Psychic Dick

Well, I can't delay blowing my own trumpet and showing off my crystal balls any longer.

Yep, you read it here first. On the 18th of November last year to be precise. Our beloved council's' legal beagle Harvey Patterson is off to pastures new.

The story was splashed all over the front of Friday's Isle of Thanet Gazunder. Harvey's departure is part of a shake-up that will see The Duffers' Chief Exec, Dr Sue McGonigal, relinquish some of her power, but not any of her £100K+ per year salary. As I wrote at the time: '(Harvey's departure) could mark the start of an admin shake-up at Duffer Central'. We've yet to be told whether Harve'll be collecting any dosh as he passes 'Go'.

You know, it's hard being so right all the time. But I do it all for you, my dear readers!

Click here to read my exclusive scoop from last November.
Click here to read The Gazunder's story, which came out two months later.

Before They Were Famous

I'm indebted to one of my eagle-eyed readers for this.

A long time ago in the year 2000, in the beautiful Buckinghamshire hills, there was a council. And this council was called Chiltern District Council. Now, the good councillors of CDC wanted to save some money, so they decided to create a trust and hive off their three leisure centres, which meant they could avoid paying business rates. They called their not-for-profit trust the 'Chiltern Leisure Trust', and off it sailed, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Well, not quite.

Four years later, the trust had run up almost £1.2m in debt. More than half of that was owed to the council itself. So the poor councillors were left with no other option than to write the money off. They were very sad, as the amount represented roughly 10% of their council's annual income.

Does that story sound familiar? A little like writing off the £3.4m that Thanet Council idiotically allowed the decrepit TransEuropa Ferries to run up before it went bust?

Well it may not surprise you to learn, then, that one of the directors of Chiltern Leisure Trust was none other than Thanet Council's very own Corporate and Regulatory Services Manager Harvey Patterson, star of my previous post. Not only that, but HP was also Head of Legal Services for CDC during the same period.

So, now you know what Harvey was doing before he was famous!

Click here to read the full story of the Chiltern Leisure Trust debacle on the Guardian website.

Happy Bunny?

Word has reached the perfectly formed Eastcliff lugholes that Thanet Council's Corporate and Regulatory Services Manager Harvey Patterson may be heading for pastures new.

If the rumour is true, and I have to emphasise that I'm only running it up the old flagpole, it could mark the start of an admin shake-up at Duffer Central. Mr P has been the legal mandarin in the eye of many a recent Thanet storm, including the loss of £3.4m in the secret Ferrygate deal, the ongoing Pleasurama eyesore, and the recent row over the Royal Victoria Pavilion.

Of course, the head honcho in all these dubious doings has been Chief Exec Dr Sue McGonigal, and in my ever-so-humble opinion it should be her who's throwing in the towel. But then who am I to explain the Machiavellian machinations of the Margate machinery?

If the rumour proves true, I wonder if, in time-honoured Cecil Square tradition, Mr P will be offered a huge wodge for walking away? I think we should be told!

Meanwhile I see that the four independent members of our beloved council's Standards Committee, who are all members of the public rather than politicians or apparatchiks, have today reported that 'there is a local suspicion of secrecy, corruption and distance between the Council as it is perceived in the offices in Cecil Square, the reality of people’s lives and the needs of the district'.

They can say that again!

In fact, I think I'll say it again! 'There is a local suspicion of secrecy, corruption and distance between the Council as it is perceived in the offices in Cecil Square, the reality of people’s lives and the needs of the district.'

You can read their tut-tuttings in full by clicking here.

Update: After a, er, lively meeting of Thanet Council on Thursday, the Standards Committee report was rejected by our arse-covering councillors, following which the four independent members of the committee resigned en masse. Nuf said.

Update Feb 2014: My scoop about Harvey Patterson's departure finally makes it to The Isle of Thanet Gazunder. Quite why they get paid to print 'news' that I've already published two months earlier is beyond me. Kuh!

Flights Of Fancy

Discharged from the QEQM and back home here at the old cliff top mansion, I've been overwhelmed by all the flowers I've received. Thanks to everyone who took the time to pull them out of the council flowerbeds and chuck them over my hedge.

I see the BBC News website is currently trumpeting the success of Locate in Kent, one of those pointless quangos that uses our money to, er.... Hmm. Well, apparently they've created 2,891 jobs in the last financial year, up 33% on the year before. Hurrah! A quick squiz at their website elicits the news (in several places) that there are 67 golf courses in Kent, clearly a priority for all those fat businessmen in disastrous casualwear they're trying to tempt here.

More seriously, it also appears that lying out of their arses has helped attract all these lovely new jobs. Under the section 'Areas of Kent', they describe our little tip in the usual terms - regeneration, blah, transformational, blah, development, blah blah blah. The description is topped off with this little gem: 'Kent International Airport, attracting six million passengers a year, is leading regeneration in Thanet.' Six million passengers a year? Six million passengers a year? Chas 'n' Dave International would be lucky to be doing a hundredth of that!

Meanwhile, the agency's delightfully named chief executive Paul Wookey said: 'Aoacworcwo rarcwo cahkaoro-cwohowowh rrooanww oaoohurccwoc ahwh orwowhao' Han Solo was unavailable for comment.

Read all about it
Locate in Kent (if you believe them)
Translate Wookie

Update: Locate in Kent have now changed this bollix to read: 'Kent International Airport and the commercial development which is likely to occur around the airport will play a major role in regeneration in Thanet' after the excellent Yourthanet followed up my story. The actual number of passengers Chas 'n' Dave International carried in 2008 was 11,657.

Click here to read full story in yourfannitinnit