I couldn't help noticing that the Ramsgate inner harbour was filthy today. There was a large oily slick of floating rubbish - not far from the disused King George IV Maritime Heritage Pontoons. This is hardly a good advert for Ramsgate's tourist industry. TDC used to employ a chap who would row out and scoop it up, I guess this is no longer the case.
Indeed. And with a Eurofunded project under way to tart the harbour up, you'd think they'd be taking a bit more care of it! Oh, but then they'd probably want more Eurofunding to do that.
Speaking of poop decks, word has reached the old ECR shell-likes that our former dredger, fittingly enough called Ramsgate, has turned up in Norway after being flogged off by The Duffers for £65,000 a few years ago. That was apparently part of a plan by Cllr Latchford (Who he? - Ed.) to bring in new, super-duper dredging arrangements. Ramsgate has been refurbed and is still apparently doing sterling work for the Norgies, so it does make you wonder whether TDC could have done the same and saved a few bob on the hundreds of thousands they've subsequently spent on getting contractors to do the job.
Hang on a mo. I think I may have spotted some of my council tax floating in that slick pic!
31 comments:
Councillor Latchford? Nigel Farage's mate, Sandy Ezekiel's pal. What could go wrong?
Was not the Dredger Ramsgate being used at Liverpool, has she been sold again?
Cllr Latchford's a top bloke actually.
Maybe in a Nick Griffin kind of way
i cant trust any politician, humans get power greedy. but on the dredger note: WHY SELL AN ASSET, FOR MORE EXPENSE! 700,000 spent on dredging i heard, and these rtc tdc kcc are supposed to look after our townsfolk and our part of our country! how do people change colour after a lifetime? strange i think!
too many michelin 'cooks' are the problem ;-)
What are the new super dooper dredging arrangements ?
I anticipate that the following words will feature in your answer
"A super dooper dredger"
Was this part of the cost of attracting a super dooper ferry service ?
Christine. Lovely to see you on ECR blog. The Readers Digest of Thanet blogosphere. Recently there was an example of a tale with 4 levels of allegorical depth.
To decode this future historians would need the standard approach. Knowing when the tale was written and what was in the news at the time. It is a tale of a BBC curtain drawing back to expose a scene of some depravity. Hence the decode crib is the Dame Janet Smith inquiry re Jimmy Savile at BBC.
Standing alone against this backdrop of a national interest story is a dog. Who is a metaphor for a local Thanet Cllr. This test of his personal moral fibre results in his attention seeking behaviour of sticking his paw up his arse.
As you know some people can only read at the literal level and if they respond they unwittingly tell you about themselves.
EG "It is inane drivel" (from the inane driveller)
"It is very very stupid" (From the very very stupid)
But for my favourite response I refer you to Thanet Online
I paraphrase his pompous prose
"It is w-nk" (said the w-nker)
This was a comment from a John Holyer who, for some reason known only to himself, reads ECR blog then answers on Thanet Online.
At the serious level. A submission has been sent to the Dame Janet Smith Inquiry. Panorama expose' of Thanet care home industry 1975. Excellent piece. The issue is in the editorial decision not to follow up as a national issue.
Dame Janet Smith ran the Harold Shipman Inquiry and has been reminded that, on advice, the inquiry was told that GP death registration practices in certain charity care homes would be beyond her terms of reference (The stage of the inquiry that examined the system for certifying and registering deaths)
Given that Sue Ryder Homes are now part of the Savile inquiry
Dame Janet may feel that the terms of reference clarification to her Shipman Inquiry are strangely similar to the editorial decisions taken by BBC after their Panorama broadcast.
Having said that the 1975 Panorama was an immense influence for good. The issue is why didn't they take it further and beyond Thanet ? It was shoot n scoot journalism. Kick the speck in Thanet eye and ignore the plank elsewhere of the great and good.
I hope that has brought you up to speed.
I think that is enough points on my blogging licence so I must now serve a ban.
You're driving whilst disqualified as it is, 9:37!
The rubbish in the water at Ramsgate Harbour will in part be due to the high winds we have experienced for weeks which always blow rubbish into the harbour and never out of it.
It is unlikely to have much impact on Ramsgate tourism in the month of February.
The council will still employ the men who went out and collected it up, but due to poor management they will most likely be driving a taxpayer funded van into town to buy breakfast and then sit eating it in work time. This effectively is the same reason the dredger Ramsgate or any other dredger operated by TDC would never make economic sense, it would spend 85% of its life idle, and manning it would be too expensive.
The dredger Ramsgate was a low capacity tool and would never have handled the hundreds of thousands of pounds jobs.
If it was such a marvellous thing why does it keep changing hands.
Poorly managed by TDC it would never make sense.
Are we still employing all the Port staff given the ferry is no longer there?
Good question 10.38, never seen anything on this, makes you wonder how massive the unchecked losses are. It is now well over three years with no income covering these costs, since late 2010. Perhaps they need a new chief executive to get a grip on it.
Always amazes me that with such an abundance of very clever people who know how it should be done, as evidenced by the contributors to this blog, why just a few of these artisans of excellence don't put themselves up for election. Or, just maybe, it is much easier to sit in the wings and criticise those that try to perform.
Christine, so you are still about and all these rumours that you were off enjoying the sun with your mate Bob of the Railways are evidently untrue. You ought to protest about how little you receive in perks from the Left after all the work you do for them. Get me a banner 'MORE PERKS FOR CHRISTINE' and I will join you in your campaign.
Looks like another dodgy airline at Manston: SmallPlanet Charters - banned in Italy.
10:59 for 3 years we have Port staff with no Port business? The TDC cull seems to have sacked everyone but Macgonagal yet removed financial control from her? She is therefore a skilled accountant now not in charge of finances which was the reason for hiring her as CEO in the first place? Only in Thanet.
10.38 All the main functional ground staff at the port were employed either by TransEuropa or a frieght company (I forget their name, but they worked in the freight shed and handled trans shipments from one trailer to another, aswell as running their own transport company). The only TDC staff I know of that were at the port were the Duty Operations Managers - DOMS, of which there were 4 to my knowledge, with one of them now being Harbour Master Rob Brown.
After Liverpool the 'Ramsgate' went o nto create a brand new harbour on the Isle of Man, then went to Denmark to do sterling service for them before heading for Norway. Not bad for a clapped out on dredger. Oh., and her refurb cost a fraction of the dredging bill as it currently stands!
I was thinking more Jerry Adams
Don't be like that, Mr Latchford is a selfless person, who doesnt look down his nose at anyone; he doesn't know the meaning of evil, and would never wish ill on another human being. The thing I admire most about him is that he has no ego.
2:57 so the Transeuropa staff have been sacked (how many?) and the 4 TDC staff are still there?
You want to look into the new decking pontoons for the inner marina that have all supposedly been stolen from the harbour as the had been leftt side out for ages
You forget how down to earth and loving he is. He never gets angry and always puts the community's interests before his own. He loves what he sees as lower class people.
Yes he is a top bloke, he won't be a bottom bloke because he fears that would change the weather
That is as may be 4.21 but the point is that the dredger ramsgate was not being manned or operated by Thanet Council in those cases.
6.09, there were around 30 TEF staff, running the freight, passenger and sailing services, these were all made redundant the day before payday and to my knowledge did not recieve their final wage or a redundancy package. As for the TDC staff, I would imagine these were either made redundant aswell, or, have found other posistions within the Harbour, like Mr Brown has. I know there is still a small amount of security on site to look after the port, however, I do not know the numbers.
Re 11.37 everybody is entitled to their opinion and should be free to express it without this sort of carping from the sidelines. If everyone who had an opinion had to stand for election in order to express it where would that leave us? Living in some totalitarian state? Without opinions how would the electorate decide which monkey with a rosette to vote for?
So about 34 harbour staff and all made redundant except the 4 TDC staff? There's less for them to do except hire consultants or make secret deals?
10:08, I never suggested everyone with an opinion should stand for election, but a few of these very clever know-it-all folk might help.
Point remains that Thanet seems to have an abundance of those that know what has gone wrong, but, seemingly, none willing to step forward to put it right.
800 homes for Manston Green whatever/wherever that is? What happened to the homes and hospital etc at WC?
800 homes? A Ramsgate Labour bung should get that nearer 1,000 and a tax increase to fund it!
Of course people have stepped forward and tried to put things right, and had their hands cut off (that is a metaphor).
You suggest standing for election, well there are not really that many posts to be elected to at the end of the day, and very many people already realize what the major problem is with our system and just don't vote as a result.
The problem is that if you have strong conviction and ideas you can stand for election but as an independent what are your chances, next to nil.
If you join one side of the British duopoly or the other you will have to tow the party line, so there it is.
If you succeed and are elected as an independent you can't change anything unless it is the reds or he blues policy anyway.
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