Briefly Sainsbury's

Birchington Parish Council had Sainsbury's on the agenda this evening and along with Westgate's Cllr Tom King, I sat in. And very crowded too it was as you might expect!

From Sainsbury's PR Agency, GKA, David Hoare -pictured below- and Maria Twomey answered questions and shared the early results of the company's own public consultation. This was reportedly 300 responses by email, mail, etc of which 55% supported the plans and 39% were opposed, with 6% undecided. That's roughly 5.5% of the Westgate population.

In contrast, local trader, Reg Bell, who was present, has raised 1,000 signatures to his 'Say No to Sainsbury's' petition, which he will be handing-in to the planning department of Thanet District Council.

While several people spoke out in favour of the plan, the great majority of those present this evening were quite outspoken in their opposition to the building of a 12,000 sq/ft supermarket on the Canterbury road, next-door to the Ursuline college.

I did raise the matter of the Will of the late Ivor Reed, which made a condition of future development of Hundreds Farm, one of not more than three houses. GKA pointed-out that this was not a covenant and no restriction to commercial development on the land.

Once again, the principal concerns surrounded the potential impact on the surrounding high-street economies, the impact on the Canterbury road of a new junction and what this might mean for traffic and surrounding schools and of course a reluctance to see commercial development on that side of the Canterbury road.

Cllr King and I have offered to call a combined public meeting when Sainsbury's finally submit their application for development and the company have agreed to attend, to present their plans in a properly chaired open forum and allow the traders and the public present their views.

I will be keeping readers informed as this progresses.

Spring Comes Early

Dusk on Saturday evening was a colourful event. Not only were four of the planets lined-up neatly with the point of the crescent Moon in a cloudless sky but here on the north cost of Kent we had one of the artist's fabulous 'Turner sunsets' to enjoy.

I was out walking the dog and tried to catch it on my iPhone camera and the result, given its limitations, really wasn't too bad I thought!

Yesterday, I was over to Compton Abbas in Dorset to fly a banner and by mid-afternoon, the band of spring-like weather stretched all the way along the south of the country, giving some fantastic views on the way home. I missed hitting a large buzzard by a matter of yards at several thousand feet over Sussex, enough for me to see the startled expression on its feathered face and perhaps for the bird to hear me say *****!

Tearing myself away from Katie Price's riveting column in today's Sunday Sun newspaper and catching-up with Friday's equally 'soaraway' Thanet Gazette, I notice that the letters pages are increasingly becoming a platform for personal remarks. The tone of the letter written by Cllr Jack Cohen, directed at Cllr Alasdair Bruce, was quite uncalled for and I thought, petulant, discourteous and misleading too, as it used the excuse of seeking support for the Minnis Bay day centre, to attack Cllr Bruce's position on achieving a sensible and consistent local parking policy, a subject where both Cllr Cohen and Cllr Worrow, remain isolated in their demands for special treatment for Birchington. I have added a response from Cllr Bruce to the comments on this entry.

Changing the subject completely for something more romantic than parish politics, it's a Leap Year on Wednesday and I already have one, if not two marriage proposals to fly as the ladies use this once in a four year excuse to try and nail down indecisive partners. If you are a fan of Ice Age and the character 'Scrat' then you may have the same picture in your head as I have.

Nicholson's Silk Monkey Moment

Thursday's full council meeting was one of the more good humored that I can recall over the last five years and reminded me of a long football game that was being settled by penalties, as both teams looked to score a winning goal against the other.

To share some of the highlights, Cllr Ian Driver, was undoubtedly the star player of the evening and the former left-winger and red team player caused the collapse of the Labour group defense on several occasions, voting with the Conservatives and leading to the defeat of Labour's manifesto pledge to reduce councillors' SRA allowances by twenty per cent. This was on the grounds that it would discriminate against minority groups, the disabled and women from becoming involved in local politics.

In fact, councillors allowances have been held by TDC for six years now, against the advice of the independent remuneration body that calculates them and Tory leader, Bob Bayford, described the Labour motion as 'Cynical gesture politics' that would release a relatively small amount of money which would achieve very little in real terms.

Cllr Mike Harrison, AKA, 'Comrade Lenin' has his own version of events, which deftly ignores the pivotal role of Ian Driver of undoing Labour's plans or indeed 'The Campaigner'  and once again retreats into the familiar socialist rhetoric of a 'relentless attack' on the working classes by the coalition Government.

'Comrade' Councillor Nicholson, couldn't resist the temptation to remind councillors that 'Toff Millionaire Cameron and his fag Clegg" along with their friends "The white silk monkeys," were untouched by the financial pain felt by the rest of us but what a 'white silk monkey' is or does in a political context, was a mystery that was never revealed and perhaps we will find out at the next council meeting.

Confusion still exists in Labour's ranks on the subject of taxation and Government cuts and they might have done well to listen to former Chancellor, Alasdair Darling being interviewed on Radio 4 this month, over the problems he faced in regard to the vexing question of a 50p tax rate. Just to remind ourselves, the top 1% of the country's earners contribute 30% of the total tax revenues. The highest earning half of the population is now contributing nine pounds out of every ten in income tax and the biggest problem, as described by Darling, lies with the so-called 'Squeezed-middle', those families who lie just on the wrong side of the working tax credit system but are not among the highest earners taking home above £40,000 a year. These pay the greater proportion of the taxes required to fund our welfare state and who feel the pain of the recession most.

The political high point of the evening, other than a robust exchange involving bottoms, male genitalia and beards between Cllr Wells and Cllr Driver followed-on from the appointment of John Worrow as the council's 'Diversity Champion'.

Cllr Michelle Fenner had avoided answering any direct questions over why John might be qualified for the role or indeed why we needed such a champion and Cllr Worrow had already primed the debate by asking if the new council telephone system took diversity issues into account. This question on diversity conscious telephony, caused a few puzzled looks, as some wondered if this was asking whether the caller's ethnicity, age, gender or disability might deserve separate questions and keypad responses on an automated system.

However, John Worrow, 'The Campaigner', was confirmed in his new role, as many councillors struggled to suppress grins and giggles, including those on the Labour front-bench and then a little later in the proceedings, it all went horribly wrong for them.

Back to the question of reducing councillors allowances and Ian Driver lucid and very passionate speech. '"Ask your new Diversity Champion what he thinks," said Conservative Jo Gideon and John Worrow, bless him, promptly shot the Labour motion down in flames and with it, one of their manifest commitments, leading to complete defeat when it went to the vote.

Worse still for Clive Hart, what should have been a simple rubber stamp exercise to appoint a Labour councillor to an outside body overseeing housing in Kent was unceremoniously kicked-out and his nemesis, Ian Driver was voted-in instead.

There's enough material to go on for hours but I will stop here, go and buy the local paper to see what they have made-up this week and perhaps return to edit and tidy a little later.

A Film About Margate & The Turner Contemporary

A nice Sky Arts film about Margate and The Turner Contemporary up on Vimeo. Thanks to the Reading Rooms for spotting it. I have also added a second video by way of artistic contrast and readers will notice where regeneration has been taking place since it was filmed. Some great clips of past glories too.

A film about Turner Contemporary and Margate by Sky Arts from Turner Contemporary on Vimeo.

Greetings From Margate from Louis on Vimeo.

The Jelly Report

I dropped in to the first Margate Jelly Group small business forum at the Westgate pavillion this morning and enjoyed a chat and a cup of coffee, plugged into the pavillion's public WiFi network. If you happen to run a small business and have an interest in new technology and how to use it, do drop into the next one, as I'm sure you will leave with some useful ideas.
This had me thinking that from experience, Thanet does produce some interesting small businesses as well as interesting people too and that we too frequently dwell on the negative aspects of the island rather than celebrating the positive outcomes of living here.

As a small example, this week and with my other business hat on, I've been in conversation with a young Thanetian who became an SAS officer and having recently left 'The Regiment', has started a private military consultancy. This reminds me too of a friend who became a nuclear submarine commander and another who pursued a successful career with Intel.  These are very difficult times for local young people with 14% unemployment in that category but the three I mention may be unusual but, illustrate that there is still every reason to follow one's dreams even if it means leaving Thanet to achieve them.

Tomorrow night, it's a full council meeting and the vexing matter of Manston Airport is on the agenda and I have a question to ask of Clive Hart on the subject. Of equal interest to many onlookers here  perhaps are several other questions, among them, the problem of seaweed now under the control of Cllr Poole and a more searching  question being asked of portfolio holder, Cllr Michelle Fenner, on the role of our new council 'Diversity Champion' John Worrow. 'The Campaigner' and the 'constitutional authority for appointing him without an open and transparent process and in the absence of any formal training or experience for the role?

Possible answers to these and other puzzles on the back of a postage stamp please!

Fire's Out

I though I could smell burning plastic a little earlier and it soon became apparent that this was rather more serious than I thought, as two fire engines raced down Westgate Bay Avenue in Westgate and the road was closed off.

The second floor of one of the larger houses between Norman Road and Saxon Road was ablaze and the Fire Service moved swiftly to extinguish the flames. I'm told by a neighbour, that thankfully, nobody was home but some tropical fish and I expect to receive a report on these later.

As Westgate Bay Avenue is a main thoroughfare, there's congestion reaching back into Westbrook, with a small queue of buses and I don't yet know when the road will re-open, but I expect it to be around midday.

Tailwind

To say the wind was a 'bit fierce' yesterday, was an understatement! I was blown over towards Burgess Hill to locate and take a close look, with a long lens, at a huge country house/estate that's been bought by a new singing sensation called 'Adele.'

"Who," I said blankly, not knowing much about such things since the days of Madonna, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet and having never watched a single episode of the X-Factor, I'm embarrassed to confess.

Anyway, it was a little hairy getting over there between squalls with nobody else adventurous enough to be airborne in the south of England by the silence on the radio. Coming back into Thanet at 3,000 feet, I set a personal record in my Cessna with a tailwind pushing me to 155 knots, which is over 160mph, a turn of speed I could get quite used to, covering the distance between Herne bay and Rochester in ten minutes.

Perhaps one day I might win the lottery and get to fly something a little faster still? A used Russian MIG 29 perhaps? Dream-on, as I would need to at least buy a ticket first!

Gone Social

I went to a working lunch in London today. The topic was child exploitation on the internet and among other things, I learned it takes as many as 148 keystrokes or mouse clicks to maintain what I might describe as a reasonable degree of privacy on a Facebook profile.

I'm not a great fan of Facebook and I keep my own information and circle of 'friends' to a very bare minimum, because of those very same privacy issues and concerns. If like me, readers had access to the same stories, I suspect parents in particular would think twice before allowing their teenage children to use it without thought to the implications and potential consequences.  Social media offers us some remarkable opportunities but it carries with it a Pandora's box of risks and dangers to the most vulnerable in our society that leaves me cold.

On the train home, as usual, passengers right to a peaceful journey from Victoria station, was interrupted by the noisy and disrespectful antic of  four teenagers, two boys and two girls of about fourteen, who had to be ejected from the First Class compartment. I felt a personal sense of shame that they were from Westgate.

On a completely separate note, the concern over Sainsbury's building in Westgate, was covered in today's Thanet Gazette and I spotted that 'Smudger' quite possibly gazing at my last email through the opaque lens of a lunchtime bottle of Gordon's, had a problem grasping that I am still 'shadowing' planning, even though this has been sucked into the Black Hole of Iris Johnston's impressive commercial services portfolio, along with just about everything else except finance and the responsibility for parks, seaweed, rubbish and an epidemic of dog mess. These now fall on poor Cllr Poole's head, figuratively speaking of course!

I did explain earlier in the week, that for now at least, it makes some sense to leave the experience of planning in place, particularly as Labour, with the loss of Ian Driver, are now in a minority and hanging on to power, largely thanks to the vote of our so-called 'Diversity Champion', Cllr Worrow who was elected less than a year ago as a Conservative in Birchington but remains as confused over his politics as he is about his policies.