Thanet Life

A man who indecently exposed himself to two teenage girls in Margate is being hunted by Kent Police.

The incident happened in Marine Drive during the early hours of Saturday when the man tried to get the 17-year-olds into his car.

The girls managed to walk quickly away from the man to safety.

Officers said he was wearing jeans and a dark-coloured padded jacket with a straight collar. Witnesses are being asked to come forward.

Why anyone might be doing reading a book at 10:30 pm in Marine Drive of all places, escapes me but a 48-year-old man was assaulted while doing just this in the well-known seated pavilion in Margate on Friday.

The victim was approached by two girls and asked if he had any cigarettes.

The man obliged but was then asked by the girls if they could use his mobile phone to call their friends. He again obliged.

Moments later a man, who appeared to be with the girls, ran up to the man and shouted at him, accusing him of assaulting a relation. The man punched the victim in the face.

The victim was assisted by a member of the public who helped walk him home.

The attacker is white, thought to be aged between 18-20, 5ft 8in tall, with dark hair and wearing a white top, possibly a t-shirt.

The girls are both white and aged between 15 and 19. One had ginger hair and was thin, while the other had black bushy hair.

The assault happened at around 10.30pm on Friday. Anyone who witnessed it or who knows the identities of the man or girls is asked to contact the police on (01843) 222 033. (ref 11731)

Back from the opening ceremony and tour of the Charles Dickens School buildings, attended by most, if not all of the usual suspects and local dignitaries, including , the Mayor and Mayoress, Sandy Ezekiel, leader of Thanet Council and Paul Carter, leader of KCC. I did suggest to Sandy that an occasional contribution to Thanet Life might be useful and that local councillors should keep an eye on it but he replied that they aren’t obliged to. I’m not convinced he’s yet grasped the connection between the internet and the future of local democracy but there’s always hope.



The school's new facilities are impressive and go some way to explaining why it is locally oversubscribed. The only thing that occurs to me, is that across the country, school roll numbers are falling once again and I’m rather wondering whether the arrival of these excellent facilities will coincide with falling levels of school children in Thanet. Mind you, the new sports hall will offer an excellent community resource and writing as both an ex-pupil and ex-teacher, the pupils are lucky to have it.

If you can't remember where the aerial photos of the school are then you can get them here.

A teenage boy taking part in a yacht race needed hospital treatment yesterday morning after falling into the sea off Margate.

The 17-year-old was hit by the yacht’s a boom and knocked off the boat.

He was rescued by the lifeboat and taken to the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital with mild hypothermia.

North Thanet`s MP, Roger Gale, has this weekend described the government’s proposal to ban the drinking of alcohol on trains and buses as "the wrong policy aimed at the wrong target".

The MP, who has served as a special constable with British Transport Police, said:

"There is most certainly a problem caused by drunks on trains and on other public transport and by the anti-social behaviour that they generate, but the majority of those who travel drunk have done their excessive drinking before they board the transport.”

“For a government that has effectively legalised 24-hour binge-drinking to suggest that preventing law-abiding travellers from enjoying a beer or a glass of wine with a sandwich or a meal is somehow going to solve the problem is a bit rich!”

“Once again, the target would appear to be the vast majority that behave responsibly while the minority that are the cause of the problems will still seek to board trains and buses, particularly late at night, while under the influence of drink.”

“It will be interesting to see whether the government, as part of its policy, also intends to shut all the bars and other licensed premises at coach depots , railway stations and ports! I cannot help feeling that many more drinks are consumed in station "pubs" prior to departure than are ever taken onto or bought on trains!”

“Once again it looks as though we are to be faced with a half-baked policy designed to add window-dressing to a regime that has failed, and continues to fail, to tackle the real problems".

Roger Gale has a point, where the law-abiding majority are concerned but I can’t help but notice, on my occasional train journeys to London and back that as we come closer to Thanet, there is a visible thinning-out of what one might describe as the respectable group and a proportional increase in those, who rather than use the train refreshments trolley, may be carrying their own packs of Tennants and Carlsberg along for the ride. Invariably, these are young men, scruffy and drunk but not always so.

From a Southern trains aspect and based purely on my own and others anecdotal experience, a ban on drinking alcohol on buses and trains would be a step in the constant battle against anti-social behaviour but raises awkward questions over what is necessary and what is sufficient in terms of the state’s involvement in directing our lives.

The Charles Dickens School in Broadstairs opens its new £6.2 million buildings tomorrow morning and according to the invitation in front of me, it will be attended by a KCC Cabinet member, hooray!

I’ve posted a couple of the photos taken in last week’s over flight (available from the gallery) and I’m reaching back into my memory and the distant past to recall when the first temporary classrooms first went up, when I was in year three I think, a very long time ago.

Funnily enough I started teaching there too, before I moved on to a different career almost twenty-five years ago, so I’ve still retained a soft spot for the school. I can remember bringing in a Tandy TRS80 computer of my own into class in an effort to find a novel way of teaching maths to a class that had very little interest in the subject and had never seen a computer before. Computers, I told them were the future and far away on the other side of the world, two young men, roughly the same age as me, were thinking the same way but were rather more determined to do something about it. One was Steve Jobs, the other Bill Gates and the rest, I suppose is history!

I was watching the sun rising over St Mildred’s Bay this morning and the only thing that made my blood boil was the shadow cast by the six storey monstrosity (see photo left) that keeps the beachfront several degrees cooler and free of sunshine until the afternoon.

How this and neighbouring apartments thrown-up by the builders ever received planning permission from Thanet District Council is a mystery that I’ve commented on before but they did and perhaps the only comforting thought is that the buildings’ design leads me to doubt they will be able to resist the salt spray, sand blasting and the weather for more than fifty years.

For anyone wishing to protest against the plans to build another block of “Luxury retirement flats” on the present site of Sea Tower in St Mildred’s Bay, (see planning application)

there will be a council site visit at 11:45 on 4th November. I plan to be there to argue against the proposal but only if the local residents wish me to. You can see from the second picture (below and architect's drawing left) where the next block of housing will go, right in the gap I suspect,robbing the residents immediately opposite of their easterly view and sunshine.






It seems anyway that John Prescott’s plans to build four million new homes across the UK, half a million in the South-east alone, have been thrown into doubt after damning criticism by two key government agencies.

The Countryside Agency and English Nature will warn in a joint report this week that the east of England plan poses 'serious risk' of damage to 'nationally important landscapes and habitats'.

The scheme would cause 'significant harm' because it would degrade the character of the English landscape, fragment natural habitats, and require water supplies that would have an unsustainable impact on the environment.

The report is a serious blow to the credibility of the government's promise to provide affordable housing and calls for regions to assess how much growth their environment can cope with, and then plan measures to mitigate 'justified' damage.

Snapped the other day at low level, the estuary pilot vessel racing past Minnis Bay. They may have been a little surprised when we shot across their bow at low level to take this photograph.

For a history of the Thames, Trinity and Cinque Ports pilots, see here.

If you haven’t yet seen the Turner Contemporary web site that lays out the plans for the gallery, then it’s worth a visit.

As you might expect, it’s an artistic looking presentation but I suspect they need to adjust the figures on the front page before anyone else notices the £25 million price tag attached to its construction, now five million adrift.

There is a page on the website for you to send in your comments and suggestions as well if you wish to.

Here’s an interesting argument that banks have no rights under law to impose penalties on customers in excess of the underlying cost of the overdraft or handling a bounced cheque.

According to www.bankchargeshell.co.uk  a website devoted to the fight against bank’s penalty charges, consumers have won overdraft charge fights against banks such as Alliance & Leicester, Yorkshire Bank, Intelligent Finance and LloydsTSB. RBS and Halifax have paid up on credit card claims.

Customers have to be prepared to fight, often for months. But banks appear reluctant to test the legality of their penalties in the legal arena, usually settling in full just before the case is due for hearing.

Trinity House flagship Patricia is moored just off St Mildred’s Bay this morning. You may remember that she carried Prince Charles and Camilla at the Trafalgar Day review in June around the Solent. If you look at the first photo of Patricia, you may see Camilla in a white dress in the stern. If the picture is enlarged it's much easier to spot her.





Here’s a photo on the left of Patricia as she is this morning and a photo of the Royal Navy Lynx helicopter, taken during the fleet review, which objected to us flying right over the top of the Queen in HMS Endurance and the Patricia, even though we were in open airspace.

Since 2003, Patricia has also carried passengers. Her normal duties involve the maintenance of navigational buoys, the attendance and refuelling of offshore lighthouses and dealing with emergencies, including the marking of wrecks. She is fitted with towing winches providing a routine capability for moving light vessels to and from their stations. She has a 20 tonne speed crane capable of lifting the largest navigational buoys. There is a helideck aft.

With just six cabins, only small numbers of guests are able to experience a voyage and this, coupled with the type of work the ship undertakes, makes a voyage aboard Patricia an unusual experience.

The government's community punishment programme to tackle the most hardcore teenage criminals has a failure rate of 91%, it was revealed yesterday.

The Youth Justice Board, which runs the intensive supervision and surveillance programme, admitted yesterday that the reconviction rate was "very high". But it insisted the £98m scheme was working because those who had been on it were committing fewer and less serious crimes.

The Oxford University study of 900 young offenders on the community punishment programme up to April 2003, shows that 91% of those who went through the scheme were reconvicted at least once within two years.

If you thought the European Constitution was dead, buried under large French “Non”, then you’d be wrong.

This week the Swedish European Commissioner responsible for communication, launched the Commission's response to the rejection of the constitution. Called Plan D (Democracy, Dialogue and Debate) it will involve the EU leadership conducting a round Europe tour, which is aimed at getting the ill fated constitution back on track with the citizens of Europe.

Our MEP, Richard Ashworth has discovered an “Outrageous provision in next year’s budget to spend 6 million Euros on "promoting the European Constitution". He’s even more outraged that the combined vote of Labour and Liberal MEPs defeated his amendment which would have deleted this spending.

“It’s outrageous, say Richard, “that EU taxpayers' money should be used to fund pro-constitution propaganda campaigns. This is an idiotic waste of money, promoting a project that’s seen as dead and buried. Some idealistic politicians still insist on trying to breathe life into this constitution with public money to boot?”

He regards the information campaigns as a huge and immoral waste of money.

“People in France and the Netherlands knew what they were voting for. It’s patronising in the extreme to suggest they and the rest of us in other EU countries are not sufficiently well-informed."

So there you have it, you might have thought that the EU Constitution, the risk of being ruled from Brussels for good, was as dead as the proverbial parrot but this particular parrot hasn’t seen the Monty Python sketch and won’t give up, ever!

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Cllr Chris Wells offers a lucid defense of the Turner Contemporary (TC) project as an instrument of regeneration in a comment attached to Wednesday’s story, “Turner Troubles”, which is worth a read, as is the alternative view expressed by reader Tony Carpenter.

Having the benefit of the last word, I would like to add that while in principle, the concept that lies behind the TC project appears a fine idea, in practise, sensible financial control of what is, after all tax payer’s money, is slipping away and if this were a business and not an exercise in the spending of public funds, serious questions of cost versus benefit would be asked in the boardroom.

If the TC is to be late and acutely over-budget, would it not be more sensible to call for a moratorium and make a decision on whether the present architectural plan is a viable one? Could an equally attractive gallery be built for less money and risk on dry land rather than the beach opposite the harbour wall?

There is an expression, I have used in the past that I call “reality vertigo” to describe public-sector projects faced by the real possibility of failure or uncontrollable costs that proceed inexorably towards disaster because those in control are unable to press the project equivalent of the “Escape” key. This is, I would suggest, exactly what is happening with the TC at present and someone in authority needs to find the courage to shout “stop the bus” in order to provide a the breathing space that is needed to reflect on the project and its future.

I was at the Get Safe Online launch in London today, where not only did I get to meet Top Gear’s high-speed Richard Hammond over a coffee but also recorded his little speech on internet safety for you.

The idea is of course that everyone goes online, checks out the website and learns to avoid all the nasty pitfalls that go hand in hand with the internet. In fact the timing couldn’t be better, as I have to go and help rescue Captain Bob’s PC tomorrow, as he tells me a virus has eaten all his email!

One good quip this morning was from Sharon Lemon, the head of the national Hi-tech Crime Unit, who, referring to the dangers presented by internet chat rooms, said there’s no other place “Where you’ll make up a name for yourself and start talking smut to complete strangers.”

Of course, the high point of the meeting, with about fifty of us there, was a personal webcast from President Tony from No10. He had sent Home Office Minister John Hutton along to make a speech endorsing the importance of the project but Tony wanted to remind us that he was pretty keen on it too and that he was still Prime Minister, possibly because Gordon Brown was having breakfast with Bill Gates at the same time. I rather wonder what they spoke about. Africa, U2 or Gordon’s election plans perhaps?

Richard Hammond, BBC Top Gear and Brainiac presenter launches the Get Safe Online Initiative in London on 28th October 2005

Today’s figures on mortgage repossession from the government shows a 66% leap on the previous year, with 10,000 actions taken by mortgage lenders. This shows that people are stretched to the hilt and there are record levels of consumer debt built on cheap credit and credit cards. With a downturn in the economy and interest rates predicted to rise in the coming months the writing is on the wall; as a nation, we’re seemingly running out of credit and many households simply aren’t prepared or even able to deal with a small rise in interest rates, in tandem with higher council tax charges and utility bills over the next twelve months.

It will be interesting to see how Thanet handles the introduction of a smoking ban in pubs and cafes. From an observer’s perspective, smoking appears to be a mass participation activity on the island and visit any local café at lunchtime or even breakfast and you’ll see a large proportion of people “lighting-up” and enjoying a fag. – That’s a cigarette for any American readers.

I suppose if it can be made to work in Ireland, then it can work here but it will be a challenge I’m sure, to enforce in the network of small workmen’s’ cafes across the island.

You might have noticed Captain Bob and I tearing around the overhead this morning taking photographs and the results are up in the photo library like the one on the left of the Ursuline College in Westgate. These are very high resolution photos that I have to reduce to a resolution that won’t kill the photo server in terms of file size, so super detail enlargement shots, almost to car number plate level are available on request.

Bob and I have also taken detailed photographs of the Charles Dickens School in Broadstairs, ready for its £6.2 million opening of new building on Monday. Also included are St Georges School, The Ramsgate School and Marlow Academy, a better look at the Sea Bathing hospital building work, Margate Clocktower, Westwood, Minnis Bay, the Arlington tower and more.

The rising cost of the Turner Contemporary (TC) in Margate featured in this morning’s BBC South-east news. Apparently this is now a touching the £30 million mark and shows no sign of stopping. I had thought that work was supposed to have started a month ago or that’s what they said during the press conference if I remember correctly. This might however refer to the creation of a brand new A2990 traffic sign now proudly pointing to it on the St Nicholas roundabout.

News coming out during the course of today reveals that the TC is now expected to open in the first six months of 2008, four years later than first forecast. and Kent County Council has admitted to a £9.8million shortfall of what it needs to build the gallery and visitor centre, already advertised for early visitors on the A2990.

It appears that rising steel prices and protracted wrangles over the constuction contract with enginners Edmund Nuttall have driven-up costs and KCC could still be left with a bill for £20million if sponsors are not prepared to supplement the £4.1million that has already been pledged by the Arts Council and a further £4million from SEEDA - the South East England Development Agency.

On the subject of hidden, wartime tunnels in Thanet, Reader Pete K. points out:

“There's a good site here that shows the Ramsgate shelters in detail.”

“I remember as kids we were able to sneak in to the ones at Sarre which were the South East Army Command Brigade Headquarters. The entrance has been filled in now, which is probably a good thing to keep naturally inquisitive youngsters out. God knows what could have happened to us down there; No-one knew we were there (because we weren't allowed down there) and our provisions consisted of a candle each to see!”

Photo by Nick Catford

Ramsgate Regatta circa 1915, a photo courtesy of Michael’s bookshop. I’ve just been reading through one of the many local history publications that he publishes and discovered I knew nothing about the sheer size of the Ramsgate tunnel system from the last war. There’s a remarkable amount of local Thanet history that most of us know little or nothing about and perhaps we should.

Many of these local bookshop publications with their old photographs and illustrations would make excellent “stocking-fillers” for Christmas so go and have a browse through his catalogue. When you have the opportunity.

I found myself talking with one of Thanet`s homeless this morning. I offered to bring his plight to the attention of the council but he’s a proud man, even though he looks like Robinson Crusoe and bureaucracy, he says mostly makes things worse for him rather than better.

He’s not from round here. Beneath the huge white beard, he’s middle class, educated and obviously well-travelled enough to swap stories of the Sahara desert with me; a little warmer and less wet than the sea front alcove he’s huddled in at present. I gave him a thermal blanket and some dry thermal underwear; it’s been a very wet night and left him to enjoy his seafront view.

Further along the coast, I think the caravan with the homeless family is still in Westbrook, I think I saw it from the air again this weekend and I wonder about the housing pressures facing Social Services. Stuart tells me he’d be happy with a flat or somewhere dry to sleep but like thousands of others around the country, he’s fallen far enough out of the system to make it almost impossible to recover and without direct intervention, the only way is down.

It’s a miracle, almost, the news that NHS Dental contracts will deliver five internationally recruited dentists for Thanet by month’s end.  That is the message contained in a letter from the Chief Executive of the Kent and Medway NHS Trust (Candy Morris) to North Thanet`s MP Roger Gale.

The letter follows an appeal by the MP to the Strategic Health Authority to deliver on promises of better NHS services.

"Your constituents in North Thanet will shortly benefit from the successful negotiation of contracts for the Primary Care Trust" says the letter.  “The employment of five international recruits will enable an extra 7,700 patients to register with a dentist and will provide an additional 26 hours of access sessions for those not registered.  Two contracts will go live at the end of October 2005, one in Margate and one in Westgate. Between them these two practices will take an additional 400 patients every year for the next year and provide 7 hours per week of access to non-registered patients requiring emergency treatment"

"This has been a long time coming" says Roger Gale "but it looks as though at last we may be about to make some real progress towards honouring government promises. I hope very much that these new contracts will make a real difference to the treatment available to my constituents".

Patients requiring a dentist or those needing emergency treatment and who are not registered with a dentist should contact the Primary Care Trust on 01843-855460. The PCT will then inform them where there is capacity in their local area".

I notice that the fireworks are already starting to go “bang” after dark and the Conservative Animal Group (CAWG) is this week reminding the public that the new Fireworks (Safety) Regulations that followed the 2003 Fireworks Act are now in force and that breaches of the regulations carry a fine of up to £5,000 for each offence.
The regulations:

Ban the sale to the general public of aerial shells, maroons, mortars and "combination" fireworks.

Ban the supply to the public of bangers, including flash bangers and jumping crackers and Chinese crackers.

Ban the supply to the public of mini rockets.

Set 18 as the minimum age for purchasing fireworks.

Ban retailers from splitting display boxes and selling them individually.

Introduce curfews on the use of fireworks with specific extensions for certain dates (such as Diwali, Chinese New Year and November 5th) only.

The provisions of the Protection of Animals Act (which also carry the potential for a £5000 fine or six months imprisonment) also remain in force until, possibly, amended by a new Animal Welfare Bill.

"We trust that the new provisions will lead to an improvement in the protection of the public and of animals while permitting people to continue to enjoy safe and well-organised public displays" says the President of the CAWG, Roger Gale, MP (North Thanet).

"We know that in the past the irresponsible use of, particularly, very loud bangers has caused distress to the elderly and to animals. The Guide Dogs Association, specifically, has expressed concern over this issue and we know of instances when working assistance dogs have been traumatised by fireworks let off by youths in the street. "

"We need to get across the very clear message that there are now a number of offences that carry very considerable penalties and that the police no longer have to establish that criminal damage or injury, alarm or distress etc. has actually been committee before taking action. "

"The police now have the power to stop, search, seize and confiscate fireworks where they have reasonable suspicion that the offences created by the Fireworks Act 2003 are being committed. We hope and believe that these powers will be used, if necessary, in the next couple of weeks”.

Mind you, I’m not sure that any member of the gang of about a dozen “hoodies” lurking around Westbrook just before ten last night had read or were particularly worried by the new regulations and I’m almost sure that we can look forward to “business as usual” where the anti-social use of fireworks is involved over the coming ten days or so.

Thanet may have added only two more people to the county’s jobless total but it’s worth considering, that as a whole, the number of manufacturing jobs in the UK has fallen by 99,000 since August 2004

In fact, in Kent in total, more than 300 more people registered as unemployed in September, taking the total across Kent and Medway to 19,261. The latest rise follows a 405 increase in August.

The Government’s own preferred quarterly measure of unemployment showed a fall of 7,000 from 1.42 million in the three months to August but up 21,000 from the same time in 2004.

A 30-year-old man died on Sunday after his motorcycle was in collision with a car.

His yellow Triumph motorcycle and a blue Ford Mondeo collided at the junction of College Road and Ramsgate Road at about 9.20pm. The victim died from his injuries at the scene.

Police arrested the 23-year-old driver of the Ford Mondeo. Who is now assisting officers with their enquiries.

Anyone who witnessed the collision is asked to contact the Serious Collision Investigation Unit’s witness line on (01622) 600 970.

For the first time on thirty-six years, Ramsgate Football Club booked themselves a place in the 1st Round Proper of the FA Cup on Saturday, beating Cirencester Town 3 – 0 and equaling the Club's FA Cup record, set by Jimmy Blair fifty years ago when Ramsgate Athletic beat Guildford City 3-2 in a 4th Qualifying Round Replay at Southwood, before being beaten 5-3 away by Watford in November 1955.
  
The Ramsgate 1st Team returns to the serious business of League football for the first time in 3 weeks on Tuesday night (25th October), when it is at home to Dulwich Hamlet (the team who put it out of the FA Cup last season) - 7.45pm kickoff.  

It’s rarely that you see the Met Office stretch its neck out so far but when forecasts are rarely more accurate than five days in advance, they are predicting the arrival of what could be the harshest winter since 1963.

Why, because they have fifteen hundred thermo-sensor buoys floating around the Atlantic and these are telling them that the sea temperature is one degree cooler than it should be. To me, this suggests that an awful lot of ice must be melting from the Greenland glaciers; what the global warming lobby has been warning for some time and alsotrue of the Antarctic with a sudden temperature rise at the opposite end of the globe which threatens the survival or the Antarctic ecology.

But to cut a long story short, a uniform one degree temperature loss in the Atlantic could logically spell very bad news for us by January if you recall your school geography lessons and remember that we sit on the same latitude as northern Canada but are saved from a frozen fate in the winter by the warming effect of the Atlantic current. Without this Scotland is best left to the penguins and the Polar bears may yet stroll along a frozen North Sea towards Margate.

Now as the government has admitted this weekend that it only has five weeks emergency reserve of gas, it may be wise to stock to up on woolly underwear and firelighters, just in case. I certainly will because on this occasion we aren’t looking at a forecast from an optimistic, ‘”hurricane, what hurricane”, Michael Fish but hard facts which tell the Met office that something is very wrong with the sea temperatures that keep us all from freezing in winter.

I’ve just uploaded more aerial photographs of Margate, Broadstairs and Cliftonville to the photo library and here’s the link.

Today, you can see what’s been or being done to the Sea Bathing Hospital construction, site, the enormous pipeline trench being dug across the grass in Palm Bay from the Foreness pumping station and lots of photos of Broadstairs harbour. The sun wasn’t that cooperative this morning and so a number aren’t as clear as I might have liked.

Thanks to my co-pilot Charlotte, who, aged ten, can’t drive a car but is quite capable of flying an aircraft around and holding it in position while I take the photographs – under strict supervision of course. Opposite Minnis Bay, we counted two large adults (baby sitting?) and around twenty young seals on the sands exposed by the low tide and so the seal population looks quite healthy if one considers that possibly a dozen more adult seals must be out hunting.

I suggested some time ago that young David Miliband was clearly being groomed as a potential successor to Tony Blair and now it appears the odds are shortening with the possibility that the Conservatives might vote-in David Cameron as their new leader.

Bookies, William Hill said there had been an increase in betting interest in Miliband, the 40-year-old communities minister, in recent days, cutting his odds to win the leadership after Blair steps down from 50-1 to 25-1. Brown remains the heavy favourite.

Miliband is seen by some close to Blair as man who would 'skip a generation' in a similar way to Cameron, though other sources were suggesting the possibility of a 'dream ticket' with Miliband as Gordon Brown's number two.

Another piece of unsettling national news this morning is that the drinks industry is planning an energetic campaign of economic incentives and psychological ploys to encourage customers to drink as much as possible when licensing laws are relaxed according to The Observer newspaper.

Managers of massive 'vertical drinking' pubs are reportedly  being offered bonuses worth up to £20,000 a year if they beat targets as the industry moves to exploit Britain's binge drinking culture.

Pub Managers in many of the big chain pubs dominating Britain's city centres are being ordered to draw up business development plans explaining how they will keep people in their pubs after 11pm and offered shares of the profits if they beat sales targets. One manager told of races between bar staff to sell as many 'shots' of spirits as possible within a set time and constant pressure to 'upsell' singles to doubles.

So what, I ask, are the plans if any contemplated by the pub trade in Thanet to exploit what is already a problem culture of binge-drinking to greater economic advantage?

Thanet Life blew past the 35,000 figure last week without really noticing but I recognise that it’s difficult for people to find the website unless they know about it first and then, many insist on typing “ThanetLife.co.uk” and get nowhere at all because it’s nothing to do with me and just “sits there”, rather like a wrong turning on a busy highway.

As this website grows organically, by word of mouth or recommendation, perhaps you can help me move it closer towards the magic 100,000 mark by Christmas? Simply tell two friends about it and ask if they can also tell two friends. Increasingly, I can see local papers picking-up from it as a news source and the more traffic it receives, by way of attention, the more of a voice it can give the people of Thanet, politically, socially and environmentally in a way that the traditional media can’t. All help is of course much appreciated. Thank you – Simon Moores.

Violent crime is rising faster in Kent than anywhere else in the country according to the latest figures. Kent police reveal 6,746 assaults were committed between April and June of this year, compared with 5,555 during the same period in 2004.

And the common denominator is? Well you guessed it, booze and drugs, according to Conservative leadership contender, David Davis.

While violent crime soared in Kent, 21.4% compared to 6% elsewhere in the UK, only 48% of the perpetrators were caught, possibly those too drunk or drugged to escape from the police who have an impossible task trying to control this local epidemic.

Head teachers from Kent schools have arrived back from a £150,000 trip to the United States, funded by taxpayer’s money. Their verdict: “They (US Schools) were all totally different from each other and British schools.”

Money well-spent then, I’m sure you’ll agree!

Why is anybody surprised that private companies, investing in Kent schools will make £300 million from an £82 million investment? I wrote about this ages ago in regard to academy schools and now that business has “invested” in a major school re-building programme under the Private Finance Investment scheme (PFI) business will reap the rewards at the taxpayers expense. Nice work if you can get it!

Businesses after all, have a duty to their shareholders and what business is going to ‘invest’ in the crumbling edifice of our education system without a return on investment, namely the lucrative playing fields, available for potential development and handed over as part of the deal. But I warned of this before and Ellington school in Ramsgate is one of the six that will benefit from the deal.

And before I forget, there’s that little problem I raised two weeks ago, VAT. The plan is also predicated on schools being “Rented out in the evenings and at weekends for adult classes business and sports” but my understanding of this nd do correct me if I’m wrong, is that this falls foul of EU VAT regulations and makes the school liable to an unsustainable VAT bill from a Chancellor who at present, shows no signs of resolving the problem.

So, local schools will improve, a good thing but you and I are gong to foot the bill for almost a quarter of a £billion in return, not a good thing. And if you happen to be anyone of several sharp, perfectly respectable and philanthropic businessman, feted by the county council, then it’s time to break out the champagne and buy a new home in Monaco I suppose. Wish I’d thought of it first!

Staying with the Middle-east, North Thanet`s MP, Roger Gale, will be supporting a private Member’s Bill to be introduced by former Labour Minister Clare Short to give parliament the right to vote before UK troops are committed to conflict.

Roger comments: "I have very grave concerns about the manner in which we sent troops into Iraq and about the legality of the manner in which we did so.  I believe that the House of Commons was misled by the Prime Minister both about the level of threat to UK security (the "forty five minutes from attack" argument) and about the evidence supporting the existence of weapons of mass destruction.  I think that had we known when we voted what we now know then the result of the vote might have been very different. “

He adds, “It looks very much as though the decision to commit UK troops in support of the US-led adventure in Iraq was agreed between President Bush and Mr. Blair many months before Parliament was consulted or even informed.”

“We can argue about the rights and wrongs of regime change but I believe that Blair’s actions constitute an abuse of the use of "royal prerogative" that must not be allowed to be repeated.”

“Of course there may be occasions in the future when, in the national interest, immediate action will need to be taken but Clare Short’s Bill makes provision for that.”

"Those serving in our armed forces know the risks that they undertake" says Gale. "But they have a right to know that the causes in which they are asked to risk and give their lives are legal and have the support of parliament.  And the families of the bereaved have a right to know that those that they have lost have died in a just and honourable cause and that their sacrifice has not been tarnished or in vain.

“On Trafalgar Day we should remember that if England expects that every man shall do his duty then it must also be the case that we do our duty by those who serve".

On the same morning that the Guardian newspaper runs the headline “Rogue Syrians must be held to account, says US”, I’ve been on the phone to Damascus discussing the possibility of assisting with their electronic government project. You might say that the situation is both fluid and delicate, so I’ll drop a note to our Ambassador in Syria and their Ambassador in London and ask for both opinions once the details of the project come through to make sure I’m not treading on any sensitive diplomatic toes. If that isn’t enough, I was asked on Friday, if I might be interested in doing the same in Islamabad, leading me to think that eGovernment projects are like buses, you sit waiting for them for ages and then, all of a sudden two come along at once.

What’s happening with Pleasurama in Ramsgate I wonder and in particular, the status of the £550K "security" payment that was due to be paid to the Council "on the signing of the development agreement”. Apparently new documentation issued by the council states something different to what Council originally agreed and so what does this change mean precisely, why the change, and should this not go back to full Council for review?

Shouldn’t the precise meaning of any changes in the Pleasurama development agreement be clearly explained to the people of Ramsgate, i.e. no building above the cliff top and landscaped roofing?

Whack. I thought it was a gunshot hitting one of the trees opposite the Westgate community centre, where I had just parked to collect my daughter from school. Then a small boy carrying a golf club ran past and shouted, “Sorry mate” as he started looking for a lost golf ball.

In the middle of the public common in Minster road was what was probably his brother. Aged about nineteen, over six feet tall and swinging a very large No#1 driver, practising for his next shot between passing primary children.

I went up to him and said, “It’s probably not a good idea to use real golf balls here, you might hurt someone or cause some damage.” He looked at me blankly and replied, “I’ve been doing this for ages, and you’re the first person to complain.” Looking at the size of him, with an attitude to match, I can guess why.

“Probably a good idea to practise somewhere else where there’s less chance of an accident”, I said and left with my daughter, looking for a community warden on the way home to report it to but finding none.

I wonder, does driving golf balls around a very small public park qualify as anti-social behaviour or is the Anti-terrorism legislation better suited to deal with such activities?

Some old photos of Margate courtesy of Michael's Bookshop. I sent them all my aerial photos on CD today and they are planning to add these to a small book of Thanet from above.



The two photos here obviously show Margate over a hundred years ago, the pier and "The Promenade." Hearing that two more of the palm trees have been vandalised since I mentioned the subject the other day, I wonder what what would have happened in Victorian times if someone tried such a thing and was caught? Well of course they wouldn't because it would not have been worth the risk, the sentence and the social stigma that such an action would carry with it. Today, we have the Human Rights Act and no palm tree is safe.

Celebrating the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, many schools in Thanet are having their children dress-up with a navy theme today, as you can see from this photo taken at Chartfield School in Westgate. The complete photo set can be found to view and download by following the link.

Known worldwide for its historical accuracy, the BBC just reported the end of the battle as “The ships parked side by side and then they went downstairs.” This is of course why they wish to raise the license fee to almost £200 a year, to be able to employ a journalist with some grasp of basic nautical expressions, such as “moored” and “below-decks”, which I suspect even the primary school in the photo children may be familiar with.

In my Thanet Gazette column “From Marx to Margate” today, I’m exploring some of the local aspects of poverty but I notice that the infamous “Tax Credits” system, which has contributed to the problem, is back in the papers today.

In Thanet North, I know that many families have been badly hit by overpayment errors made by the Inland Revenue, who then attempt to claw any money back, regardless of any ability to pay.

Earlier this month it emerged that in 2003-04, overpayments totalled £2.2bn - higher than previously thought - affecting 1.9 million families, with similar levels anticipated for 2004-05.

I wonder what damage is being done in Thanet South, which may have a proportionately greater problem with the problem than Thanet North? Would Dr Ladyman like to comment?

The parliamentary ombudsman hit out at the government yesterday for seemingly "picking and choosing" which of her recommendations on repairing the damage it wanted to accept. There has not been such a devastating report from an ombudsman in recent times than the one on the tax credits system but it’s no great surprise that HM Revenue & Customs has refused to accept her key recommendation that officials should consider writing off all tax credit overpayments resulting from errors since the system began.

In an attempt to improve the way it claws back this wrongly paid cash too poor families, Revenue & Customs is planning to introduce a fully-automated computerised system to suspend recovery of disputed overpayments - but this is likely to take a year to start. The Ombudsman described the process as one of “systemic maladministration," “and the mess will take years to put right.”

Meanwhile a government department, with more tax inspectors than front-line troops and led by the man who is likely to become our next Prime Minister, will continue to bully almost two million of the poorest members of our own society, while enthusiastically talking of his plans to end world poverty by writing-off the debts of third-world countries. Double standards that we should take for granted by now.

There’s a thought, according unpublished school results, obtained by the BBC, one in six of the schools that are supposed to have improved since 2001 have actually got worse at English and Maths – including some officially listed as ‘most improved’.

It’s reported that the actual number of pupils gaining 5 GCSEs at Grades A-C, (including the key subjects of English and Maths) is 42.7 per cent, not 53.7 per cent as the Government had previously claimed. Out of almost 2,000 mainstream state schools that have claimed improved GCSE-level results in the past four years, teenagers’ performance in English and Maths worsened in one in six.

Having once taught English, IT and other subjects in Thanet and having gaps in my diary between projects, I had offered to both KCC and to local schools some of my time to go in and help but it’s not that easy anymore and nothing happened as a result.

Criminal and exorbitant, two words I heard tonight to describe the cost of parking at Margate QEQM hospital. Would you agree? Apparently the hospital trust, over three sites, rakes in £800,000 a year from parking charges and possibly like you, I have had the shock of arriving at casualty and realising that I wasn’t carrying enough change to pay for four hours in the car park, close to half a day’s wages for some!

Are you surprised then that cars choke the Margate and Ramsgate roads outside the QEQM because drivers refuse to pay for what supposed to be access to the health service that we have all paid for already!

If Thanet residents aren’t a little more militant then the property developers are going to continue to walk all over us and there won’t be any green space, other than the beach, to leave to our children. Parking or the lack of it, is a huge problem with new developments and yet they often go ahead regardless. Sea Tower in Westgate will now benefit from a council (site) visit but in winter, let alone summer, there aren’t enough spaces available for the existing residents of Sussex gardens without building two more blocks of retirment flats

What was ommitted in the objection against the Sea Tower application last night was that the adjacent buildings (you can see in the photos further below) are built on a North - South alignment so that residents have a view east towards Margate and West towards Birchington out to sea. If the new blocks are given planning permission, then those same buildings will have no easterly sunlight in the mornings and will lose there easterly sea view. This seems like a more valid objection to me!

Members of the TDC planning committee, (see photo left) ‘Pro Bono Publico’, (forgive my bad Latin), please use the high resolution aerial photos that are available on this website to assist you in making your decisions on our rapidly changing landscape. If you don’t know about Thanet Life yet and what’s available from it then it’s time, as elected representatives, that you did.

Having narrowly avoided being knocked-off my motorcycle by a texting driver on Monday, I rather agree with ThanetLife reader Chris who writes:

There has been a lot in the media recently about driving whilst using a mobile phone and it has also been mentioned how often you see people in Thanet with a phone up to there ear whilst hurtling down the road in cars and vans.

Nobody complains about people smoking whilst driving and why they should after all, there is nothing to distract them by doing so and the only people to suffer the consequences are themselves and/or other people travelling in the car with them.

So what am I getting at here? Well I shall tell you as I have seen this new phenomenon today in Station Road Birchington, It goes like this:

• Smoker in car = one hand on steering wheel and one hand flicking cigarette ash out of the window...


• Mobile user = one hand on steering wheel the other hand holding mobile phone to ear and chatting...

And now the new phenomenon that I witnessed today, the smoker with a mobile phone!

The driver of said vehicle was driving down station road Birchington with a mobile phone in his left hand held to his ear and chatting whilst his right hand was out of the window flicking ash off the end of his cigarette, and just to make it a little more hazardous his window was only partly open so he had to look at he cigarette so as not to miss the gap in the window all the time whilst his vehicle was steering itself.

Even if he used the ash tray this scenario still involves driving no hands whist looking down making sure he does not miss the ash tray.

It’s obvious that some people will not give up using Mobile phones whilst driving even more smokers will not give up smoking whilst driving; so this is a phenomenon that we are likely to see a lot more of, and the consequences to pedestrians and other road users can only get worse.

There’s a meeting this evening (7pm) at the Thanet District Council Offices in Margate (Cecil Square) to discuss and possibly object to the building of a block of flats on the site occupied by Seatower in Westgate.

You may remember that I have written about his before but to cut a long story short, it appears that the new owner wants to knock down this little piece of local history and put yet another block of seaside retirement flats in its place – There’s a surprise!

Look at the photo and decide whether the seafront view looks nicer with Seatower or without. It's the building in the photograph with the blue swimming pool! Does anyone care to bet how long the other patches of grass will last against the greed for seaside apartment blocks? Here is another view of the area in its heyday, one hundred years ago and the St Mildred's Hotel, now hidden behind the most recent architectural carbuncle that throws a shadow over the seafront in the summer mornings.

A tragic story from Ramsgate as a twenty-year old man fell to his death from the Ramsgate Trove Court, tower block early today.

According to the Police, the death is not being treated as suspicious and has been handed over to coroner’s officers to investigate.

Richard Hammond of the BBC's Top Gear will be fronting the launch of the government and business-sponsored GetSafeonline programme this month to warn people over the risk from online ID theft.

Nice billboard Richard, I’ll be going along for the launch but readers might like to visit the website and my own Netcrime report to take a view of the problem.

I notice that we have now have a nice collection of palm trees along the seafront in Margate, stretching into Westbrook and that already, one has fallen victim to the vandals, now snapped in half. Having the trees decorating the town is a nice touch, particularly in view of the Indian summer we’ve been experiencing but I rather think that left unguarded, their prospects of survival are poor.

This afternoon, on the way back from Margate, I saw a car, more accurately a Ford ‘Ka’, being driven around on the green between Bridge Road and Westbrook Avenue, off-road practise perhaps? I don’t know but sounding rather like the character of Ballard Berkeley aka “The Major” in Fawlty Towers, if we don’t adopt a tough, zero-tolerance policing approach to such behaviour, supported by the courts on a local basis, then as a community, Thanet will continue to suffer from a constant background rhythm of anti-social nuisance. It strikes me that the yobs now know where the CCTV coverage and the community wardens are working and simply act where they aren’t present.

Of course, the crusty Major in Fawlty Towers might have had his own eccentric ideas on how to put an end to anti-social behaviour and I rather wonder, tongue in cheek, how many people might vote to try his solution?

By the way, here's a clip from the series of the Major, who came from Margate and who could possibly win a council seat today..

“We loved this guy who was in his own world. He never quite understood what was going on, but always added his own interpretation of it.” — John Cleese

The Chislet Mill windmill near Herne Bay, which was undergoing restoration, has burned-down.

The blaze, on Saturday night, engulfed the 200-year-old listed mill in the garden of the Old Mill House.

The windmill was being restored by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings and the fire is thought to have been started by an electrical fault.


The mill and house used to be the property of the Ministry of Defence and in the 1940s was briefly home to bouncing bomb creator Barnes Wallis who used to watch trials of the bombs being dropped in the sea off Reculver towers from the top of the windmill.

The Thanet Way (A2990) was closed this morning when one man was killed and several other people seriously injured.

Two vans reportedly collided and left the road at about 6am just past the Whitstable turning. One is seen on the right of a photograph of the scene taken by Chris Davey.

Fire crews, police officers and paramedics were called and used spinal boards to free the men, thought to be railway workers, from the vehicle.

The Shell petrol station, London-bound, past Whitstable on the A299 has changed all its pumps to pre-pay. You have to go into the petrol station first, give them your card to swipe and then go back and fill up?

Why, because they have lost so much petrol recently to drivers not paying, this is I’m told the only solution they have left. Petrol stations make only a penny or two on a litre of fuel and theft on this scale apparently makes them run at a loss.

It’s a damning indictment of both society and the high price of fuel that some people now seemed forced to steal it as the only way to keep their car moving. It may have solved the problem but from a driver’s point of view, the wait is now so long (in and out and in and out) that I won’t use it unless I have to.

Caught in the shadows, Thanet North MP Roger Gale sitting next to Lord Harry Renwick at Portcullis House tonight. BT’s Michael Hill in the foreground appears to have dozed off. In fact, it was a meeting on the future of 21st century networks and Roger, as Secretary of PITCOM, the The Parliamentary Information Technology Committee, was there to lend his support.

BT, in the shape of Daryl Dunbar, their Director of Design and Development (seen below on the right with chair, Mark Pritchard MP) was explaining what lies around the corner for all of us, as BT does away with the network as we know it and creates a whole new means of delivering content and calls in the near future with a £10 billion investment.

Following the news that a woman, walking to her office in Dundee was arrested under the new anti-terrorism legislation, because she happened to be on a designated bicycle path, I shall be extra careful going to Westminster this evening, where I’m running a meeting for MPs et al. Padded motorcycle jackets are certainly out of the question I suspect!

Margate Football Club is holding a Community Firework Spectacular on Saturday 5th November 2005. There will also be a penalty shoot out competition for under 16’s against the 1st team goalkeepers. Application to enter must be made in advance to MFC as numbers are limited.

Tickets are £5.00 adults and £2.50 under 16 and are currently on sale at the following places:

Margate Football Club - Margate
Jesse Holness - Cliftonville
Image Hairdressers - Cliftonville
Padgets - Cliftonville
Secret Garden - Cliftonville
Crusties - Cliftonville
Big for Men – Westbrook
Westbrook Newsagents - Westbrook
Seaward Colour Copy Shop – St Peters
Harvey’s Newsagents – Broadstairs
Master Barber - Broadstairs
Krusty Kobb – Broadstairs

Gates open at 18:15, penalty shoot out will begin at 18:45 and the display will start at 20:00 (expected to last 30 mins)

Full refreshments and licensed bar will be available on the night.

Listening to the news this morning, it’s a source of concern that the government’s Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, describes GPs as being in the front-line in the fight against avian flu but the doctors say that all they know about it is what they see and hear on the news.

The Tamiflu drug being stockpiled by the government will be enough to treat 25% of the population, (by next year) the proportion the Department of Health believes would be affected by the virus and at the same time, they don’t believe that it will present the threat of a pandemic this year or at least they hope so.

Given the relatively high proportion of elderly residents in Thanet, who are at general risk of catching influenza in winter without the added risk of avian flu, I wonder if we should be making some kind of contingency plans at a local level. Does anyone remember how bad the Hong Kong flu (HN32) outbreak in 1997 was? This was also an avian-human hybrid and certainly put me on my back for several days and I was training at the time for the Sahara marathon, so might be considered reasonably fit.

It occurs to me that no government has an answer to the problem, only hope that the worst doesn’t happen and catch them unprepared. But at least the civil servants, politicians and other essential personnel should have enough stocks of the retro-viral drug, Tamiflu, to give them a fighting chance if the worst happens. The rest of us will have to make do with Lemsip!

If your'e interested in what it's like to fly from Manston at night, I've put up the draft of a piece I'm writing for Pilot Magazine on this week's night training course at TG Aviation.


Why bother with a night rating? Much like the IMC rating, a night rating is a qualification which only a relatively small number of GA pilots bother to pursue, either because of the extra time and cost involved or because they can’t imagine themselves ever needing one.

But like having the benefit of IMC experience, there may come a day when the opportunity of landing after dark can make the difference between spending a night in a distant hotel or arriving home safely in time for dinner.

I’ve been flying since 1998 and although I have an IMC rating, which has rescued me from trouble more times than I can remember, I’ve never been too bothered about adding a night rating. More recently though, I’ve been using my Cessna 172 for business, as far away as, Cardiff, Leeds and Blackpool and as winter closes in, the available daylight becomes a problem. With the bright lights of Manston airport only eight miles away and open until late, I decided that adding a night-rating to my PPL would be a sensible step, removing some annoying time pressures on my flying and giving me an easy diversion choice if I needed one.

TG Aviation at Manston offers a night rating as part of its wider private pilot syllabus. Perched on the north-eastern tip of Kent, Manston, with its huge runway and ILS approach is a great spot to choose if you want to familiarise yourself with the procedures involved in flying to and from a large commercial airport in the dark.

My course instructor at TG Aviation was the affable Bob McChesney, having drawn the short straw, to stay behind and fly with me in the dark while everyone else went home. Welcoming me into a briefing room, Bob explained that the night rating is a minimum five hour course requiring at least three hours dual instruction, five solo take off and full stop landings, and finally one hour of dual navigation.

There are, said Bob, no written exams and no flying test but for pilots who don’t hold an IMC rating, a couple of extra hours instrument appreciation may be required and its important to remember that because VFR clearance can’t be issued after sunset, night flying comes under IFR rules and so I might want to brush up on privileges of a night qualification in Schedule 8 part B of the ANO and sections 29 – 32 dealing with (Special VFR) SVFR and IFR flight planning at night. - Night is of course for flying purposes thirty minutes after sunset but for ight rating training, the sun must be twelve degree below the horizon too.

Before sending me outside to walk around the aircraft, a PA28, with my most vital piece of equipment, a torch, Bob gives me a short briefing on both the importance of terrain clearance and gives a short lecture on night vision and darkness adaption in the cockpit. Map reading he warns me, will become a very different skill under a red cockpit light as all the main road features and other markings in red will disappear. “Although”, he adds, “it takes thirty minutes for your eyes to adapt to the dark. This can be lost instantly, with exposure to bright light and so it’s important to minimize the use of white light in the cockpit and keep it as low as possible.”

Sitting inside the PA28, I find myself struggling to read the engine start checklist under the overhead red light. I lean forward, peering myopically at each instrument in turn, particularly the altimeter, checking the QNH setting given to me by the Manston ATIS. What should be familiar in daylight doesn’t feel quite as it should in the small cockpit and after the engine starts, I almost switch off the red master switch instead of the fuel pumpnext to it because they now share a dull monochrome colour.

My first flight will be a familiarisation and dual navigation exercise that will take us from Manston’s runway 10, in a climb over Ramsgate harbour, before following the coast at 2,500 feet to Whitstable before turning towards Canterbury, Ashford, Folkestone, Dover and then back into Manston to land. As we roll through the blackness towards the Bravo taxiway, Bob points out the different colours of the lights, blue for the taxiway, red for a hold and green for the threshold and centre-line lights. He explains that the Manston runway lights are bi-directional but that you can only see them when the aircraft is aligned with runway. Edge lights he tells me are white and the last six hundred metres of extended centre-line lights are orange for an instrument approach. Manston has a PAPI system and so for an approach, I’ll also be looking for two red and two white lights showing in the horizontal line of four, to place me on the correct glide path for the runway.

Leaving the apron and rocketing past the blue taxiway lights and control tower towards the ‘Echo’ hold, Bob remarks that one of the first things a pilot will fail to notice in the dark is how fast he’s taxiing. I take the hint.

Power checks complete, departure approved by the tower with a right turn, and we roll onto the runway and accelerate into the darkness with the white runway lights flicking past us on either side. As soon as we rotate, I instantly fall back on my IMC training, select a ten degree nose-up pitch and trim for eighty knots. As a proper outside visual reference becomes difficult, Bob tells me to maintain a positive rate of climb based on the airspeed indication, regardless of the attitude indicator might display. As the aircraft settles into its climb I start to enjoy the view of the coast below. It’s a perfect flying evening and Bob points out the flickering lights of Calais to my right and Southend to the left. Once the Warrior is trimmed and level at 2,500 feet, with a Flight Information Service from Manston, he sets about giving me more detailed instruction on the many different things I have to look out for at night.

Civil airfields, he tells me, have flashing white or green lights he tells me but military airfields show red. He also warns me that it is difficult to see and avoid bad weather in the dark and a first warning may be an apparent glow from the navigation lights, or a reflection of the strobes being diffused throughout a cloud.

Reaching Deal an hour later and with a fine view of Boulogne’s lights across the Channel, we’re cleared for a downwind approach to Manston’s runway 10. In daylight, I know this route like the back of my hand but at night, it’s a different matter. Where are the huge cooling towers at Richborough power station which mark the limit of the Manston circuit? I have to strain my eyes to spot the red navigation hazard lights and without these the towers are lost in the area of blackness that defines the airport boundary.

It’s not until we join downwind that I’m able to make out the runway lights clearly and on the base leg, Bob takes the controls and pushes the aircraft up and down to demonstrate the changes in colour of the PAPIs and how the spacing of the white runway lights changes, closing up when the aircraft is too low and becoming much wider the higher it gets. Finally, he tells me to watch where the runway edge lights are in relation to the wings as he lands the aircraft. “Keep the throttle slightly open”, he says, leave it flying just above the runway and wait for the lights to sink up around your ears, you’ll be doing this tomorrow.” The Warrior makes a gentle landing and taking back the controls, I slowly follow the green taxiway lights into the darkness towards the TG hangar.

Day two of the course and the bad weather has lifted sufficiently for the next stage of my training, dual circuits around Manston. We begin with the standard night pattern; climb to five hundred feet, turn right over Pegwell Bay and then level-off at one thousand feet to join downwind for Manston’s 10 runway. With the normal visual cues missing in the dark, I look for the lights of the golf driving range and the power-station cooling towers and fly due west between the two, which puts the aircraft at roughly the right distance from the runway. The base-leg reference is the lights on the second roundabout on the A299 and as I start the turn, I complete my landing checklist and slowly reduce the throttle to 1700 rpm, selecting two stages of flap and looking for seventy-five knots with a steady rate of descent. As the aircraft makes its turn onto final, I notice I’m being blown to the left of centreline by a crosswind and have to angle the nose into wind to bring me back on line, the PAPI lights are showing two red and two white lights, telling me my descent is correct and at three hundred feet, I extend the final stage of flap and check that the aircraft is flying at seventy knots.

As we pass over the threshold I wait for the centre line to become visible under the landing light and gently start to level out, After what seems to be a long time, the beam of the landing light picks-up the white line and so keeping the throttle cracked open slightly, I gently start to pull back on the yoke, watching the white runway lights streaming past in my peripheral vision. As these come level with the wingtips there’s a gentle bump of the tyres touching the runway and I’m down, thinking it’s not as difficult as I thought it might be. Flaps retracted and full power applied, we leave the runway and repeat the exercise.

After four successful “Touch and Go’s”, Bob decides to make my life more interesting by simulating emergencies and turning off the landing light. He even asks Manston Tower to turn off the PAPIs to see if I can calculate my descent angle from the gap between the runway lights, viewed on final approach. Finally, his ‘coup de grace’ is to simulate a total loss of electrical power in the cockpit. From my point of view this is ‘lights out’ and the only thing I am able to see out of the corner of my eye is the ASI or more accurately the white, VFE, flaps speed, line on its face. The RPM gauge is as good as invisible.

“You need to be able to work out your approach from the look of the runway lights and the descent attitude of the aircraft”, say Bob (pictured left). I can vaguely work out my airspeed from the shadow thrown by the needle of the ASI across the dial and so listening intently to the engine note, I go through the same procedure as before, using the PAPIs to adjust my descent, gripping the throttle and mumbling the mantra that my friend, aerobatics pilot Denny Dobson once taught me, “Attitude controls speed, power controls height”.

Once again, perhaps through luck, rather than judgement, the aircraft touches down perfectly and with the lights turned back on again, we continue with the circuit practise until its time for the airport to close for the evening.

The final day of the course, it’s a Saturday night and the airport will be open until late. The weather has been remarkable and a “Bombers’ Moon” is rising over the North Sea. Tonight I have to complete five take-offs and landings and then find my way to Norwich and back as my final navigation exercise. One personal lesson I’ve learned since starting the course is that you need to keep everything you need within easy and identifiable reach in a dark aircraft, so I’ve taken to wearing a photographer’s style jacket with lots of pockets, with my reading glasses, pens, ruler, stopwatch and maglite torch immediately to hand.

The solo take-off and landing exercise around the Manston circuit takes me just under an hour and other than an executive jet bringing in a pop star for a concert near Canterbury, I have the runway to myself. The landings, if a little heavier than before with a different aircraft, are uneventful and my one mistake occurs when I taxi back in towards TG Aviation and overshoot the turning in the dark, forcing a 180, much to my embarrassment.

Bob is happy for me to find way up towards Norwich and I draw some lines on my map, in black, so that I can see them under a red light and make a note of the navigational beacons and approach frequencies en-route. I’ll be leaving Manston’s runway 10, making a left turn to meet the north Kent coast and will be following a westerly heading towards Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, before tracking the Southend NDB over the top of the airport and from there, out to Norwich on a heading of 342 degrees. On the way home, I’ll be tracking the Clacton VOR before picking up the Dover VOR to cross the Thames Estuary and then the Manston NDB straight into a base leg entry to land.

With a limited amount of feature information from my map, particularly over East Anglia, I find myself looking for motorways and large towns like Ipswich, constantly using my stopwatch to calculate where I should be every ten minutes or twenty nautical miles. Before I left, Bob also reminded me that at night, there can be a distortion of signals on the coastal NDBs and so make sure that I cross reference my position regularly.

Southend soon becomes visible from its pier and the flashing white airfield beacon. I’m the only person in the air it seems and when I ask the controller whether I should call RAF Wattisham next, he tells me they are closed and that if I want to talk to anyone en route at this time of night on a Saturday, I should stick with London Information.

The journey across East Anglia towards Norwich is very dark but uneventful and the lack of urban sprawl across Norfolk is actually a help, because bigger towns, such as Colchester and Ipswich are much more visible as large islands in a surrounding sea of darkness. Back towards Clacton, it’s easier to follow the VOR towards the coast at 2,500 feet and from the floodlit port of Harwich, identify the Dover VOR for the twenty minute sea crossing towards the Isle of Thanet and Manston. The Moon reflects off the sea, revealing occasional passing ship below and acts rather like a second light in the cockpit. I’m briefly reminded of Antoine Saint Exupery’s books, describing the early Aero Postal mail flights between South America and Africa in open biplanes.

As the lights of the Kent coast become brighter and Margate flickers into view, I start a slow rate of descent and Manston welcomes me back. I start to search for the green flashing light in the distance that will identify the airport. When I finally see it, it seems a little lost amid the sprawl of urban lights but I know where I am and head for the brightly lit roundabout on the A299 which marks the extended centre line of the runway. From here, the airport is brightly lit, consuming huge amounts of electrical power, just to guide me back down along a Christmas tree display of approach lights.

Back on the ground, I help Bob put the aircraft away and he give me the most difficult part of the exercise to finish, completing the CAA forms for the night rating and writing my credit card details down so that I can be relieved of £70 for the privilege.

So was it worth it? Now I have a night rating I think so. Every time you fly, you learn something new and the experience taught me a number of useful lessons involving preparation, orientation and navigation. I’m now confident that in conjunction with an IMC rating, I can now find my way around the UK safely in most conditions and at any time or the day or night. Having a night rating removes one more risk of an unexpected surprise and the temptation to rush one’s preparations as dusk approaches, often leading to flying situations best avoided. Even if you don’t think you’ll ever need a night rating, it’s not hard, doesn’t require one of those dreaded CAA exams and the extra experience must be worth the investment.

Does anyone know which pop-star had an executive jet waiting for him at Manston late last night? When I arrived back just before ten O’clock, it was sitting on the tarmac warming up.

Last night’s sunset was remarkable but I didn’t manage to get any photos other than a rough camera-phone shot, did anyone else manage to capture it?

In fact, the night was so clear later on in the evening, that in the dark of a cockpit over East Anglia and Norfolk, one could almost read by the light of the moon. It’s unfortunate that it’s so very difficult to take good photos at night.

An interesting but controversial report in the Observer newspaper this morning which suggests that Britain's high rate of teenage pregnancies is a principal factor in the cause of violent crime.

The Wave Trust report, which analysed scores of academic studies into the causes of violence, claims that people are 25 times more likely to be a victim of violent crime now compared to the Fifties. Based on official police statistics, the study calculated that in 1950 there were 47 violent offences per thousand people compared to 1,158 for 2003/2004.

Despite government attempts to tackle teenage pregnancies, Britain still has one of the highest rates in Europe. Latest figures reveal that the rate of under-16-year-old pregnancies in England and Wales has increased.

The Observer also reveals that the UK's crack and heroin trade is fuelled by children and teenagers in search of a quick fortune. In some rundown parts of British cities, children are so desperate to get into the drugs trade that they offer to work for free in order to gain a foothold.

The 60-page report makes grim reading. It reveals how council flats are taken over and turned into dealing dens; tenants are bullied and bribed into allowing drugs to be sold from their homes; up to 200 addicts a day visit these places, and spend up to £1,000 a week on their habit; and how the price of crack and heroin has fallen. Dealers also feel they have little to fear from the police.

I’ve had an invitation through the post for the opening of the £6.2 million buildings development at my old school, The Charles Dickens in Broadstairs. The last time I took an aerial photograph, it looked very much like a building site but on Monday 31st October, it will, I’m told, be ready for a full inspection tour, complete with finger buffet. Recalling the girls in my class doing domestic science at the school in my day, I wonder whose fingers!?

Anyway, does this entry count as an acceptance of the school’s RSVP?

The sea is unusually warm for the time of year. I’ve just been out in my kayak, which is very unusual for the time of year. The last time I ventured out in October it was in 2000.

To be honest, if you happen to be brave enough, with today’s warm sunshine, you could risk a dip in the sea without turning blue. After a month of almost constant sunshine, I’d guess that the water temperature is what it should have been at the beginning of September with a normal British summer.

I’ve heard a complaint this week over cargo flights from Manston allegedly making an early right-turn over Minnis Bay and not following the published noise-abatement procedure, climbing towards Reculver before turning on-course. If you notice this happen, then Manston Tower tell me that you should call and make a report 01843 823333

Oh Joy… the new (temporary) roundabout at the Margate clock tower works perfectly. No queues, no delays and a victory of common sense over the very expensive and donkey-like decision that gave us several years of traffic misery along the seafront.

Whether the roundabout, replacing the lights will pass the test of the summer season remains to be see but other than the challenge presented to some of our more foreign, elderly or confused drivers by a sudden change in the road layout this morning, most people appear able to remember where the priority lies on the clock tower roundabout, which is more than can be said of most days in Birchington from my experience.

Apparently, our council doesn’t know how much tourism is worth to Thanet. This can’t
be true but if it is, would anyone like to hazard a guess to help them with an estimate? I have to run over to Westbrook shortly and can start by counting the number of foreign guests both arriving from Margate station and leaving the Nayland Rock hotel at 9:00am.

Here's a photo of the legendary Nayland Express taken during the summer months.

Owners of the “Pet Lovers Centre” in Birchington, Ali and Penny Eshaghzadeh have filed a complaint against Thanet Police for a catalogue of errors in collecting evidence when their shop window was smashed in July. In what seems like a “Bang to rights” arrest, the Police and CPS failed to prosecute the allegedly drunk women found at the end of a trail of blood and broken glass leading to the couple’s broken shop window. The Eshaghzadehs are reportedly planning a private prosecution against her as well.

Residents and shopkeepers in Birchington, they claim in the Thanet Gazette today, “are tormented by troublemakers who perform senseless acts of crime and vandalism.”

This reminds me of Doolittle’s pet shop in Cliftonville, which suffered from the same kind of problems and eventually gave up the struggle.

Britain suffered from the social evils of rampant alcoholism and the demon Gin in the 19th century but we appear to have replaced this with the Carlsberg charms of the 21st. It worries me when I walk around my town and on a regular basis see parents, openly drinking extra strong lager or cider with one hand and holding a small child in the other before 11:00 am

For anyone who might be interested, my earlier review of the Coastguard flight from Manston and an interview, with photos of Mark Girdler from TG Aviation, can be found in this month’s (October) Pilot Magazine.

It seems that Lydd Airport, now re-branded as London Ashford, is aiming to become a passenger hub for the 2012 Olympics. Let’s hope we can beat them to it!

And for those of you who would like to see a cockpit video of what happens when a routine training mission in an RAF Hawk aircraft goes “Pear-shaped”, here's an interesting video. Both instructor and student survived the ejection with injuries.

MP Roger Gale has today (Thursday) tabled parliamentary questions calling upon DEFRA and the Department of Health to publish the contingency plans that will be implemented in the event of an outbreak of Avian Flu (H5N1).

The MP, President of the Conservative Animal Welfare Group, says:

“The prospect of an out break of avian flu has severe implications for wildlife, farmed poultry and, of course, for the human population. The President of the BVA, Dr. Bob McCracken, has indicated that a spread of the disease to the UK is inevitable at some time.”

“I have also asked both DEFRA, in respect of livestock, and the Department of Health, in respect of human healthcare, what research their department are supporting to establish the pathogenicity of the disease.”

“There seems to be a strong feeling that "we know it`s coming but we`re not yet ready for it" and "too little, too late" will not be an answer."

Has anyone else encountered any phone problems today? Apparently, the BT exchange – in Westgate I assume – is down and my own home phone is dead and will be, I’m told until tomorrow afternoon.

Thank the Lord or even the Internet for Voice Over IP (VoIP) and Skype. I'm now running all my calls through my PC and it's hardly costing me a penny while BT fix their problem. The shape of things to come and the writting on the wall for the big telcos perhaps? If you haven't got Skype, then I recommend having an account for emergencies like this if nothing else!

Kent Online reports that Manston “Could be as busy as Glasgow Prestwick in five years”, according to Manston’s new boss, Steve Fitzgerald, chief executive of Infratil Airports Europe.

Mr Fitzgerald has spoken to dozens of airlines about the advantages of Manston and is optimistic that a scheduled airline will sign a deal before next summer. But he said it was unlikely to be on a similar scale to EUjet.

I should add, that I was up at Glasgow Prestwick this year and that it was as busy as .. well Manston!

There’s an aid flight running out from Manston to Pakistan this afternoon, an MK Airlines DC8. MK is one again operating from Manston after abandoning the airport last year in an argument over costs. You may remember that it was an MK747 that crashed on takeoff at Halifax International Airport in Canada in October 2004 en route to Zaragosa in Spain.

I’ve just heard that the old tram shed next door to the Hospice in Canterbury Rd, Westgate is to be knocked down and replaced by… well you guess, more housing. I think I can vaguely recall the last of the trams rusting away in the same shed when I was a boy.

One reader has suggested that we declare UDI, a universal declaration of independence and tell the unelected SEERA where to put its South East Regional Plan. In fact, SEERA are presently advertising for a Planning Strategy Director. The job pays £70,000 a year and involves having to find 30,000 places for new housing. Nice work if you can find it!

SEERA, The South East England Regional Assembly, describes itself as “The representative voice of the region”, but I suspect that this website may have a more democratic claim to that title.

On another note but railways, this time, the Government, MP Roger Gale tells me, has indicated "more delay and no commitment to the fast link" , following an exchange at transport questions in the Commons this afternoon.

Asked when he expected to announce the new South East rail franchise the Minister, Derek Twigg, would only say that he hoped to make the announcement "before Christmas". And pressed on whether or not any new franchise holder would demonstrate a commitment to a fast link to Manston the Minister again ducked the question referring only to the "construction of new rolling stock" and more trains to London in the rush hour.

"This is disappointing and confusing" says Roger Gale. "The project has been the subject of a two-year Government delay. The Minister has now taken the powers back from the strategic rail authority to his Department and we still can`t get a straight answer. This is damaging to businesses such as Pfizers and Manston airport in East Kent and it just weakens confidence in a region that ought to be prospering.

We understood that the Preferred Bidder would be announced in November, that contracts would be signed in December and that the rolling stock for the fast link, together with goods yard facilities at Canterbury and Ramsgate, were in hand. Is this true or not? If not, then the Minister ought to come clean and if true then why can the Minister not just say so and give business and industry lift-off?

ed: I should add that while RogerGale is quite quick to send me news, I'm happy to accept information from any political source, even the invisible man who is rumoured to represent South Thanet!

The BBC are asking Parliament to approve an increase of the TV license fee to £170 an exorbitant amount of money to pay each year for the privilege of watching dramatic masterpieces such as East Enders and Holby City. I think I may have told readers what happened a year ago, when the TV Licensing Authority, accepted my online payment for a colour television license but sent me a Black & White in error, coercion and persecution were two words that spring to mind and illustrate the unacceptable face of the BBC monopoly in this country.

If you are prepared to pay £170 a year for the privilege of watching the occasional television gem, then that’s fine but £30 a month or less will probably give it to you on satellite or cable anyway. We should either demand that the BBC reduces its fee and its outrageous waste of public money or ask for a way of switching it off from our televisions completely, so as not to have to pay the license fee if we don’t wish to watch it. I think that’s what normally happens in a modern democracy.

You might not recognise this photo without a little help. It’s a rather different view of Dover castle. Thanet and Kent at night look very different and the lights of Southend, Boulogne and Calais seem almost close enough to touch. Trying to relate the lights to familiar landmarks can be quite hard, so I have new respect for the people who do the traffic watch flights. I should add that the most dangerous part of any night flight is not landing the aircraft but driving home along Shottendane road on the way from Manston!

North Thanet`s MP, Roger Gale has expressed his concern at the announcement by John Prescott’s Whitehall department that it is to shut down the local fire control room in Maidstone replacing it with a distant regional call centre based in Fareham, Hampshire.

These cuts to local fire services have occurred without sufficient input from local people, and mean that 999 calls will be answered more that one hundred miles away - by operators who have little knowledge of Kent in general and Thanet in particular. The restructuring process will cost a massive £72 million, re-diverting resources away from frontline protection.

Roger Gale says:

“Despite the rejection of regional government in November’s North East regional referendum, John Prescott is moving ahead with his expensive plans to create new regional fire quangos. This will mean the local fire control room in Kent will be shut down.

“A regional structure will put lives at risk, since 999 operators will have less knowledge of North Thanet and Herne Bay. The “SEERA” region contains millions of people, and covers a vast area. Civil resilience could also be damaged by placing all our eggs in one basket. If the regional centre is forced offline by a disaster or attack, the whole emergency response will go down across a massive geographical area.

“Conservatives oppose this damaging regional agenda. We believe that fire and rescue authorities must remain close and accountable to local people. I fear that local fire stations could be next if distant regional politicians continue with their cuts. John Prescott’s regional empire building is playing politics with fire safety.”

ed: You can have your say on the "Master Plan" by visiting www.kmsp.org.uk.

On his new Weblog, “Eastcliff Matters”, Councillor David Green has pointed-out that:

“The proposed development on the old Pleasurama site on the Ramsgate Eastcliff seafront is back on the Thanet Council Cabinet agenda next Thursday (20th).”

“It would appear”, writes David, “that the District Valuer has been persuaded to lower his valuation of the site from what he thought fifteen months ago and that now the value is almost precisely what the developer was offering !??!”

I’ve just been eating fresh figs from the tree in my garden, which rather leads me to wonder why the weather experts are predicting the harshest winter for a decade. Mind you, on my regular cycle rides to Reculver and back, I’ve noticed birds in the nature reserve and along the seashore that I can’t recall ever seeing before at this time of year.

Outside, the sea is clear and calm and I think that was young Adam Hunt whizzing by at low level at the controls of the Coastguard aircraft, a nice day to admire the view over Thanet and the English Channel.

Ultimately, winter will arrive with its familiar gales but I rather wonder what next summer will hold in store. The August heat-wave never arrived as predicted but September and now October made up for it. Are we starting to see the first real signs of a climate that brings us closer to the ‘Costas’, while they, in turn suffer from drought and extreme heat during the summer months?

It might well be that the salivation of Thanet in a decade or so may lie in the mass return of tourism. With southern Europe too hot to visit in summer perhaps tomorrow’s family holidays will focus more on a return to the English seaside. If so, like the arrival of the Olympics at around the same time, I wonder what we are doing, if anything to prepare for such a thing?

ed: Thanks for pointing out my spelling mistake in the above, "salvation" it should be. Good thing I wasn't trying to spell "mastication" as well!

The government is preparing to write off almost £1bn of overpaid tax credits following a series of errors and fraudulent claims that have dogged the much-publicised benefit system in its first two years. The tax credit fiasco has caused considerable hardship and stress to many low-income families in Thanet, as North Thanet MP Roger Gale told me earlier this year, when I visited him and he pointed to a stack of files on his desk representing his constituency caseload.

Last week it was revealed that tax credit helplines received more than one hundred million calls in the first two-and-a-half years of operation and more than half went unanswered. Child Poverty Action Group has threatened court action against the Inland Revenue unless it revises procedures for reclaiming overpaid credits, saying it was pushing low income families below the poverty line. Despite assurances by the Revenue that it treats cases sensitively, complaints continue to clog CPAG and Citizens Advice helplines.

Commenting on the Government's proposed action MP, Roger Gale says:

"Naturally I shall be please if the many constituents that have complained to me are relieved of this burden. I am concerned, though, that we may still find the Revenue and Customs hiding behind weasel words and seeking to blame claimants for accounting errors that are in reality the fault of the Treasury and suggesting that people "should have known" that they were being overpaid. I shall only be satisfied once every last case has been satisfactorily resolved".

Fancy dress day at Chartfield School in Westgate this morning and the danger of being overwhelmed by film characters, Harry Potter, Spiderman, Batman, Buzz Lightyear and Bugs Bunny to name but a few. The children are also being incredibly fortunate with the weather, an Indian summer as good as any I can remember.

The Civil Aviation Authority has revealed that the collapse of EUjet affected ten thousand passengers who will not see their money returned.

Twelve thousand passengers were caught abroad when the airline went under and another twenty-seven-thousand had booked tickets and were waiting to travel. In addition, Kent County Council lost £100,000 it had invested.

Airfreight flights from Manston resumed last month and discussions are underway about a return of passenger flights next year.

My own suggestion is that we should copy Lydd airport but offer cheap and regular flights to Le Touquet, Ostende or Calais for lunch, shopping and a good day out. Although Manston needs a return of flights to popular holiday destinations like Malaga, France and Belgium are only minutes away and if Lydd can run a succesful shuttle service with their Trislander aircraft, - I had a day flying with LyddAir this summer - then there must be a market for an equally cheap ‘bus service’ across the channel from Manston.

With Manston now open until 8pm, I’m starting my night flying rating on Tuesday evening, so apologies in advance for any noise!

Entire families would be confined without trial in 'Colditz-style' camps under draconian new laws being drafted as part of a government drive to restore 'respect' in British society. It’s reported that so-called 'neighbours from hell' will be placed in 'sin bins' policed by private security guards with powers to detain residents and impose curfews. But where, I wonder will they build such detention camps and what measures will be employed to prevent such anti-social families escaping? Search lights, dogs, barbed wire perhaps?


Is it just me or are our political leaders in urgent need of a sanity check?

David Green, Councillor for Eastcliff in Ramsgate has started his own weblog called ‘Eastcliff Matters’. He writes: “The kids at school tell me that if I am, as a claim to be, computer literate and a local politician, I should be running a weblog, so that people can comment on what I am doing on their behalf.”
 
Well done David, another local councillor joins the ranks of the internet conscious. This has to be good for democracy and in the years ahead, politicians ignore the impact of the online constituency at their peril.

Entertainment this afternoon watching three girls, two seen in the photo, trying very hard to climb on top of the bus stop in Westgate Bay Ave. But even sitting on each other’s shoulders doesn’t work either. Mind you, there’s always next time and it seems to be a regular favourite for them.

Walking back from the village, I see that the antique shop has had a brick thrown at the window, again but the glass was strong enough to resist the impact. In fact, if you don’t have near-bullet-proof glass in the shop windows in the Thanet villages these days then it’s only a matter of time before some drunk or thug or drunken thug has a go with a brick or a boot.



Back along the beach and I realise what all the sirens were about the other day. There’s been an attempt to set one of the seafront bushes alight, quite successfully too, looking at the remains of the matches in the ashes. In there too, you’ll see the empty bottles of spirit which are almost as common as discarded Carlsberg and Fosters cans these days. Who, I wonder is selling the booze and the cigarettes to these kids?

Kent Police are appealing for help in tracing two men who raped a 31-year-old woman at a Kent railway station in view of CCTV cameras.

The Thanet Gazette reports that the offence happened shortly after 10.15pm on Saturday, September 24, at Margate train station.

The 31-year-old mother of two, was waiting for a train to Ramsgate. The men alighted from a train coming the other way.

They engaged the woman in conversation and in the five minutes while there was no one on the platform held her down on a bench and raped her.

They then left the station through a side gate and sauntered along the seafront, still in view of CCTV all the way until the Margate clock tower. They then vanished into the night.

The men are of Eastern European appearance and spoke in a foreign language the victim did not recognise.

Anyone who recognises the men is asked to call British Transport Police's witness appeals line on 0207 3915275.

I have enhanced the original CCCTV photo of the suspects to make it a little clearer than it was.

BBC Kent has created a coastal walk for Ramsgate.

“Ramsgate”, it writes, “began as a fishing and farming hamlet. Today it's a busy seaside town packed full of history. We take you on a walking tour of a town that has seen its fair share of highs and lows over the centuries.” See  the BBC website

Kent News reports town halls across the county have warned that tax bills will rocket at the same time as local services are slashed.

Some local authorities are considering tax hikes of up to 12% while preparing to make dramatic cuts to services such as transport, theatres, parks and sports centres.

Dire warnings have been voiced of “grave” consequences unless adjustments are made to Kent’s share of government funding.

The forecast came at a top-level meeting this week attended by local authority leaders and senior figures from emergency and health services.

They blame the crisis on an imbalance in government spending priorities which they claim divert funds from the South East.

Kent County Council says Whitehall pays out £7,366 per head on services for the North East but only £5,593 for each person in the South East, where the population is rising.
– Source www.kentnews.co.uk.

It sounds to me as if the phased arrival of the dreaded wheelie bins in Thanet is imminent. Friends out towards Herne Bay tell me that in their view, the experiment has been a disaster because the bins are never large enough to accommodate two weeks rubbish, their collection interval and often too heavy to push around, for the elderly when they are full. In my own case, I’m not even sure where I’ll put a wheelie bin as opposed to storing the existing black rubbish bags under the hedge until Tuesday evening, when I leave them outside my front gate for the Seagull to savage at will between dawn and the morning collection.

Who was it that said: “The best ideas of mice and men are generally about the same?”

The speedboat belonging to the owner of Grand Garage, Ron Hodges was stolen from the driveway of his house on the Royal Esplanade in Westbrook on Wednesday.  He’s offering a £3,000 reward but it rather leaves one wondering how big something valuable has to be to be safe in Thanet? Did anyone see a speedboat driving along the Canterbury road towards London that day? Was anyone waterskiing behind it?

I was wondering when foreign language schools would start to become nervous about sending students to Thanet to learn English. The writing has been sprayed across the proverbial wall for at least five years now with incidents of violent assault against foreign students on the rise in Broadstairs, Cliftonville and Ramsgate. Fifty-six attacks against students in 2005 against eighteen in 2004.

While many hundreds of students enjoy their experience of English life in Thanet, the decision to send them here in the face of an increasing risk of violence may be enough to damage a valuable part of the local economy, reportedly worth £14 million according to the story in today’s Thanet Gazette.

If we don’t act promptly and soon to reduce the risks to our young foreign guests from gangs of local yobs then next year may see us losing our place as a popular destination for those wishing to learn English, better English I should add than most of the youths who are responsible for the attacks.

I see that Westgate Community Centre has been hit by an “Art-attack” by local kids unknown. It could be worse but given its relatively isolated position on the hedge of a playing field, it’s a popular soft-target for the vandals in an example of what is becoming a form of anti-social terrorism in towns and villages across the country, regardless of ASBOs being distributed like confetti and frequently ignored by those who carry them rather like juvenile distinguished service medals.

Birchington hight street, is I'm told a popular target these days by hooded members of what's apparently called "The Birchington Mafia." Would anyone like to comment or is this hearsay?

Back from Blackpool, at last, after a pretty difficult flight. If you haven’t noticed, most of the country is under dense fog and I swiftly disappeared into it after taking off from Blackpool and only reappeared over the Isle of Sheppey at seven hundred feet, three hours later after taking some detours, to avoid controlled airspace, so that I could remain above the clouds in the glare of the autumn sunshine.

I gave a lift home to our Kent County Councillor, Robert Burgess; seen in the photo with Thanet North MP Roger Gale at a KCC reception yesterday evening. Lord knows what he thought when the fog closed around us just after leaving the runway at Blackpool? Possibly “Let the train take the strain!”


It’s my first time to the jewel of the North-east and I was impressed by what I found, particularly the trams and the lines of neat hotels, with the one I stayed in, the Chequers Plaza being very good and only charging £35 for B&B. How, I wonder, can we resurrect Thanet’s resorts to something approaching their former glory and where did we go so wrong with Margate. But where there’s life, there’s hope and perhaps the Turner Contemporary and other attractions, will drive regeneration in the way that was imagined, something that was discussed at the reception last night, with both Sir Sandy Bruce Lockhart and Michael Howard present. The reception left me thinking that a great many people of all the political parties - truly want to improve our environment and are desperately searching for the catalyst, the Turner perhaps, that will turn Thanet around. But like the economy, my reason for being at Blackpool, Thanet, with its independent character, may defy the best efforts of the politicians to give it a more predictable and prosperous future.

It’s not often that one finds a website developed with such single-minded devotion to a subject but the “Thanet Drinker” is just that. Should you need to find any information on any licensed premises, bar or pub in Thanet, complete with photograph and directions and most importantly, the kind of beer or real ale being served, then you’ll find it here.

Absolutely invaluable information for the hardened pub-crawler and real ale enthusiast alike.

Off to sunny Blackpool tomorrow to do a short “Turn” at the Conservative Party Conference on the competitive state of the UK software economy, kindly sponsored by Microsoft.

Such are the earthly delights of Blackpool that I won’t be taking my PC with me, so you’re unlikely to see any new postings until Thursday evening. Given the outrageous cost of an economy train fare and the danger of autumn leaves, it’s far cheaper and quicker to fly; possibly around the world given the relative cost of Virgin Trains, so I’ll wander-up past Birmingham towards Manchester and then sharp left towards Blackpool, tomorrow morning. It takes two hours from here.

There’s something surreal about party political conferences, especially in British seaside towns, when in the space of twenty-four hours, thousands of dark-suited political zealots and journalists are parachuted into a relatively small area with no Starbucks café in sight. Modern politics runs on cappuccino as you’ll notice if you visit Portcullis House at Westminster.

A wonderful mistake on Sky News this morning, where the presenter told us that: “71-year-old vicar Alfred Ridley has just been released after spending twenty-eight years in jail for not paying his poll-tax.”

On the subject of mistakes, I’m reminded that the last “Great storm” in Thanet was 1978 and it blew the jetty away rather than the end of Margate pier, the remains of which lasted, in grand isolation, a little longer until it was finally blown-up as a hazard to shipping.  Another reader quipped last night that it was comforting to know that the Turner Contemporary was being constructed by the same company that built the Titanic. Is that correct?

The website is now running normally, having identified the problem that was slowing it down since Friday.

Talking of slowing down, I tried racing the paddle steamer Waverley to Reculver at lunchtime today, both of us using pedal power of sorts. The steamer won by about two miles having had the benefit of being able to sail in a straight line.

The world's last sea-going paddle steamer It’s a lovely vessel, especially on a day like today and if you visit its website, you can see where to book it from or call 0845 130 4647.

David Green writes to tell me:

“Thought you might be amused to learn that access to your site is being blocked by the South East Grid filtering system (this is the wide area network that most schools in the South-East use for internet access, including Kent schools.”

“The reason for the block is that the front-page contains the sequence "gspot" !!”

Now while I think it’s vitally important that children are protected from the kind of unpleasant content routinely available on the internet, I do think that the proxy server involved might be a little more discriminating in its filtering of domain names. I wonder what other words are being blocked. How about “Middlesex”, “Sussex” and of course “Essex”?

I wonder how the story in Today’s Times newspaper will impact the Marlow Academy.

The paper reports that: “Tony Blair’s flagship academies programme is at risk of failing to fulfil one of its core aims because of a “tax trap” that will cost individual schools millions of pounds in VAT.”

Apparently, as ten academies opened this month, taking the total to 27, and with 200 planned by 2010, principals at the schools told The Times that they faced financial disaster because of a Government oversight.

“If an academy”, reports The Times, “was to make its gym, hall or swimming pool available to local people — as promised in its founding charter — it would face a VAT bill of millions. Even the provision of evening classes would attract huge bills from the Treasury, which claims that it is powerless to do anything about it because of EU law.”

This rather sounds like an “Own goal” of classic but maybe not unexpected proportions given the history of such grand projects of the last decade but does anybody know any more from a local perspective?

It might explain the revolutionary political theory that led to the Russian Revolution, a holiday in Margate perhaps.

Apparently Karl Marx, author of “Das Kapital”, “The Communist Manifesto” and other popular bedtime books, spent a convalescence in Margate in April 1866. Staying at the King’s Arms, his holiday seems to have been particularly beneficial and his letters speak enthusiastically of the ‘delicious’ sea-bathes, the ‘wonderful air’ and vigorous long walks (even as far as Canterbury on one occasion).

Whether social conditions in Thanet inspired him in his work is uncertain but Das Kapital was published the following year. “I have been banished”, wrote Marx, “by my medical adviser, to this seaside place, which, at this time of the year, is quite solitary. Margate lives only upon the Londoners, who regularly inundate it at the bathing season. During the other months it vegetates only.” Not much change since 1866 then?

Marx, much like Gordon Brown, believed that the classes are not merely different from each other, but also have different interests. He went on to argue that the conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariat (the chavs) would eventually lead to revolution and the triumph of the latter. With the disappearance of the bourgeoisie as a class, there would no longer be a class society. As his friend and revolutionary philosopher Friedrich Engels later wrote, "The state is not abolished, it withers away."

In 1877 he was back, this time to Ramsgate to visit Engels who was holidaying there, leaving one to suspect that Thanet might have played a small part in influencing the political history of the 20th century!

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, let’s not forget what can happen in Thanet every thirty years or so.

The great storm of 53 and another, was that 1979 when we lost Margate Pier? I was told that in the last big storm, the tidal surge came up into the car park at St Mildred’s Bay and since then, global warming has raised sea-levels sufficiently for me to wonder where the incoming tide will stop the next time we have a hurricane of our own?

In case you weren't sure, see the picture of Margate opposite and below. Note the tidal swell ABOVE the Margate harbour wall. I wonder if the Turner Contemporary would survive such a battering?

While burglaries in Thanet have dropped fractionally in Thanet by 0.6% since April 2004 (not statistically significant) it’s nothing to celebrate.

Several areas appear to be showing a net increase this year, Dane Valley being one, Westgate being another. With this in mind it’s best to take appropriate precautions and remember if it’s not bolted, locked or simply nailed-down then it may not be there the next day. It’s an unfortunate fact of life in 21st century Britain.

"..“I just hope that if we speak with a unified voice the Government will listen to some extent. We are looking at making savings in excess of £1 million just to keep the council tax increase to around five per cent.” (Kent County Council)


A report out today shows that the average council tax bill in England has exceeded £1,000 for the first time, a rise of 121 per cent since it was introduced 12 years ago.

Although house prices have risen considerably over the period, even they cannot keep pace with council tax rises and the 121 per cent rise since 1993 compares with a rise of 36 per cent in the retail price index and a 49 per cent rise in the price of services.


In England the biggest increase in the average council tax bill since 1993-94 has been in Wellingborough, Northants, at 374 per cent. The smallest since April 1993 has been in Wandsworth (45 per cent), where I used to live and which is the only authority in England where average council tax charges have not risen by more than 50 per cent.