 40 quid price stickers this evening. Maybe our local car crushing, caff crushing, graffiti removing Councillor Dave Green, who's also been banging on about illegal parking on his blog recently, has swung into action again?