Thanet Life

When I left Thanet just after 9am this morning, it was in the middle of a howling wind and driving rain. If it had snowed, like it did in ‘75’, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

The rain and solid muddy skies didn’t stop until we popped-up above the clouds at over five thousand feet with a thin layer of ice on the leading edges of my wings. “It’s the day before June” I thought, “and outside it’s five degree below zero.”

It wasn’t much better until just before Southampton, when the cloud started to break but I’m pleased to see that for the coming weekend, temperatures of 18 Celsius are promised. It’s not a heat wave but it can’t get much worse.

And as for the drought, I can assure you that England, as far as Weston Super Mare, is looking very green, very lush and very wet indeed!

Kent Fire and Rescue were called to Chandos Square in Broadstairs at around 10.30pm on Tuesday by concerned members of the public who told them they thought someone was still in the building.

On arrival, two firemen from the town’s Blue Watch went into the blazing property wearing breathing apparatus and found a man overwhelmed by smoke who may have been trying to rescue his dog, which was dead. He was taken to hospital for treatment.

Four engines from Thanet and Ramsgate Fire Stations attended. Residents in neighbouring properties were evacuated. The blaze was put out by midnight.

Thanet Extra reports that police are investigating the death of a 22-year-old woman at a residential unit in Kent on Sunday evening.

She was found unconscious in a bath at Thanet Lodge in Victoria Road, Margate, at about 7.30pm.

She was taking part in the Community Adult Learning Programme run through the Westgate College for Deaf People.

The woman was taken to Queen Mother Hospital at Margate by ambulance but all attempts to revive the woman failed.

Police are treating the death as unexplained and a post mortem is to be held.

Here we go again! Another appalling attack and subsequent robbery of an elderly person in Thanet, possibly by a drug addict looking for money for his next fix, given its violence and stupidity but only my guess. Perhaps he has issues?

An eighty-three-year-old woman has been left with serious injuries after being mugged while delivering leaflets for her local church.

The elderly lady was attacked as she walked through Tomson’s Passage, off Chapel Place, Ramsgate, soon after 10am last Tuesday.

The man who assaulted her stole her black canvas bag and then pushed her to the ground, causing her head to strike against a flint wall, causing a head injury and a fractured elbow.

The mugger then ran off toward Chapel Place with her bag, which contained a red purse containing about £30 cash, bankcards and her asthma medication.

She was taken to QEQM hospital in Margate after being found by a passer-by.

Detectives will be conducting a forensic examination of the woman's jacket, which the man grabbed during the robbery.

We wish her a speedy recovery and hope the police catch the mugger before his next victim.

Anyone with information please contact PC Mark Thornby on 01843 222085.

Clive Hart has sent in a release on pedestrian improvements to Cliftonville. He also appears to have re-discovered Thanet South MP and Transport Minister, Dr.Steve Ladyman who was believed to have been missing in action at Westminster in recent weeks.

“Cliftonville is one of many areas in Kent due to benefit thanks to the Government’s Local Transport Plan funding agreed last December. Approval was then given for a loan well in excess of £9million towards the Transportation and Safety Package Programme in Kent.

Among other important projects this funding will be focused on measures to reduce road casualty figures, programmes focusing on local areas to help reduce traffic congestion, improving facilities for pedestrians and cyclists and encouraging greater use of buses. It will also be used to improve footways and road crossings on Kent’s public rights of way network and for improvements to kerbs - is that kebabs? - at pedestrian crossings to ensure compliance with the Disability Discrimination Acts.

One such project will be enhanced pedestrian access for Northdown Road in Cliftonville.

Margate & Cliftonville County Councillor Clive Hart said ‘There have been a number of pedestrians injured crossing Northdown Road and we need new crossing points to provide safer movement for residents and visitors. The work is scheduled to start on May 29th and will take around eight weeks. I would ask motorists to please take extra care whilst this essential work is taking place’.

Ed: Keep up the good work Clive and let's see more 'Kebab improvements' for Cliftonville, now that Margate's are looking distinctly singed!

An interesting new Weblog just popped-up, “Old Ramsgate.” It carries photographs of the town in the past and today and so is worth a visit if you happen to live in the millionaires’ paradise of the south coast.

In fact Thanet Weblogs now appear to be appearing like a rash.  Some good, some not so good and some occupying an ambiguous middle-space while the find their feet in the ‘blogosphere’. We won’t be needing newspapers soon!

This week, being a short one, we’ll give council leader Sandy Ezekiel a rest and time for reflection, so can I have some questions to choose from please for next week’s “Ask Sandy.” I’m sure there’s no shortage.

The BBC reports that two Broadstairs men aiming to cross the English Channel today in a kayak have postponed the attempt – very sensibly too in view of the weather.

Mike Humber and Travis Spencer now hope to set off on Tuesday.

The crossing from St Margaret's Bay to Cape Gris Nez was expected to take five to seven hours, Mr Humber said.

He said they would be accompanied by a safety boat, but would be attempting a non-stop crossing. The bid is to raise money for two charities.

Funds raised will go to Cancer Research UK and the Arthritis Research Campaign.

Ed: As a keen kayaker myself, I think it’s a big deal if I get as far as Minnis bay on a nice day, so good luck to them both. Only a couple of days until June and my own Kayak hasn’t been on the sea yet, which says a great deal about the weather we aren’t having this summer.

Here’s an interesting item from reader David C. who writes:

“Not entirely sure if this has been covered, though think the subject has been touched on.”

“Walking past the end of the Margate High Street at the weekend waiting for my wife to come out of one of the shops still functioning there where she works, I saw piles of pamphlets in a shop window, something a bout an ‘Xtraordinary’ event. Scratching my head and thinking this is a bit of a turn up, I stood there peering at the pamphlet. A lady came out of the shop and thrust one into my hand. Here then as a result is the website link. If they film Dreamland as one of the locations for the film I hope there is something to point the camera at!”

See the Margate Exodus.

Ericsson Boat Ocean Challenge Portsmouth 2006_09

For any sailing enthusiasts among you, here are some photos taken from above the Volvo Ocean Challenge today at Portsmouth. "Flying the flag" for Sony Ericsson, as the boats came in over the finish line on their race home from South America and Rio, with swarms of motor launches and small yachts going out to meet them as they arrived in the dock in front of the Spinnaker centre. Didn't have my proper camera with me though!

See BBC News report.

More photos, this time, Margate High Street in all its glory this Bank Holiday weekend, taken by Amy J.












I think we have a rather long way to go before the cafe society reaches as far as the Old Marks & Spencer building don't you?

Would anyone like to send in some Ramsgate photos as a comparison?

Our roving reporter, Amy J. writes:

“I couldn’t resist taking this photo from the roundabout at Margate station. This is what visitors by car or by train see as they arrive in Margate.

The boarded up ‘arsoned’ kebab shop on the right has two other boarded up premises along side!

If first impressions count, then what does this view communicate to people who then wander into Dreamland and then visit the High St.? We resemble downtown Baghdad! I spent half an hour in the station area looking for any visitors going back up to the station and despite stopping and asking over a hundred people, not one was a visitor to Margate, this bank Holiday. Not surprising perhaps.

Your discerning eye may pick out the fact that the flowerbeds have been emptied this past week and that the footprints in the soil are rather poignant. In the wettest May for 20 years, TDC has clearly instructed its Park's Team to empty the flower beds of their lovely displays ( and they were splendid). I first noticed something odd on Tuesday on Canterbury Road at King George V Park area where bare earth was all that remained of lovely displays of flowers the previous day. I thought some enterprising thief was selling the bedding plants at a Boot Fair! I suppose we can look forward to plastic ones being put in. I think TDC got it wrong yet again and they might like to explain why it was necessary with so much free water in the past 4 weeks and what the cost was and is? A caption competition comes to mind. A thought is "Where Have all the Flowers Gone, long time passing, "

I suspect that others may have noticed that letting the train take the strain is no longer what it used to be following the news yesterday of a stabbing on a holiday train to Devon. This in from one of our readers:

“Just got back from a very pleasant day at Chelsea Flower Show. That was of course until we had to endure the journey from Victoria to Broadstairs by train, accompanied by three drunken louts who were f'ing and blinding every other word and screaming racial obscenities in front of women and children. The ticket collector seemed powerless to intervene, and I don't blame him. He probably didn't want to risk being knifed. I would like to know, what percentage of our population can be attributed to these types of thugs, and why the majority of us have to put up with this type of appalling, anti-social behaviour. I shall be returning my family rail card, as I have no intention of putting my family through that ordeal again. Oh, and guess where they got off the train?”

Ed: The true picture of rising levels of violent crime in England and Wales and historically low conviction rates is revealed today by The Observer.

An investigation shows that conviction rates for many of the most violent crimes have been in freefall since Labour came to power in 1997 and are now well below 10 per cent. The chronically low figures for convictions come at the same time as reports that violent crime is increasing.

Reader Amy J. has been busy today. She writes:

“I went out and about late afternoon on this Bank Holiday Saturday to see if the spin in Friday's Isle of Thanet Gazette matched reality and to expose the lie that is Dreamland 2006. Thanet Gazette (Page 2) had article "Dreamland opens for summer season". I quote " Family rides and white knuckle thrills will all be on offer as Margate's fun park Dreamland opens for the summer season today (Friday). Showman Mr. Webb said ".....we want to make sure everyone can come here and have fun". "Mr. Webb will be operating the site for the next three years."

“The first picture show huge empty unused area behind security fencing and the carpark view of the Scenic Railway. The other pictures show the attractions Mr Webb has arranged behind the back of the eye-catching Big Wheel. Quite frankly, this set up would shame a small village fete. I visited a better traveling funfair on Westgate's Lymington Park two years ago.”








“I now understand why Save Dreamland Campaign urged that Philip Miller from Southend should be allowed to develop the site with real intent. Is this Waterbridge's idea of a major attraction or are they biding their time as TDC sits back with obscure 'viability' tests? If there was ever a case for compulsory purchase this was it, but TDC removed that option with its acceptance of Option C for 'mixed' development in the Thanet Plan. I wonder what Sandy Ezekiel and our Conservative TDC Councillors think about the present reality or is this what they wanted?”

Your chance to win a flight in a Catalina flying boat to celebrate this year's Kent Air Show. Somehow though I doubt it will risk landing in the sea opposite Palm Bay.

Send your name, address, phone and email to: Air Show Competition, Kent On Sunday, Apple Barn, Smeeth, Ashford, TN25 6SR. - Competition closes June 9th.

According to a headline in a newspaper today, Jack Straw is homeless, having lost his grace and favour accomodation along with his job as Foreign Secretary, to Margaret Beckett.

It hasn't yet been confirmed whether "Homeless Jack", who is said to have opposed the Prime Minister's plan for Iraq, will soon be on a train to Margate but should you happen to see him on the Northdown road begging for the price of a cup of tea and a copy of the New Statesman, be generous!

If you want to stay out of the government's identity card database for the next 10 years you might want to renew your passport now.

Throughout May anti-ID card group No2ID has been running a campaign encouraging people to renew their passports, which the group said will keep people out of the National Identity Register (NIR) - the database behind the system - until 2016.

The group warned: "If you wait until autumn, you risk giving up personal data to be used for the government identity database. Pay £51 for a 10-year passport while you can. The charge for ID registration and a record for life will be at least £93."

Thanet may not be at the centre of the digital economy but  I’ve noticed, that it’s right at the very heart of the cash-society, so be warned; the Inland Revenue has unleashed a £250,000 "web robot" to track down VAT-dodging high-volume eBay traders who have absent-mindedly forgotten to register for Value-Added cash extraction. An estimated 70,000 people make a quarter of their income by trading on eBay and if there were a new series of “Only Fools & Horses” then Dell and Rodney might be making a handsome living from car boot sales and eBay.

According to thisismoney.co.uk, the "robot" in question is an advanced search engine which pinpoints said rogue traders. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) estimates it will net £1m a year in extra VAT and "force an extra twenty businesses to register for the tax".

Kent on Saturday reports that five drunken youths from Broadstairs, Herne Bay and Ramsgate who attacked two brothers in "An orgy of violence" outside Broadstairs station, in November of last year are behind bars.

But does "Four years youth custody" actually mean that or like the example, this week, of a Thanet woman who encountered her best friend's murderer behind the counter of a shop in Canterbury, does it mean rather less than the tariff imposed by the court.

Just in time for the Bank Holiday weekend, Council Leader, Sandy Ezekiel answers readers questions on the future of Margate High Street:

Q: It has been said that the purchase of the empty Marks and Spencer building by TDC and the provision of even more retail space on the ground floor, will lead to transformation of the area. Those that remain of the small and medium sized shops in the High Street are deserting it, leaving a huge number of, unattractive, boarded up, almost derelict and ‘un-lettable’ retail floor spaces.

Where does the Council think the 'new' retailers needed to fill the 'new' M&S site, and all of the empty High Street shops, and all of the empty shops in the Old Town Area, are coming from, when the surrounding shops are derelict and boarded up?

Does Cllr Ezekiel accept that there is a price to pay for Westwood Cross. Isn't there too much retail capacity in Thanet, and shouldn't we be finding some other uses, at least for the lower high street?

A: "It’s all too easy to look at Margate High Street and say “it’s finished”.

The easy option would be just to look at getting shops to fill the existing premises and in the short term, that’s what the Council and its regeneration partners will be seeking to do, but we’ve got to be realistic. We’ve all heard the same story from retailers. They keep telling us that they want modern retailing space and that’s the future for Margate. That’s what we’ve got to provide for them to ensure a long term future for our town and that’s what I want and what I’m sure everyone wants to see.

Yes, we have empty units in Margate at the moment. This has arisen out of a combination of leases coming up for renewal at the same time as the uncertainly over the future of Marks and Spencer building, which is one of the anchor premises in the town. That’s why we’ve purchased it. By creating modern retail space in the heart of Margate, there is every prospect that retailers will be attracted back into the town centre.

You’ve only got to look at any modern retail shop to understand what sort of thing they’re looking for. They want relatively open floor space and that’s not what’s on offer in Margate at the moment. That’s what we need to change.

It’s an interesting comment that there’s too much retail capacity in Thanet at the moment. In that case, why would leading high street names like PC World, Argos Extra and Homebase be building modern new premises in the area? They obviously don’t feel that there’s too much retail capacity here and these companies do their homework.

And why are these companies building new premises, rather than moving into existing ones? Because that’s retailers want.

Equally there are many modern retailers who want to be located in town centres. That’s where people are based after all and more and more homes are being built back in town centres, rather than on green field sites, and that’s part of our plan for Margate – to encourage more people to live in the town centre, providing more potential customers for shops, restaurants and cafés.

Let’s not forget that there’s been a lot of good work already done in Margate in the Old Town. There are new businesses opening all the time – three in the last few weeks. It’s becoming home to individual niche market retailers and we want to encourage that all along Margate High Street. The café society we want to encourage is now appearing and growing all the time. It’s such a difference from how the Old Town was a few years ago. There are now reasons to go there and I hope everyone will support our fledging creative quarter. It’s a beautiful area with some wonderful shops and excellent restaurants and should be on everyone’s list to visit. "

Watching the Trevor Macdonald report tonight, I can’t help thinking that our new Home Office Minister, John Reid, may have unwittingly written this government’s epitaph, “Not fit for purpose.”

Can anyone, I wonder tell me anything that is actually fit for purpose out their in the public sector. No really, just one example of a big government project or department. You know, like the Child Support Agency, The Probation Service, the Immigration Service, and The NHS. Come on… just one.

I had another experience of the Inland Revenue this month. Sitting on the board of creditors for a company in administration for the last four years, we’ve been waiting for the all clear to pay people back a percentage of the money they lost, including the company’s employees. Everything was held-up earlier in the year when the Inland Revenue, as a preferred creditor – isn’t it always - disagreed with the administrator, one of the UK’s largest accountancy companies. To cut a long story short, the administrator calculated that the Revenue were owed £200,000 in unpaid National Insurance and the Revenue the threw their toys out of the pram and insisted that they were owed over £600,000 with a barrage of paperwork that has taken two months to work through, running up more accountants fees, which means that everyone, including the poor former employees would be paid less.

The final forensic accounting examination revealed that the Revenue were in fact owed just over £150,000, not £600,000. How they had arrived at the latter figure is an example of either breathtaking incompetence, the use of a random number generator or perhaps both but at least the employees will receive a little bit extra. Mind you, with a million people apparently charged late penalty fees for their personal tax returns, which arrived on time, are we surprised?

Back in the real world, the Bank Holiday doesn’t look promising. The cloud wasn’t much higher than 500 feet at Sandown on the Isle of Wight this afternoon and I came across the Utterley Butterley wing walking team, trapped there on the way to a display in France. After two hours or so sitting in the restaurant hoping that the weather might lift, they gave up and made a dash for home at very low level towards, lost in seconds against the rolling mist. They’re looking forward to dropping in for the Kent Airshow here next month and the two new girls, both very petite, have rather more courage than I have, standing on top of a biplane’s wing.

My dog refused to go outside this morning. She took one look at the rain splashing hard against the pavement outside my back door and retreated back into the warmth of her basket.

This month is on course to be the wettest May on record and when the Government granted drought orders to two more water companies yesterday they both decided not to implement them.

Southern Water and Mid Kent Water’s actions confirmed what may have seemed obvious to anyone who has glanced out of their windows over the past few weeks. It’s raining!

If we think that we have problems in Thanet with kids running amok, spare a thought for the people of Whitstable.

Kent Online reports: “More than 200 youngsters held a bonfire on a Kent beach leaving a trail of smashed alcopop bottles in their wake.

The noisy gathering of eight to 15-year-olds is the latest in more than 120 incidents of criminal damage on the Slopes at Tankerton recorded by beach hut owners. Beach huts have been damaged and owners have found evidence of drug and alcohol abuse, while people living near by say they are too scared to go near the beach after dark.”

A second story from The Times today is particularly relevant to the Thanet experience.

“Up to 20,000 new homes each year that ministers claim are going up on brownfield sites are actually being built in back gardens, figures show.

“Garden grabbing” now accounts for 15 per cent of all new housing as family homes in towns and suburbs are pulled down by developers and replaced with flats.”

Homeowners, especially those with large gardens, are frequently targeted by developers who make extravagant offers with the intention of building flats on the site.

Because the Government has classified homes and gardens as brownfield sites, there is always a presumption that planning applications should be approved at appeal

Although neighbours usually object, - remember Sea Tower in Westgate - local authorities are reluctant to turn down planning applications for flats because time and again they lose on appeal when the developers take the case to the department.

Amid the shambles we call government in our country today; one headline in The Times came as no surprise, which is ironic.

Yesterday it was disclosed that James Dawute, the chief immigration officer who allegedly offered to speed up a Zimbabwean teenager’s asylum claim in return for sexual favours, was given British citizenship despite being an illegal over-stayer.

So, the illegals are reportedly running parts of the immigration service, which the new Home Secretary told Parliament is “Unfit for purpose.”

What’s next I wonder, a nuclear power station under the management of Al Qaeda?

How low can we go? We know that we haven’t seen the bottom yet, so I’m sure there’s more to come in the way of surprises.

Did anyone hear Wednesday’s ‘Big Bang’?

The World War II mine, mine hauled up by fishermen was blown up off Margate today.

The BBC reports that fishermen found the floating World War II device last Friday, but dropped it back into the water, allowing an exclusion zone to be set up.

Divers from HMS Quorn, which was in the Netherlands but arrived at the site on Tuesday, attached a charge to it causing an explosion when the 250kg (550lb) mine sent up a 30ft plume of water.

A passing seagull was injured and a local kebab shop was destroyed by the blast.

The commanding officer of the mine destroyer., Lt Commander Taylor said:

"For the second time in a week, the Royal Navy has safely disposed of some potentially dangerous explosives remaining from World War II.

"This is just one of the many tasks the Navy undertakes every day around the UK."

News from ‘arsonville’ is that a fire has destroyed a kebab outlet on Margate seafront. If you have any camera photos, please send them in.

Fortunately, this business did not belong to a prominent local businessman, ‘you know who’ as several of our readers have wittily observed.

Kent Online reports that detectives have now launched an arson investigation. Apparently, the Express Fish Bar at All Saints' Avenue caught fire just after 4am.

A police spokesman said: "Forensic investigators from Kent police and Kent Fire and Rescue Service this morning examined the scene. As a result of the examination it is now believed that the fire was set deliberately."Detectives would like to hear about any suspicious activity in the area between 12.30am and 4am. "The front of the business, opposite Margate railway station, was blown out and glass showered onto the footpath.The Margate fire and rescue service team used hose reel jets, breathing apparatus and foam to tackle the flames that destroyed half of the building.No-one was injured and the fire was under control by 5am.

Anyone with information about the fire is asked to contact Det Sgt Claire Munday at Margate police station on 01843 222192.

The Margate Museum website is open for all those who would like to pay a visit and don’t fancy getting wet going to the Old Town today.

I have placed a link to it on the sidebar as well.

Not only is this weblog groaning under the sudden rush of new visitors from I don’t know where, but someone’s broken the comments section. Either that or it’s collapsed under the sudden weight of interest. I’m trying to fix it.

Feelings are running high in Westgate over the proposal - now looking like a 'fait accompli' - to provide a home for recovering drug addicts in the town. The residents association tell me that they are disgusted and dismayed by the idea and will do everything in their power to challenge the plan.

Although the proposed site for the home has not yet been properly identified, a large house sold for £290,000, my sources tell me that it is most likely one of those on Westgate Bay Avenue and opposite the entrance to Beach road.

The residents association believe that Westgate is already oversubscribed with problems from outside of the area and already has too many children’s homes often, associated with allegations of anti-social behaviour. The association fears that a home for recovering addicts will also attract cases from as far away as London and may increase the potential for drugs-related crime in the town and make it highly unattractive as a home for families and young children as a consequence.

What’s your view, block this project, which the council reportedly decided was unsuitable for Cliftonville, given its already high problem density or welcome the recovering addicts for treatment in Westgate?

Just in case you happen to be interested, the photo is of the Bewl water reservoir this morning.

From the look of it and making a quick comparison with previous weeks, it appears to have rather more water in it than before and more rain to come according to the forecast.

In a special report on the battle against illegal drugs, the BBC is saying that Cocaine is now cheaper than a pint of beer, which says a great deal about the volume that is being smuggled into the UK by highly organised and ruthless crime gangs.

Of equal interest is the impact that drugs and drug-related crime is having on communities throughout the country and the conclusion is that the situation is a great deal worse than government is prepared to admit, with whole communities living in fear of the dealers and drug-users and suffering the consequences of a growing number of addicts and an expanding drug culture.

How bad do readers think this is in parts of Thanet? I’ll admit to having two discarded heroin needles on the seafront at St Mildred’s and seen another, together with a discarded spoon, silver foil and lighter, on the railway line at Westgate station, Do you also see evidence of illegal drug use near where you live and if so, where are the hotspot, leaving aside some of the more obvious spots in Thanet, which we can probably guess by name.

If you think it’s windy now, then be prepared for even stronger winds mid afternoon, so best tie down any loose dogs and children, just in case.

I counted fourteen ships sheltering in the “Margate Roads” earlier.

Following on from the Cannes release of the "The Da Vinci Code", If you need something to cheer you up, then here's a re-dubbed version of the trailer for the film, "The Ten Commandments", starring Charlton Heston as Moses or was that Ben Hur? I've granted the voice of Samuel L. Jackson a temporary bad language exclusion just this once.

A thought-provoking editorial in the right-wing flagship, the Daily Telegraph today. Can the Conservative Party “reclaim its traditional ground on the themes of crime, immigration and tax (which have become even bigger public concerns since the last general election) without giving up its new ethically attractive image?”

With Thanet split on a North South divide between the two parties, several of the questions that this feature asks are as relevant to our own benefits-heavy local challenges as anywhere else in the country.

“Taking the low-paid out of tax - now there's a compassionate policy that is worth talking about. So how about dealing in the truth about the tax and benefits system. What Left-wing governments never seem to accept is that, if you pay people to be poor, you will never run out of poor people.

And if you penalise people who work by taxing them, even when they are earning the minimum wage, they will make the perfectly rational decision to work as little as possible (or not at all) which is not - morally or economically - good for them or for the country.”

Read on.

Reader Amy J. writes:

“I have just been nosing around in the Montgomery's Glasshouses application and came across an interesting item of information, the average rainfall in Thanet quoted for water projections:

Jan: 46mm; Feb: 33mm; Mar: 41mm; Apr: 42mm and May: 38mm.

The total projected average to end of May is 200mm.

East Kent Weather reports total for the year to date as 206.2mm and we have 10 more days to go until end of May, with a wet week ahead.

So, in the past 5 months on Thanet we have had statistically ‘Above Average’ rainfall and yet we have Southern Water applying for tougher restrictions through drought orders. Is the real game to get us all on meters?”

I’ve just had this Cliftonville West press-release on the new planning policy and have been asked to share it with you:

“The emerging planning policy to stop the further creation of single bedroom flat and bed-sit accommodation in Cliftonville West has been given strong support from the three ward councillors Linda Aldred, Doug Clark and Clive Hart.

The proposed Thanet District Council policy, which all three ward councillors have been lobbying for over the past two years, finally came to the TDC Planning Committee on Wednesday evening (17th May) and it was given a very warm welcome from the Cliftonville West team.

The emerging policy is intended to redress the over supply of bed sit accommodation and houses of multiple occupation that have distorted the local community balance and fuelled serious social problems.  The proposal is to restrict planning applications for one-bedroom flats in the Cliftonville West Renewal Area as families who require more than one bedroom are more likely to stay and become a real part of the local community than single, more transient, individuals.

At the planning meeting Cllr. Linda Aldred said ‘We welcome the proposed policy.  We regularly see the transient nature of Cliftonville West and the problems that it creates through our ward casework and at our councillor surgeries.  Along with the Renewal initiatives in our area this policy could really help bring the ward out of deprivation’.

Following on Cllr. Clive Hart said ‘I agree with Cllr. Aldred.  As ward councillors, We’ve been calling for this action for a long time now and I have spoken to our third colleague Cllr. Clark today who also wants the committee to know he gives this policy his full backing.  Speed is now essential.  Things are happening every day and the implementation can’t come soon enough ’”

If I’m right, we may be seeing a lot of the new 555-seat Airbus A380, the world's biggest passenger jet, in the future.

Suitable runway locations around Europe to train the new pilots in taking-off and landing the giant aircraft are a little thin on the ground and in the UK, well there’s, you guessed it, Manston, I suspect.

It doesn’t seem so long ago that Manston used to be visited by training Concorde crews, so I’m prepared to put money on the A380 – see video – putting in an appearance not long after the first deliveries to the UK-based airline customers.

The A380, if it comes, will however be an order of magnitude quieter than the old DC8s that presently use Manston for freight traffic.

While I sit here getting depressed about the weather outside my window, I’m reminded that the Kent Airshow is only a month away now. Last year was a stunning success, thanks to two days of glorious sunshine and I very much hope for all concerned, that summer will finally have arrived by 17th June.

Strangely enough, with all those thousands of people expected over the weekend, no Kent business wants to book any aerial advertising with an available aircraft quite literally on the doorstep. So, on the Saturday afternoon, I’ll go and tow a banner over a big sporting event in Swansea instead, which strikes me as a little ironic, given the relative distances involved.

Once the weather improves a little, I plan to take some more photos. I owe a house shot for the winners of the Thanet Gazette cancer charity flight. When I took them up the other week, Cliftonville was under an isolated carpet of thick fog but there are now several sites, of local planning/development interest that I’d like to take in on my next photo-sortie. If you know of anywhere that might benefit from a quick “Spy in the Sky” view, in the public interest let me know and like the Victoria Road traffic lights last time around, I will try and get some decent photographs. The enterprising Mr Mohammed’s Cliftonville caravan park being one perhaps?

It occurs to me that instead of taking lots of ‘ad hoc’ shots, the council might want some areas of the island mapped properly, so they only have to ask.

Chris, one of our readers has sent in a photo asking if there might be anything suspicious about a visiting Boeing 747 from the 'Magic Kingdom' of Saudi Arabia, being at Manston.

Of course I'd like to speculate wildly, gold or Guantanamo Bay, perhaps even a regular Haj piligrimage flight from Kent international to support our growing local population of 'The Faithful' but I won't, because I'm sure the answer is more innocent.

Either a new 747 or pilots doing the regular circuit training at Manston as mentioned in a story and a Discovery television documentary last month or possibly taking on freight of some undisclosed but I'm sure, quite interesting nature.

African Air does many of the more unusual jobs to that part of the world, Baghdad and Basra being among them I'm told, so don't get them mixed up with the new Kent Escapes service from Kent International to Malaga or you may find yourself arriving on a completely different patch of sand with a less friendly reception from the locals and absolutely no Sangria in sight.

Now if you spot a U2 spyplane a rare member of the rapidly diminishing RAF or something more exotic let me know. It's the Spitfire museum's birthday this month and you should see a visiting Spitfire coming in to celebrate. A photo for the website would be nice.

A comment on how late the summer is this year is the fact that I haven’t been out in my kayak yet. Normally, I’d be paddling around out to sea at the beginning of May.

From my window this morning I can see ships sheltering against last night’s gale, nine of them from Westgate and Margate and the banner that a local Rotary club asked me to fly this morning to greet their guest from Belgium, isn’t going to happen; it’s too windy for me to collect the aircraft from its annual service near Brighton. More accurately, it’s too ‘iffy’ to try and land it back in Thanet with a predicted 30 mph cross-wind.

Bank Holiday weekend next week and let’s hope that it’s a rather brighter and warmer start to the tourist season than we have had to date. Global warming or simply Mother Nature throwing random bad weather in our direction; who knows? Economically though, the cost of a poor Whitsun bank holiday along the British coastline, must be enormous, simply based on the jobs I have to do over the three days; the launch of a Radio Station in Devon and the Volvo Ocean Challenge finish at Portsmouth to name but two.

So when they arrive in Thanet in their thousands and hopefully blessed by bright sunshine and calm seas, what can visitors to our island expect? Award winning beaches to be sure, although, as one reader points out, it’s best to avoid Grenham Bay because that’s where the tide reportedly washes in the condoms from the Cliftonville outflow when the wind and currents are in the right direction. It’s easily seen from the air, the slick that is.

Doing what I do, I see huge swathes of Britain’s coastline during the summer. Minehead, Perranporth, Torquay, Great Yarmouth, you name the place. Sometimes I have to land and wander around and other times it’s simply a view from the air. And my conclusion, for what it’s worth is that we need to do rather better than we are in making Thanet an attractive tourist destination. Without a doubt it’s neater and cleaner than it was, a huge step forward in attracting families to our beaches but we lost the pier years ago and Dreamland’s sign only recently. And Pleasurama in Ramsgate? That’s another question that still hasn’t been properly answered, one of many on an Everest-like climb towards the goal of local ‘regeneration’ which seem impossibly high and far away at times.

So I’m off to Westwood Cross now. I can’t avoid it and I expect to be some time sitting in the traffic for the privilege of not having to use Margate High Street, which doesn’t have what I need and is less likely to with every day that passes.

I wonder who sells “Kiss me Quick” hats these days?

A 19-year-old man is in hospital with a punctured lung and other injuries after allegedly being stabbed with a screwdriver at a house in Westbrook

A 24-year-old Margate man was arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm after the incident in Canterbury Road on Thursday night.

The victim is described as being "In a serious condition" at the QEQM Hospital.

A young woman was also stabbed in the leg during the incident.

One of our Cliftonville residents writes an alarming account of his day to day experiences of crime and anti-social behaviour in yesterday’s comments and it reflects the reports of the Audit Commission, report, published last week, which, highlighted vast differences in crime within local areas in England and Wales and warned that national targets on fighting crime diverted attention from local concerns.

Thanet was one of the five areas studied by the report.

The study said national crime figures fail to take account of pockets of low-level disorder or anti-social behaviour despite more than half of people considering it as their top priority when moving to an area.

Measuring crime in areas of joint initiatives between police and local services, or Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs), was highlighted as being too broad-brush to accurately reflect localised problems.

Measuring crime across a population of more than 100,000, the average size of a CDRP, could also "conceal huge differences in local neighbourhoods".

The commission's Neighbourhood Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour report also questioned whether crime-cutting schemes make any difference due to a lack of systematic evaluation at national or local level.

Our Cliftonville reader comments:

“Last year we averaged one attempted break-in, or criminal damage a week during the summer months” and continues, I “installed security cameras but first of all they were altered in view, they must have used a long pole to do that, then they were totally smashed off the walls - and they were about 20 feet up.”

So while the police are working hard on an operation to contain burglaries around the island, residents of some areas continue to suffer from an apparently constant background noise of anti-social behaviour and low-level crime, with areas of the island now instantly recognized as “Ghettos of disorder” to the rest of us fortunate enough not to have to live in them.

So on a local level, what are we going to do about this. Will the authorities continue to mouth platitudes and wring their hands in a tacit admission of defeat or is there some small ray of hope that we can reverse the decline in our community?

Where do we begin?

Burglaries in Thanet have reportedly dropped since a burglary reduction team took to the streets this month.

Eight constables and a sergeant have been assigned to the task of reducing burglaries on the island, while a team of four detectives and a detective sergeant deal with burglars once they’ve been arrested.

In the ten weeks prior to the team starting, Thanet suffered an average of twenty-three burglaries a week. However, in the first week of operation, the team’s presence stimulated a huge reduction in burglaries, with only thirteen in the first and second weeks – a drop of almost 43 per cent each week.

Thanet has seen steady increase in the number of house burglaries over the past six months and my own guess is that burglary and an increase in violent muggings is linked to the dramatic rise in drugs offenses, normally the pattern we see in the cities.

So I applaud the drop in burglaries through pro-active policing and would ask that we see a “Zero-tolerance” campaign directed at feral underclass gangs of youths who appear to be responsible for many, if not most of the nastier crimes and anti-social incidents that you’ll read about in the Thanet Gazumph each week.

More than 30 Dunkirk Little Ships will be visiting Ramsgate's Royal Harbour next weekend to commemorate the 66th anniversary of Operation Dynamo.

The operation, which took place between 28th May and 4th June 1940, saw a flotilla of 1,200 little ships working alongside a fleet of Naval and Merchant Marine vessels to evacuate 338,000 British and French troops from the beaches around Dunkirk.

Every five years, the Dunkirk Little Ships recreate that voyage and last year, they sailed out of Ramsgate. This year, they will begin arriving on Saturday 27th May and will stay in the town's Royal Harbour over the Bank Holiday weekend.

On Sunday 28th May, there will be a private service of commemoration in the Sailors' Chapel, following by a quayside blessing of the Little Ships, with wreaths afterwards, which can be seen from West Pier. The Little Ships will remain in the Royal Harbour the following day and will be moored in the Outer Harbour in front of the cross-wall.

Cllr. Mike Roberts, Cabinet Member for Maritime Services, said: "We are delighted to welcome the Little Ships back to Ramsgate. They are a very special part of this country's maritime history and they hold a very dear place in many people's hearts. This will be an excellent opportunity for people to come and see the boats in one of the country's most beautiful harbours and to learn about the important role that they played in Operation Dynamo, widely regarded as one of the turning points of World War II."

Marine life that's rarely uncovered by the sea will be the focus of one of the biggest coastal events in Thanet next weekend.  

Low Tide Day on Saturday 27th May will see the Thanet Coast Project, helped by young people from the Millennium Volunteers, hunt for marine life that likes to hide on the lower part of our shores, including velvet swimming crabs, starfish and dog whelks. As well as discovering the sights uncovered by the low tide, there will also be time to play some environmental games.

This national event is held annually on the lowest tide of May and this year will take place between 5.30 - 7.30 p.m.

Naomi Biggs, Thanet Coast Education Officer said: "Low Tide Day last year was the biggest event in our calendar, so I am really looking forward to it again. Hopefully with the tide being so low we will see some unusual species that don't come out of the water very often."

For more information on this and other Thanet Coast Project events call
01843 577672, visit www.thanetcoast.org.uk or email thanet.coast@thanet.gov.uk..

In this week’s ‘Ask Sandy’, Thanet council leader, Sandy Ezekiel, looks to the south of the island and answers a reader’s question on the future of the Pleasurama development in Ramsgate.

Q: “Sandy says the council is close to signing off on the Pleasurama development. How can the development go ahead with the cliff face in such a perilous state? Are the developers going to pay to put it right, or will the council taxpayer have to cough up? Could you ask him if the Council intends to honour his promise to consult about the Pleasurama roof treatment before signing?”

A: “Let’s start with the issue of the cliff face. It’s the Council’s responsibility to maintain the coastline. Here we’re lucky enough to enjoy 26 miles of beautiful coastline and stunning beaches, but with that comes responsibility and this is one of those cases. The problems here were identified as part of our programme coastal defence surveys and we will be carrying out work here in due course.

As far as consultation goes, we have been talking to the Eastcliff Residents Association about this development and some of their concerns, but what we need to be clear about is the difference between signing the agreement and resolving the outstanding planning issues. They’re two different things and the issue of the roof treatment is something that will be resolved as part of the planning process.

For those of you wondering why an agreement is yet to be signed on this site, it’s because work is still underway on a highways agreement. We want to get everything exactly right before we sign the final agreement and that includes and that includes making sure that the site has adequate highways provision.

Rest assured – when we’re ready to start work on site, you’ll be the first to know. This project is a vital one for Ramsgate. It will bring more people in to live in the town centre, meaning more spending money for local shops and we’re working hard to make sure that the scheme happens – and as soon as possible, but before we sign on the dotted, all the various elements must be right before and that’s why we’re taking our time. I firmly believe that this scheme will bring many benefits to Ramsgate and indeed the whole of Thanet and I look forward to the day that works starts on the site.”

Send in your suggestions for next week’s ‘Ask Sandy’ we have a number stored-up but welcome as many as we can get.

'Click' the photo to zoom it up to hi-resolution full screen size. (Airads photos)

The story in today’s ‘Thanet Gazumph’ about landlord, Abrar Mohammed, winching a couple of caravans into his Cliftonville garden, for use as bedsits and reportedly without planning permission, leaves me wondering whether to laugh or cry.

There’s no doubt that Mr. Mohammed has proved unusually enterprising and innovative in his actions but the caravans remain and in the story, the absence or presence of planning permission remains shrouded in mystery.

I wonder what would happen if I did the same and set-up a small caravan park in my garden, without seeking planning permission. Would I get away with it? Probably not, which leaves me asking myself why this might be?

With a pensioner jailed this week in Kent for refusing to pay his poll tax, another pensioner in Derbyshire is facing jail for protesting against her council's "refusal" to help residents in her once picturesque street which has been overrun by drug dealers and prostitutes.

Her street full of boarded-up windows, flats - many of them squats - crammed with homeless drug addicts and immigrants. An alleyway behind it was dubbed "Crack Alley" after council workers found 900 hypodermic needles in one hour. Sounds familiar? It could be many places in Britain today.

This case raises interesting questions over a council’s duty to enforce the law and provide residents with a decent environment in return for their council tax and indeed, who should be in front of the courts and sent to jail, the drug dealers or the protesting pensioner.

So will she be jailed too? – Read on.

Prime Minister Blair has, we are told, taken personal charge of the Health Service.  Not quite enough charge to personally face the nurses, of course but enough charge to be held responsible for the financial shambles that the "Nation’s Nanny", Patricia Hewitt, has allowed to evolve.

So perhaps Mr. Blair would like to come to East Kent and to visit Fordwich Ward at the QEQM hospital in Margate.  He will find that it is shut.

This has not been the "best year ever" for our Accident and Emergency Services.

I met, recently, with an A&E Registrar from one of the County's major hospitals.  He confirmed my understanding that about 80% of the patients that visit A&E have no need of those services whatsoever and can and should be seen in casualty units, cottage hospitals or, in most cases, by General Practitioners.

Setting aside the after-school "morning after pill" sessions when, apparently, schoolgirls find it convenient to use A&E units as convenient and inconspicuous birth control clinics, many callers are either from overseas and with no culture of the use of General Practice or, more significantly, patients who choose not to wait days for GP appointments or to use the on-call services.

There is, though, a darker side still to A&E known as the "Four-hour breach".

Under Government "targets" A&E patients are required to be seen within four hours and any "breach" of this timescale has to be reported.  Young Senior House Officers, frightened to stand up to the system and relatively inexperienced are prone to make bad decisions in haste.  The more senior Registrars find themselves having to rush or offer inadequate treatment in order to avoid the "breach.

The way round this is, it  seems, is to dispatch patients to wards without appropriate tests having been taken and it is not uncommon for a ward Sister to receive a phone call saying "we are about to breach - will you take this patient within the next 20 minutes".  The half-way measure is to transfer the patient to a CDU unit within the four hours. In this way, technically, they have left A&E even though there is much work still to be done and a logjam further down the line.

All of this information has been given to me by NHS nursing and medical staff who have had enough and are concerned to speak out before patient-care is further compromised.

Is any Minister out there listening?

Having experimented with CrimeStoppers (0800 555 111) over the bank holiday weekend, when three mini motorbikes were using the promenade as a proving track, the results hardly filled me with confidence.

At the official launch of the programme yesterday our Chief Constable Mike Fuller says that having a Kent branch of CrimeStoppers "gives us a local identity and enables us to deal with local crime." My experience however of being told to call Kent Police, instead to report anti-social behaviour makes me wonder if it could be improved a little further.

Apparently the free, anonymous hotline was set up 18 years ago so people could give information about crime without anyone knowing who they are. Since then it has led to 71,000 arrests in the UK and provided police with valuable intelligence but how does this impact on local crime beyond being a simple reporting mechanism only.

After all, at times you don’t want to call 999 for non emergency calls, so wouldn’t CrimeStoppers fit “The Bill”, so to speak?

Was “Thanet” the isle of the dead? Read the BBC story and listen to the programme.

The name "Tenet" was listed in the Domesday book of 1086, whereas in the 18th century classical dictionary of John Lemprise it is states "Tane'tus, a small island of Albion. Ptolemy calls it Tolianis. It is now Thanet."

Robin Gibson takes a ‘Walk Through Time’ to take a closer look at the mystical "Isle of Death"

Read on.

A report from “Property News” today, shows that house prices in rural areas are significantly less affordable than in urban areas, according to the latest Halifax English Rural Housing Index. The average property price in rural areas is 6.7 times average annual earnings compared with a ratio of 5.6 in urban areas.

Pendle (North West) is the rural local authority which has the most housing (17%) classed as unfit for dwelling in. After Pendle, the rural local authorities with the most unfit housing are Shepway (10%), West Dorset (9%) and Thanet (8%).

Read on.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

The New Colossus - Emma Lazarus.

Yesterday’s many comments and emails revealed a great deal of interesting information on building and planning in Thanet that we would have been hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

Estimates for the total number of new homes springing-up around the island in the near future, appear to be hovering at around 3,000, alongside the bombshell suggestion that the whole school system may have to be overhauled to cope with the changes. Nobody appears able to come-up with a solution to the inevitable traffic problem that will surround so many new homes, particularly around Westwood Cross and there’s a further question of how many of the new homes, if any, will be set aside for the social housing needs of the London boroughs?

Another piece of news in from a reader last night is that a large house in Westgate is rumoured to have been bought for just under £300,000 by drugs rehabilitation project as a treatment centre for addicts. I’m looking for independent confirmation from anyone please?

One could argue that Westgate is oversubscribed in the provision of homes and services for those occupying the margins of our society and this piece of news, if true, may be one step too far. We should be examining the local density of special homes, special schools and treatment centres and asking ourselves whether the small towns like Westgate, which are attempting to regenerate their local economies and their housing stock, are being, disadvantaged by becoming a focal point for social services problems from elsewhere in London and the South East?

Some news just in from one of our readers “The Chalk Face”. Can anyone independently substantiate or confirm the contents of his story; pretty earth-shattering if even partially accurate. The emphasis here is firmly on “discussed” and not “proposed”. He writes:

“You may be interested to hear that a recent meeting was held between the heads of Ellington, Hereson, Chatham House and Clarendon Schools. Some interesting points were apparently discussed including:

* Ellington new school to just be the start of a huge new education centre to be called 'Thanet Campus' which will certainly absorb Hereson and possibly the two grammar schools over the next few years. 2400+ pupils?

* Education consortiums to be created to split the secondary schools into four areas with the following working together.

1. The Thanet Campus as above. Thanet SE

2. Marlow Academy to take in the sixth forms from the two grammar schools. Called Thanet SW.

3. St George's, (photo) Charles Dickens and Dane Court as a consortium called Thanet NE

4. King Ethelberts, Ursuline and Hartsdown as a consortium called Thanet NW

* Ursuline College to lose it's sports college status (to the Thanet Campus?). Sports coaches to be laid off over next twelve months. Sports fields planning turned down, sports hall too expensive. Specialist status of all others to be examined for merger.

* Closure of schools (Ellington, Hereson, Chatham House) and sale of the land to help finance the above (Prime sites, prime prices, prime house building?)

At some stage the staff and governors of these schools may be consulted. As for the parents, well they will just have to put up with Centralised Education!”

Police have arrested a third man in connection with the discovery of a cannabis-growing farm at a warehouse on a Kent industrial site.

A 59-year-old Ramsgate man was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to manufacture drugs at the premises on Whitehall Road in the town.

He is at Margate police station assisting officers with their enquiries.

Regular reader, Mike writes in and says:

“I thought you might be interested in the latest news on TDC much publicised at the time (last year) empty/unfit property grant scheme which offered non repayable grants for unfit housing.

I received a letter from Mr S O'Shea Private Sector Housing manager at TDC this morning regarding my applications for grants for five properties I own which I bought derelict and am looking to improve.

Extract from letter:

"Dear Sir,
Unfit Property Grant Enquiry

Further to my letter to you dated 2005 where I stated your enquiry would not be processed due to the large number of referrals.... I am now writing to confirm that unfortunately the unfit property grants have been discontinued.

The Council have received money from the government for this financial year, the focus for spend however is to be on decent homes............to certain vulnerable occupants." etc.

It seems crazy to spend it on decent homes when there are so many derelict properties!

Cheers - Mike

I’m glad to see that the Labour Party have finally discovered ThanetLife, so to avoid any allegations of bias on my part, here are a couple of local opposition stories, passed in my direction by the party, in the shape of Clive Hart, this morning:

“The Labour Group on Thanet District Council kept its word with the residents of Margate and Thanet by again trying to convince the Council to adopt the very reasonable recommendation, made by an independent Planning Inspector for the Local Plan, which strongly came out in favour of Dreamland remaining as an Amusement Park.  The Tory Council agreed in January this year to allow other uses including housing for the site.

Leader of the Labour group, Cllr R Nicholson said, “We warned the Tories in January this meant the end for Dreamland as a place to attract visitors to Margate. The inclusion of housing effectively renders the site as uneconomic for anything else, a view supported by the Planning Inspector. Last night we tried again to persuade the Tories but they all seem scared or unwilling to stand up for Margate. Neither were they willing to pay any attention to local views on this matter, which overwhelmingly supported keeping Dreamland alive.

My colleagues and I now see a slow but unstoppable death for this site with housing and a few leisure connected businesses remaining in the near future. Margate and Thanet was let down badly by the Tories, not for the first time and no doubt if they remain in control then residents will continue to be effectively ignored.”

The Labour Group was also shocked by the Conservative Group attempt to change, at the last minute, the recommendation on the adoption of the Local Plan.  At least three times an additional recommendation was read out and each time it was different.  Council officers had to come to the rescue of the Tories to make any sense of the proceedings.

The Labour Group argued strongly that this was the wrong time and way to change a document that had taken five years to write and although most of the content was in fact set out by Labour members on the council they were unable to support this last minute change and therefore in the public interest did not support the Local Plan.”

Broken Promise

“The Labour group on Thanet District Council were unsuccessful in trying to make the Tory administration keep to promises previously made to Thanet residents and businesses over the type of development permitted at the Westwood area.

When agreement had been initially approved the Council promised to do what it could to protect the interests of small shops in our town centres. One way to do so was to agree the units being built in the Westwood area were of a certain size. Now the Council has given the go ahead for smaller “high street size” units to be developed.

Leader of the TDC Labour Group, Cllr R Nicholson said, “Labour was determined to stick by our word. Whilst we of course fully support development of retail at Westwood we felt we had to try to get the Council to keep promises previously made. Although the action taken last Thursday is initially limited, the Tories have now agreed a precedent and all future requests will be hard to deter, if not impossible to resist now.

However I and my Labour colleagues will, not like the Tories, give up on the town centres and we will continue to work tirelessly with local Town partnerships to enhance our local shops in all areas of Thanet. We need local businesses in local areas for our local residents.”

Looking at the sidebar, there’s evidence of a growing Weblog community now in Thanet and I want to encourage anyone with something to say or even a local diary to join-in and try their hands at being an online writer.

It’s really easy, you can choose to remain anonymous if you prefer and all you have to do is to visit http://www.blogger.com/ choose a name for your weblog and a suitable template and then start writing.

Once you’ve tried a few entries and when your’e happy with the result, simply send along the link to add to my 'Blog-roll' sidebar with all the other local resources and join the expanding community of local “bloggers”. I reserve the right however, not to link to any site which tolerates bad language or personal attacks.

A Weblog for each town and village in Thanet would be excellent as a means of building a universal picture of what’s happening around the island and what people’s interests and concerns are.

Margate Operatic Society is holding a show, "A Night on the Town” from 30th May to 3rd June.

Tickets are £7.50 & £6.50 and the show starts at 7.30 p.m. with a matinee on the Saturday.

If you are able to support MOS, please ring 01843 292795  for tickets.

Kent Online reports that a 53-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of threats to kill during a firearms incident in a Kent town centre on Tuesday afternoon.

Armed officers were called to a flat at Rope Walk House in Margate High Street during an incident involving two men.

Police cordoned off the area and one man walked from the building and voluntarily gave himself up.

He was taken to Margate police headquarters where he will be questioned by detectives.

An air pistol was seized by police.

No one was injured in the incident.

Immigration control was denounced as a mockery yesterday after Whitehall officials disclosed that those overstaying illegally are not pursued "as individuals" and hundreds of thousands of National Insurance numbers are given to foreign nationals without any check on their status. – Read on

When the council finally re-zoned Westgate Bay Avenue and Westbrook Avenue to prohibit the street trading of cars, like many other residents, I was delighted.

Right outside my own house is an accident black spot which has had five accidents I have seen in three years and my own wall has been knocked down twice in the past.

At the beginning of the month, one of the street traders re-appeared and parked a car right outside my gate, just in the right spot to cause a car to pull into the oncoming traffic at the brow of the hill, which causes these accidents. I quickly reported this to the council, who told me that they would pass it on to the police to deal with. Result. Absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, total strangers can wander into my garden and explore and when challenged can reply, “I’m interested in that car outside mate.”

On Monday, I repeated the complaint exercise and was “assured” that the matter would be dealt with quickly but the blue Peugot is still there and the police presence will be restricted to breakfast at Beanos café.

If we’ve gone to the trouble to re-zone the area to deal with the problem, the least the authorities can do is enforce it but instead the message being sent is the same as ever, “do what you like because it’s unlikely that the local bylaws will be enforced.”

Street cleaners and window fitters should be used to help combat localised crime and build a better picture of the problem, a report suggests.

New figures show 60% of people believe crime is rising, despite the statistics falling over the past 11 years.

The Audit Commission said current methods of measuring crime may not be accurately reflecting what occurs in local neighbourhoods.

It said using frontline street workers would not burden them or the police.

But it said only workers who were employed by a council, or working on behalf of it, should be asked to help with crime prevention.

The Audit Commission studied two different wards in Bradford, West Yorkshire; Kerrier in Cornwall; Liverpool; Rhondda Cynon Taff near Cardiff; and Thanet in Kent.

Read on.

Westgate resident Ann Finch asks: "How do the readers of Thanet Life feel, regarding the plans put forward by West Bay Cafe Westgate, to use part of the shelter beside the cafe, for storage facilities to house their tables and chairs. As it is the only shelter available from the sun and rain at West Bay and is used by many people I think the planning application shall not be popular, and will be opposed by many. "


Remains of the Day - Westbay2
Originally uploaded by DrMoores.

"I have been told half the area of the shelter may be used for the storage, if the planning application is granted, and it has has been called in for the 21st June. Will it leave enough seating area for the elderly and those who wish not to sit in direct sun,........ I wonder?"

Ed: I'm with Ann on this one. The Cafe is an excellent one and has already expanded its building during the winter months and so is now almost twice the size it was. I think expanding any further towards the delightful period shelter seen here, is not in the interests of either residents or tourists, as it is used consistently throughout the season. Councillors please take note.

This next posting is by way of a public information message I have been asked to pass on. With such a high proportion of elderly people in Thanet the information may help someone, so I decided to give it space here, in the public interest.

"If everyone can remember something this simple, you could save a life. Seriously, please read on:"

"During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call an ambulance) and just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food - while she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening. Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00pm, Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don’t die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this:

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

Thank God for the sense to remember the "3" steps acronym, ‘STR’. Please remember it!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

* S - Ask the individual to ‘Smile’.

* T - Ask the person to ‘Talk’. to speak a simple coherent sentence, (i.e. . . It is sunny outside)

* R - Ask him or her to ‘Raise both Arms’.

{NOTE: Another 'sign' of a stroke is this: Ask the person to 'stick' out their tongue... if the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other that is also an indication of a stroke}.

If he or she has trouble with 'Any' of these tasks, call 999 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

A cardiologist told me that if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to ten people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved as a result"

Police have named a Garlinge couple who died when the motorcycle they were riding was in collision with a van last Sunday.

Terry and Patricia Lockett, a married couple from St James' Park Road, Garlinge, were riding a Honda Blackbird along Church Lane, Chislet, near Canterbury, at around 2.30pm on Sunday when the crash took place.

Their vehicle collided with a Transit van.

The couple leave behind four children and four grandchildren.

Terry, a 57-year-old self-employed flat roofer, and 58-year-old Patricia, who worked in Ward and Partners estate agency in Broadstairs, were planning to retire at the end of the year and had intended to spend their free time at the holiday home they owned in France.
.

With Dreamland looking a little empty and faded and the Pleasurama site offering very little in the way of pleasure, Thanet as an emerging hub in both the thriving European sex-trade and marijuana production industry, may yet present an opportunistic way forward, as a means of boosting tourism. An idea to present to Cllr. Latchford at the next council meeting perhaps?

On a totally different subject, several people have commented that the concreting of gardens to provide houses with car driveways, may be contributing to the drought, as the water can't find it's way down to the water table. I wonder how much of the south-east of the country has been paved over in this way over the last twenty years, making its own little contribution to global warming by reflecting the sunshine too.

Millions of people face queueing for water at standpipes within months as the Environment Agency gave warning yesterday of the worst drought in a century

Reservoirs are mostly full after recent rainfall but groundwater stocks, which form the bulk of household supplies, are even lower in some parts of the South East than they were before the 1976 drought.

You may recall the prediction here, at the beginning of the year, that such measures would be inevitable, given the drop in the local water table and it remains to be seen how hard the drought will hit us here in Thanet.

Well, I found out who the Hollywood movie people are. Its Ridley Scott films as the production company and Kevin Spacey directing, so as they won’t be coming to Thanet to film, - too far - I guess I have to go to them at Elstree airfield or at least that’s what the fax I have here tells me.

They're asking for an "English Patient" like effect with an old biplane - I had rather hoped for an F15 - but it’s not until next week though, so if I’m allowed, I’ll take as many photos as I can to share with you. I’m still not sure you the really big Hollywood star is, as they won’t tell me but I’m assured it’s not Tom Cruise, which is a relief!

Thanet's beaches have gained a record haul of Blue Flags, scooping seven of the prestigious awards, which are only given to the best beaches in Europe.

For the fifth year, Minnis Bay has received the accolade, while Westbrook Bay will retain its Blue Flag for the fourth consecutive year.

West Bay at Westgate is named for the second year in a row, while Margate Main Sands regains the Blue Flag that it last held in 2004. For the first time, St. Mildred's Bay in Westgate, Walpole Bay in Margate and Viking Bay in Broadstairs all receive the award.

The Blue Flag is awarded to beaches which comply with tough water quality guidelines and meet a series of other criteria. Each beach must provide public toilets, access for disabled visitors and first aid facilities and have either lifesaving equipment provided or lifeguards on duty. The area's 26 miles of sandy coastline also boasts ten UK Seaside Awards, which were announced in April.

Cllr. Roger Latchford, Cabinet Member for Commercial and Operational Services, said: "This is a tremendous boost for our tourism trade ahead of the summer season, as it tells the rest of the country that Thanet is home to some of Europe's top beaches. This is a superb result and emphasises the importance that the Council has placed on ensuring that our beaches are clean, the water quality is as high as it can be and that our internationally recognised coastline offers top quality facilities for both residents and visitors."

He added: "Add to this news, the strong line up of events that we have over the next few months, including the Kent Air Show Margate, with the Red Arrows, the return of the Dunkirk Little Ships to Ramsgate and the Broadstairs Folk Week and it's gearing up to be an excellent year for Thanet."

Can I have suggestions for this week’s “Ask Sandy” please? Your chance to raise a local issue with our Thanet council leader, Sandy Ezekiel at the very centre of our local government, in the nuclear bunker buried deep beneath Cecil Square.

One reader has already suggested the site of a popular local brothel after reading the earlier post, allegedly, “Opposite 16 Canterbury Road Westbrook” and run by a ‘Miss Satin’. Would anyone else like to offer ‘known’ addresses of the others which are apparently the latest boost to the local economy, offering diverse opportunities to migrant workers.

For the lower-end of the market, there's Miss Corduroy and Miss Sackcloth & Ashes and I'm happy to tell you that ThanetLife has negotiated a 10% entry discount for its readers.

Are these hardworking girls and their enterprising local businesses, threatened by the possibility of a chain of brothels being established at Westwood Cross in the near future? Who holds the franchise rights to them and what does the council and police plan to do about it? More importantly, how much do they charge, do the rooms include wide screen Sky Sports and do they open on Sundays?

I can feel a Thanet Gazumph story on the subject just around the corner can’t you. Over to you Nick Dorman. It's a tough job but someone with trousers has to do it.

I see from the Mail on Sunday this morning that a taxi driver showed more “bottle” than me when faced with an almost identical situation in the BBC News studio.

The mystery cabbie man stepped unwittingly into the national spotlight when he was interviewed by mistake on the corporation's News 24 channel. You can watch the video here.

With the seconds ticking down to a studio discussion about a court case involving Apple Computer and The Beatles' record label, a floor manager had run to reception and grabbed the man, thinking he was Guy Kewney, editor of Newswireless.net, a specialist internet publication. I know Guy's work and can confirm that he looks nothing like the ‘black cabbie’ who took his place.

The same thing almost happened to me a couple of years ago in the same studio. I forget what I was in there to talk about but the floor manager marched me into the studio, sat me down next to the news reader and then left.

I had a moment or so before going live; and the weather was running in the gap to the top of the hour news and the anchor turned to me and asked “how long have you been doing knees then?” I looked blank. “Knees?” I replied. “Yes as the team physiotherapist” and he mentioned a Premier League club linked to a major news story of an injured player.

At this point, I wondered if I should “wing it” or tell the truth but buckled under the strain and confessed that I was there for the next story. This caused a brief panic and the running order was quickly changed as there was no time to find the real physio. The black cabbie last week did however do a fantastic job by all accounts and nobody knows who he was.

Perhaps the funniest incident I had was on Sky News at the time of the 3G telephony auction, where the government made ‘squillions’ by selling the licenses to the likes of Vodafone at inflated prices the later regretted and which we will pay for over the next ten years. Sky dragged me in to the studio for another technology story and as a ‘regular’ they didn’t bother checking the content with me before sitting me down in the studio, with a good friend, one of their news anchors, giving the interview.

“I haven’t a clue about all this 3G stuff” he said, with twenty seconds to run, “So I’ll ask you a pretty broad question and you fill up two minutes with your answer.”

“What 3G stuff”, I replied, “I though I was doing ‘x’ today?”

The Sky News music started to play, ten seconds left before going on air. “We’ll have to wing it” he said and thankfully, nobody noticed, which says a great deal about modern news gathering and rather less about the experts!

The water companies may be having us on. Yes there is a drought but Kent on Sunday reveals that its the customer who may be "Wet behind the ears" when it comes to the water company profits and leaks of hundreds of millions of gallons of water.

The news, printed in a Kent on Sunday report today, that 300 brothels have been targetted in Kent, with a good many in Thanet, may confirm my speculation about the small groups of Eastern European women, I frequently see on the train from Victoria to Ramsgate, the 'millionaires playground', following what looks like a succesful day out at the shops.

I could be wrong but they never look the part of refugees or commuters so we need to fill an obvious commercial gap at Westwood Cross, which may be sending local money out of Thanet to London's Bond Street instead.

The seafront is tidy, the litter is being collected but there’s one more thing the people of Thanet would among the long list or priorities that concern us all. That’s law an order and a visibly effective and ‘zero tolerance’ criminal justice system.

Muggings, thuggings and vandalism are on the rise and are encouraged by a more relaxed licensing regime, if you listen to the argument of the Chief Constable of Kent. Local residents would be forgiven for thinking that matters were starting to spiral out of control and confidence in the criminal justice system to protect residents and deal swiftly and effectively with the perpetrators, appears from comments on this website, to be at an all time low.

The Sunday Telegraph also reports today that “Ten thousand crimes are being committed every month by offenders on probation” and goes on to write: “The British public is increasingly worried by judgments whose effect is to rank the "rights" of criminals higher than those of law-abiding citizens. As a result, the whole notion of human rights is becoming discredited. Rather than basic protections against arbitrary power, "human rights" are now seen as legal fictions that prevent the police, the intelligence services and other government agencies from doing what they believe needs to be done in order to safeguard the nation.”

Talk to anyone else and with an aircraft instead of a white van, I get around a bit, you’ll find that the worries of the people of Thanet are no different to those to the people of Newport, where I was yesterday afternoon or anywhere else in the country. As one woman, in Wales yesterday, commented, “we pay more and more tax but are streets are full of thieves.”

A sociologist might argue that the 19th century streets were a great deal more violent than the streets of today but there’s an overriding sense among the community that we’ve lost control of our ability to deter crime at all, with the normally law-abiding first offender fast-tracked through the legal system, while the scum responsible for a constant background hum of low-intensity but socially impactful crime, walk free or are simply untouchable because they are too young or have “issues.”

Tell me I’m wrong.

Just back from the FA Cup Final in Cardiff where I had an unusual view of the match from above. Pictures can be found here for anyone who might be interested in a view of footballers’ heads.

From what I could see, buzzing around above the pitch, most of the first half of the game appeared to be played around the Liverpool goal but I’ll try and get a better look in the TV highlights later tonight. Air Traffic Control told me that Liverpool won on penalties.

Kent online reports that a 42-year-old Chinese doctor convicted of sexual assaults on two of his female patients, has been jailed for six months.

Guang Jie Li lived and worked alone at the Chinese Medical Centre in Margate High Street and in October 2004 touched one woman indecently then attacked another in February 2005.

He was convicted after a trial of sexual assault and assault by penetration and appeared for sentence at Canterbury Crown Court on Thursday.

Judge Anthony Webb told Li only a custodial sentence was appropriate. "Any breach of trust of the sort that is shown in these offences, by a man in your position, must result in such a sentence."

Li was a qualified doctor in China but his qualifications were not valid in the UK.

Read the rest of this story.

The beach is being cleaned more efficiently than I've ever seen before, so well done TDC, this makes a huge difference to the quality of life perception of local residents and gives us a coastline we can be proud of.

Sadly though, visitors to St Mildred's Bay now have nowhere to commune with mother nature on other matters, as you can see from the sign on the toilet door.

Who are the members of the vicious little gang causing thouands of pounds of damage to local amenities? Is it the same group who strike with monotonous regularity elsewhere, a problem not confined to Westgate either, with similar teenage gangs causing vandalism across the island.

How do we stop it and more importantly perhaps, where does the poor lady jogger I spotted looking desparate outside the toilets this morning, go to relieve herself at 08:30 in the morning?

Apparently Hollywood doesn't want to film its sequel to the Battle Of Britain here because the film crew can't find it on the map so they've decided to film it outside London instead and have asked to borrow an aircraft. I still don't know who the mystery star pilot is. Hope it's Sandra Bullock though!

Live music, circus acts and a giant musical dragon will be just some of the entertainments at a festival to celebrate the work of the Cliftonville West Renewal Area.

Tom Thumb Theate Margate

The free event, to be held on Saturday 20th May on the green between Newgate Promenade and Ethelbert Crescent from 10.00am to 4.00pm, marks the first anniversary of the Renewal Area team and will showcase the variety of projects that are making Cliftonville a better place to live. 'Magic what a difference a year makes' is funded by Thanet District Council and will feature live magic, circus acts from Kent Circus School and street dance and music from local group D-expressions.

Eastcliff Richard has been asked to loan his giant mechanical seagull from Ramsgate.

Face painters and fun rides will keep children entertained and there will be a food and drink available on the day. Visitors will be able to get information from local community groups and find out more about activities in their area.

The Renewal Area was launched in May 2005 with the aim of improving housing and environmental conditions in the area, after research showed Cliftonville West suffers some of the highest rates of unfit and non-decent homes in south east England. Over 75 Renewal Area Grants have been given out to homeowners and landlords to improve the appearance of their properties and homeowners have contributed almost £60,000 of their own money. The Renewal Area has supported a range of community projects in 2006/07, including the renovation of Dalby Square, maintenance of the Memorial Gardens in Trinity Square, the Newgate Gap Project with excluded young people and several alleygating schemes.

New guidelines on the future of the Dreamland site are to be developed, detailing the process which would be required if any developer wants to prove that an amusement park would not be viable on the site.


A Hole in One

The recommendation was agreed at Annual Council last night (Thursday 11 May), when Members also agreed that no further Modifications are to be made to the Local Plan, which sets out the planning policy for the area until 2011.

The Plan was considered by an independent government Inspector, who made more than 550 recommendations in his report. Most of these were updates or clarifications to the Plan and there were only a few instances where the Inspector disagreed with the Council's position.

The Council has agreed with the vast majority of the Inspector's recommendations and had already proposed to modify the Plan accordingly.

A public consultation on these modifications has been held over the last couple of months and there were a total of 452 representations submitted and of those, all but ten related to the Dreamland site. A large number of these comments stated that the policy, approved by the Council, created uncertainty and allowed other uses on the site.

The policy supports an amusement park on the site and only if it proved that this is not viable does the policy allow for re-development. Last night, Members agreed that new guidance would be put together, which sets out the tests and supporting evidence that would be needed, before permission would be granted for any other use on the site. The policy states that the predominant use should be for leisure and any plans must be compatible with the wider plans for Margate. The policy requires that the Scenic Railway must be retained and should be within a green park site.

Cllr. John Kirby, Cabinet Member for Development Services, said: "We know that Dreamland is an important issue to many people and we have listened to the concerns that have been put forward. This is why we are now planning on producing additional guidance that sets out clearly what tests would have to be met, should anyone want to use the site for anything but an amusement park.

"We feel this is the best way forward, as it is extremely important to adopt the Local Plan at the earliest opportunity. In the latest round of public consultation, there were no material new matters raised about Dreamland to justify overturning the Council's decision from January.

That's why we have chosen to do this. We can now move on with the important job of getting the Local Plan in place. This is a vital document for the future of Thanet and sets out a bold vision for our area, which we are determined to take forward."

In this week’s first “Ask Sandy” I put two of your questions to Thanet District Council Leader, Sandy Ezekiel and he’s now replied with his answers to them. Next week I’ll choose another question, so keep them coming and my thanks to Sandy for finding the time to respond to our readers’ concerns so promptly.


Margate Sands 1

Q: What is the present thinking for the regeneration of a Margate High Street which is crumbling into decay at an alarming rate and is in stark contrast with the efforts being made to develop a café society atmosphere in the Old Town area?

A: As you may already be aware, Thanet District Council has acquired the former Marks and Spencer building in the High Street. The plan is to create modern retail space, which we know that shops want, as part of a mixed use development. That may also include offices and perhaps workshops, as well as residential units. This is key to the revival of Margate. We need to bring people back to live in the town centre. We have already seen this happen with the apartments being created in Marine Gardens.

That’s part of the process that Ramsgate went through a few years ago. Remember a time when shops were shutting in that high street and people thought it was the end of the town? Look it now. It’s thriving and full of shops, with a café culture growing up alongside it. That was the result of bold investment in the town and bringing people back to live in the centre. Margate can do exactly the same and I firmly believe it will.

While we’re on the subject, I know a lot of people have strong views on Westwood Cross, but let’s be clear – it’s doing exactly what it’s meant to do and is keeping shopping local. We understand that shops in Canterbury have seen a drop in their figures of around 20% since Westwood Cross opened last summer. That’s 20% more money staying in Thanet’s economy, instead of seeping out into Canterbury and in addition, we know that Westwood Cross is bringing people in from across East Kent and beyond, bringing more money into Thanet. The opening of Westwood Cross not only brought a number of new high street names to Thanet, such as Next and TK Maxx, but it’s also helped to ensure that we have kept other major names.

Marks and Spencer for example. The company have recently announced plans to close some of their other stores in Kent – one of those is in Folkestone. That leaves them without a Marks and Spencer. We have a flagship store in Westwood Cross, which is superior to many others in the county.

Q: As we enter the summer season with little more than a Big Wheel with dubious planning authority, sitting in ‘Godden’s Gap’ what are the short term plans for Dreamland as a tourist attraction this summer? Is there a point of ‘No return’ for the site as a viable tourist attraction?

A: I think we need to make one thing clear here – this is a privately owned site. The Council does not own Dreamland, as many people seem to believe. We understand that there will be a fun fair during the summer months on the site and for the next two years, so talk of the site no longer being viable as a tourist attraction is premature to say the least.

The Council has agreed a policy for Dreamland which we hope will allow the site to be used to its full potential over the next few years. The policy supports an amusement park on the site, but if someone can prove that is not viable – and the policy sets out a number of tests and requirements to go through - then the policy suggests that the site’s main use should be for leisure. We want to see something that benefits Margate and indeed all of Thanet all year round and that’s what we’re working towards.

Away from Dreamland, let’s not forget that the Council is investing in events to benefit Margate. The Kent Air Show Margate saw the town full of visitors last year, with the Main Sands packed and hotels benefiting from the thousands of visitors that the event attracted to the area. The Council is also funding the Jazz Festival in July, Margate Carnival in August and has given money to Margate Town Partnership to series of events, so there’s plenty to look forward to in Margate this summer.

The front page of the Thanet Gazumph this morning, deals with the case of a Westgate shopkeeper who “cracked” after reportedly he had his shop windows smashed by one of the juvenile residents of Ethelbert’s Homes. He retaliated by smashing their windows, when the children's home reportedly declined to pay for the damage to his shop. He claims the home “Which enjoys good relations with the community” according to a spokesperson has caused him £10,000 of damage over the years.

He told the court that he was totally frustrated by the inability of the courts and the police to deal with such matters and by all accounts, this was one broken window too much for him. As a respectable citizen with no previous dealings with the criminal justice system, he was given a conditional discharge.

What would you have done in his shoes? The paper reports the alleged juvenile window-breaker was quickly bundled out of town but a Director of the home denies that any of their wards was involved. If you live in Birchington or Westgate, you can’t help but be aware of these juveniles as in my experience, some never seem to be in school and wander the streets. Now summer has arrived, on any hot day, when the tide is in, you’re quite likely to find these and others swimming and jumping off the promenade between St Mildred’s Bay and West Bay where I predict a tragedy is just waiting to happen.

The BBC reports that the body of a small dog has been found with a skipping rope tied around its neck on a road in Minster.

The adult female Jack Russell terrier was found on a grass verge in The Lanes outside the village.

RSPCA inspector Charlotte Eyden said: "This dog was very bloated and had her tongue out which looks very much as though she has been strangled.

"We would like to hear from anyone who knows who this dog belonged to and who killed her."

Insp Eyden said the dog, which was white with black markings, had been dead for some time and the body had already started to decompose.

"Around the dog's neck was a normal black collar and a child's skipping rope which had wooden handles and appeared to be tied quite tightly," she said.

Anyone with information should contact the RSPCA

James Stewart writes to tell us actor, Bob Hoskins will be filming in Thanet for about three weeks. Bob will be at the Ramsgate Waitrose tomorrow.

See James’ Weblog here.

Just in from one of our readers:

"You may remember a piece in the Gazette announcing that Argos were to open a new Extra store but that this would not mean the closure of their shops in Margate and Ramsgate. Wrong!!! Margate staff were today told that Margate store will close when the new super beast is open!"

Can anyone else confirm this story?

I had almost forgotten it was FA Cup Final Day on Saturday until I had a call this afternoon requesting a banner, supporting a Liverpool Football club website, to be flown around the stadium for ninety minutes during the match.

I can try and watch the action on the big screen from the air but I think the rest of you will be able to see rather more than me! None of the cold ‘Fosters’ either I’m afraid.

Focusing on the population of North Kent, the failed Education Secretary and now the new Communities and Local Government minister, Ruth Kelly, has said she is determined to root out ‘Nimbys’ - the ‘Not-in-my-backyard’ tendency. Building more affordable homes is a priority” said the minister who will no doubt be delighted with plans to build one thousand new homes opposite Westwood Cross. There's a more detailed evaluation in Tony Flaig's Weblog.

Given 1.5 cars per family, that gives us at least 1,500 news cars to add to the traffic already trying to negotiate the Margate and Ramsgate roads in the mornings and evening but a welcome increase in council tax revenues. I’m just wondering where all these new homeowners are going to be working in Thanet.

More mugging and thuggery to add to our climbing local crime rate, with Kent online reporting that an elderly woman begged a street attacker not to take her pendant containing treasured photographs of her dead son and husband - but her plea was ignored.

The robber snatched the gold chain from around the 83-year-old’s neck and ran off along an alleyway to St James Avenue in Ramsgate.

The victim had got off a bus at Allenby Road in the town at about 11.50am on Tuesday and was walking along South Court towards her home when she saw a man with his foot on a fence, apparently doing up his shoelace.

She carried on to her home, but was approached by the man who asked for the time. When she went to look at her watch he snatched the necklace.

Police say she was not injured during the robbery but was left shaken and upset.

The robber is aged about 18, 5ft 10in to 5ft 11in tall, thin and clean-shaven. He was wearing a blue baseball cap, a blue denim jacket, blue trousers and white trainers.

He appeared to have a cleft lip – a scar on the left side of his top lip.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Det Con Neil Watford at Margate police station on 01843 222093.

The Times newspaper reports today that one in six home owning pensioners has an outstanding mortgage, with an average debt of £45,313.

A third of pensioners with a mortgage owe more than £50,000, and one in ten has a debt of more than £100,000, the YouGov poll of 1,472 people aged 55 and over found. That brings the total mortgage debt of pensioners to £47 billion. Although the situation can put increased pressure on incomes during retirement, the bank expects the trend to continue. Just over half of people aged between 55 and 65 who are yet to retire are still burdened with a mortgage averaging £ 61,856.

Read the report it in full here.

I was in Herne Bay this afternoon and had a very pleasant lunch in the sunshine  in one of the cafes that you see along the High Street. What struck me was the variety of local shops and businesses and an almost cosmopolitan feel to the place, reminding me in a small way of the Wimbledon Village I left for Thanet three years ago.

What really struck me was the contrast between Herne Bay and the rest of Thanet. Herne Bay of course doesn’t have the benefits and disadvantages of Westwood Cross on its doorstep and as a result, the local shops have survived and appeared to be thriving on a sunny day; even a children’s toy shop, something one rarely sees anymore in a world dominated by Toys R Us.

Perhaps this is a lesson to us here in Thanet because without the kind of thriving High Streets I can remember as a boy, we’ll have plenty of superstores and very little local character to enjoy in the same way as the residents of Herne Bay.

I suspect that if you asked them if they wanted their own version of Westwood Cross on their doorstep with the inevitable consequences for the High Street, they’d probably say that they would prefer to make the trip to Canterbury instead but I could be wrong.

Had a call from a film company today. They want a banner flown over Brighton next month but more interestingly, it’s to do with a major production involving a big “Hollywood star.”

It seems that the movie star is the banner pilot in the plot and so they want to film him in the cockpit and want to know where they can do this. I’ve suggested they do it down here in Thanet at the airstrip but it all sounds very complicated and involves a “Unit Move” for the entire film crew to do it.

I wonder if it’s Tom Cruise?

No Smoking
Police have arrested two men in connection with the discovery of a cannabis factory in Ramsgate on Monday

The two suspects, one aged 19 and the other 49, were arrested on Tuesday afternoon at a house in Cliffsend, Ramsgate, on suspicion of conspiring to manufacture drugs.

Both men are currently at Margate Police Station assisting detectives with their enquiries.

After the raid Det Insp Nick Greenan said: "This is the largest plantation of cannabis ever uncovered in Thanet. It is a well set-up operation, with lights, an irrigation system, nurseries and several rooms with plants in various stages of growth."

Apparently, "The factory had the potential to produce millions of pounds of drugs."

Kent Escapes
On another point of local news, I hadn’t realized that Kent International Airport at Ramsgate was being “re-launched” with a roadshow this weekend, with passenger flights starting on 25th May - see www.kentescapes.co.uk/ (link on our sidebar and telephone 0845 676 0043). You can download their brochure from the website.

It seems like only yesterday that EUjet launched and let’s hope the new project is more successful than the last.

North Thanet’s MP, Roger Gale, has given a very warm welcome to the message issued by Conservative Leader David Cameron condemning the "sexualisation of children".

In a message to business and industry David Cameron has said that while the sexualisation of, particularly, young girls may be in the interests of some businesses it is not in the interests of families or of society.

"We accept" says Roger Gale "that young people from, for example, dance and stage schools will enjoy appearing in sophisticated costumes in pantomimes.  Those costumes, though, do not have to artificially replicate the clothes worn by young adults or to send out promiscuous signals.  There is all the difference in the world between kids wearing tap shoes and star-spangled leotards and children wearing "mini bikinis" and high-heels.

Some of the advertising of products appearing on television also offer images that, frankly, play to dubious audiences."

The MP, who prior to election to parliament was a Teenage and Children's TV producer and director, adds:

"This is a very sensitive subject and I applaud David Cameron for having the courage to go where many angels would fear to tread and to spell out clearly concerns that will be shared by very many parents and grandparents of young children. We all grow old fast enough and it's time that someone spoke out for what ought to be the innocence of childhood"

I see I've been caricatured in the excellent Snailspace weblog that has now joined the growing list of local bloggers keen to offer an alternative view of this semi-detached island of ours.

I'll have to find that white silk scarf on a wire that I haven't worn for ages!

Representatives from Thanet Council have told a Government minister that the scheme to provide disabled adaptions is not sustainable in areas like Thanet, with a higher than average number of older people.

Cllr. Ingrid Spencer, Cabinet Member for Housing and Community Services and senior Council officers, met with Baroness Andrews, a Minister in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster, in London last week (Wednesday 3rd May) along with representatives from Swale Borough and Dover District Council to discuss the problems that authorities are having in meeting the demand for Disabled Facilities Grants.

Councils across the country are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the demand for Disabled Facilities Grants, because of a growing elderly and frail population, but the problem is worse in Thanet.

Figures from the 2001 Census show that Thanet already has a significant elderly population, with more than one in five households over the age of 65, well above the national average of 15%. The number of people with long term illnesses is also well above the regional and national average at 23%.

The Minister was told that Thanet Council has increased expenditure on Disabled Facilities Grants in recent years to try and keep pace with the growing demand, with additional money put into the scheme by the Council over the last two years in a bid to reduce the backlog of claims.

Cllr. Ingrid Spencer said: "This was quite a positive meeting and we were able to make a number of useful points to the Minister about the scheme and how it operates on the ground. The Minister was very sympathetic to the difficulties faced by all Council in delivering Disabled Facilities Grants. She recognised the financial and demographic pressures are greater in Thanet than many other parts of the country, because of our elderly population and the levels of long term illness in our District, but it was also made clear by our colleagues from other parts of Kent that this is not a problem specific to Thanet. It's something that many other Councils across the country are also experiencing problems with."

She added: "The Minister welcomed our insights into the difficulties that we are experiencing with this scheme and indicated that a major review is to be conducted about the future of these grants. This is welcome news indeed, as I think we have all known for some time that there are difficulties with the way the scheme operates at present. It is something that needs to be improved, so that those awaiting adaptations can get the work they so desperately need, but we must be realistic. Individual Councils simply do not have the resources to meet the demand in their areas, so any changes to the scheme must involve more funding from a national level."

Thanet Council is condemning thugs who repeatedly punched a street cleaner in the head in an unprovoked attack in Ramsgate.

The Council worker was first approached by the two men in Boundary Road at around 6.15 on Saturday morning, who asked him if he had a cigarette.

He said no and continued his work, walking along Denmark Road to Dane Park Road, when the same two men approached him a few minutes later and again asked if he had a cigarette.

He gave the same answer and was then punched in the head by both men, leaving him with a wound to his forehead that needed stitches in hospital. Both men ran off along Dane Park Road to Boundary Road.

Cllr. Roger Latchford, Cabinet Member for Commercial Services, said:

"What have we come to when a member of staff is attacked while doing his job of cleaning up our streets? This was an appalling and unprovoked attack by what I can only describe as thugs and our thoughts are with the victim. He has asked us to pass his thanks on to the residents of Dane Park Road, who came to his assistance after the attack and called an ambulance for him."

He added: "I find it particularly upsetting, as in recent weeks, since we took the service back in house, we have had so many compliments from residents about the work of our street cleaners and how much better the area is looking. I would urge anyone with any information about this attack to contact the police immediately."

Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call Thanet Police on 01843 222 178.

James Maskell has sent in a note to tell us that:

“Gleeson Homes have released details about the 1000 home development planned for Westwood. It might be worth making a Weblog entry about it. Local residents apparently saw it today and quotes aired on Invicta FM, citing concerns about traffic.

For more details please see http://www.gleeson-homes.co.uk/westwood.asp

Thanks James.

Thanet residents only have until the end of the month to go direct for their chance to win £300.   Everyone who sets up a monthly Direct Debit to pay their Council Tax before 31 May will automatically be entered into a prize draw to win £300. Last year, a similar campaign saw an extra 1,400 people opting to use Direct Debit to pay their Council Tax bills.   Payments can be taken on any day of the month directly from bank or building society accounts. Ten monthly payments are made, either between April and January or between May and February. Once a Direct Debit payment is arranged for Council Tax bills, it remains in place for future years.  

Cllr. Martin Wise, Cabinet Member with responsibility for Resources, said: "Going direct and switching to Direct Debit is by far the easiest way to pay your Council Tax bills. No more sending cheques in every month or waiting in line at the Council offices to pay your bill, once the Direct Debit is set up, that's it. You don't have to worry about forgetting a payment. There are plenty of good reasons to make the change and if you do it between now and the end of May, then you'll be in with a chance to win £300 in our prize draw."  

To arrange your Direct Debit payment for your Council Tax bills, contact 01843 577 558 or log on to www.thanet.gov.uk/payments  

A Cannabis factory has been discovered in an industrial unit in Whitehall Road in Ramsgate during a Police raid yesterday.

There were reportedly 2,000 plants growing in the building, being cultured by a sophisticated hydroponics system.

Det Insp Nick Greenan said: "This is the largest plantation of cannabis ever uncovered in Thanet. It is a well set-up operation, with lights, an irrigation system, nurseries and several rooms with plants in various stages of growth."

He stressed: "The factory had the potential to produce millions of pounds of drugs.

"Crime scene investigators are at the plantation taking forensic samples after which the building will be emptied and the plants destroyed."

Police have not yet made any arrests in connection with the seizure.

I’m sure others will wish to comment on this story as this may have been set-up to support the influx of millionaires into the town of Ramsgate and to help while away the dull winter evenings. Quite ironic, I think as the police in Norfolk have just asked me to fly a banner around East Anglia promoting “Operation Crackdown”, the new national anti-drugs initiative. I can do Thanet too if Kent police are interested. May be a little late though!

The Sea Tower in St Mildred’s Bay has, I see, disappeared since last I walked the dog. Five construction workers in helmets and yellow jackets are presently attempting to sledgehammer the wall that separates the property from the seafront path as I write but the wall, built before the days of instant retirement homes, is made of sterner stuff and is putting up a fierce resistance.

They could of course reverse the bulldozer into it but this might cause all kinds of health and safety problems and complaints from people walking on the promenade below, so sledgehammer will have to do for now and very soon, the last gap in the skyline to the south will be blotted-out by the emergence of yet another luxury property block or two in this case.

A little bit of local history and colour joins the brick rubble on the road and I’ll leave you with a photo, a ‘Memento Mori’ of a changing seafront in Westgate. If you "click" on the picture, you can zoom up and see the building and its pool quite nicely in the centre of the picture.

It's a curious sign, the one at Westgate station.

Having had to walk around the village to enter the London-bound side of the station from the other side, I did rather wonder why the entrance to the brightly painted footbridge was still boarded up.

Your guess is as good as mine and the poor station-master too and the sign, shown opposite, isn't too illuminating either as we don't yet appear to have passed the completion date of 24th February in Railway construction months!

Back from a meeting on the subject of “Television without Frontiers” at Westminster this evening, attended by MPs, BBC, ITV, AOL, IBM, OFCOM, you name it. The whole subject is a European “can of worms” as an effort is made to regulate what is television and what is not in a digital age, where, in theory, I could start broadcasting from a simple weblog.

The Labour MPs had all reportedly disappeared into a mass huddle in a committee room somewhere, no prizes for guessing what they might be discussing and it wasn’t the huge mechanical elephant I saw parked forlornly on the South bank of the Thames amid some fairground tents.

Looking at the number of suggested questions for this week’s “Ask Sandy”, I think I should do two things. Firstly direct his attention to the comment thread for the context of people’s concerns and secondly ask him to answer the following two questions:

• What is the present thinking for the regeneration of a Margate High Street which is crumbling into decay at an alarming rate and is in stark contrast with the efforts being made to develop a café society atmosphere in the Old Town area?

• As we enter the summer season with little more than a Big Wheel with dubious planning authority, sitting in ‘Godden’s Gap’ what are the short term plans for Dreamland as a tourist attraction this summer? Is there a point of ‘No return’ for the site as a viable tourist attraction?

Meanwhile, back at Westminster, I spot a dishevelled looking Boris Johnson who looked as if he was searching for a lost bicycle or was simply lost in absent-minded thought. Rather Boris though than the alternative in the Republic of Tower Hamlets where a re-run of the local election may be forced by court action as a consequence of the ‘massive electoral fraud’ reported by the Evening Standard this evening.

A source of potential concern for areas with a growing middle-aged and elderly population, like Thanet, is reported in today’s Daily Telegraph, which writes:

“About 850,000 Britons over 50 are permanently overdrawn and 5m older people who are not working face an overdraft "black hole" of about £2.7bn, research has found.

A survey by price comparison website uSwitch reveals that the older generation are increasingly reliant on their overdraft to supplement their income, with many using it to make ends meet.”

Talking of Iraq and more, I’m told that former Chatham House student, Michael Davis-Marks, will be visiting Buckingham Palace this week to receive his OBE from the Queen.

Michael you may remember from an earlier posting organised the Trafalgar Day review at Portsmouth, was a nuclear submarine captain and our naval attaché in Washington, proving without question that being from Thanet, which is rich in jetskis but notoriously short of submarines, is no disadvantage in life.

Having been invited by the Labour Party to run-up a preliminary draft of Tony Blair’s resignation letter in the morning, I’m reminded that at the opposite end of the political spectrum, I have to come up with this week’s question for our council leader Sandy Ezekiel.

One suggestion I've read, involves, building “a Chernobyl style nuclear power station on the Pleasurama site, a nice idea and a potential tourist attraction with the added benefit of being of concrete construction and therefore resistant to accidents with lighted matches.

I’m not certain that Sandy will be too keen on the idea so I’ll ask readers to come up with other suggestions for this week’s “Ask Sandy” or follow-up with some of the points made in his first “Podcast” of last week, that you’ll find further below. I’ll tell you which one it is before I forward it on and then you can, if you wish accuse me of political bias.

I may however run any questions past Conservative Central Office, Opus Dei and FHM Magazine for approval.

A poor start for the new Home Secretary, John Reid, now facing a fresh crisis over foreign criminals, after a senior immigration official revealed that more than half of the 1,023 released in error will remain at liberty on the streets of Britain. Rather like unwelcome house guests that steal the furniture, we’re stuck with them and their continuing lawlessness until they’re too old or too dead to commit any more havoc or they’re banged-up in a prison, an asylum or a nursing home or both at our expense.

I think it’s time to leave Iraq. Yesterday’s “Black Hawk Down” type incident with a British helicopter over Basra simply reinforced my opinion. From now, things can only get much worse and yet our government continues to lie to us in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Listen to the new Defense Secretary this morning and he’ll tell you that we are winning hearts and minds and that the Iraqi army and police are trained-up and ready to take our place in maintaining law and order. Listen to the media and remarks from our own soldiers and the same allies, in southern Iraq at least, are under the control of the Iranian Shi’a militias; one reason why the army had to level one of the police stations in Basra recently when two SAS men were openly being held against the instructions of the Iraqi government and our army.

The problem though is that this is exactly what the Iranians want; us to pull up stakes and quit. This then gives them control of the southern oilfields of Iraq, an Iranian province in all but name and Europe and the United States being strangled by the potential loss of oil and threat to the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil field. It’s a nightmare scenario that is swiftly coming true.

But Basra is like Aden in the sixties for those who can remember that far back. We couldn’t hold that either and British soldiers will continue to die, like their American counterparts to the north as Iraq bloodily fragments into two if not three separate states, much as Yugoslavia did after General Tito.

But God instructed both Tony and George to invade Iraq and who can doubt or even challenge his will in such matters.

In a week where TV quiz celebrity, Carol Voorderman, is under pressure to stop using her “trusted” reputation to flog the naïve so-called cheap loans on television, there’s news that personal bankruptcies and company failures are growing at an alarming rate.

The Times reports today: “Leading accountants joined politicians to sound warnings over the threat from a “what the hell” culture of “spend now, worry later” as the number of personal bankruptcies in England and Wales leapt to 23,251 in the first quarter, the highest number since the Sixties.”

Voorderman is however so successful at attracting new business for her sponsors that they have stated that they aim to continue using her in their advertisements. She has declined, quite sensibly to comment and I’m sure that the size of her contract would make her most reluctant to consider quitting a role which delivers her a little extra money to use to “splash out” on something special.

You can find the story in "Kent on Saturday."

Just back from deepest Cornwall to read that an 18-year-old was stabbed at a car park in  Albion Road, Broadstairs at around 11pm on Thursday in. The victim suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries.

Police say the assault appears to have resulted from an argument that happened in the nearby Dolphin pub and continued outside in the street

No arrests have yet been made in connection with the incident.

You'll probably find this weblog a little quiet over the next few days as I'll be spending more time in the air than on the ground and as yet, haven't worked out how to post a weblog without taking my hands off the controls. One day, I'm certain that technology will find a solution to this problem, in the same way that my phone has a nasty habit of ringing just as I'm about to take off or I'm on final approach to the runway, really it does!

I'm due to take the happy winners of the Thanet Gazumph's cancer charity auction for a fly-around tomorrow, if I get back in time, so I'll try and remember to record it on my camera.

I’ve just been listening to an interview on BBC Radio Kent about QEQM Margate Hospital servers running slow because they are “stuffed” with personal music, iTunes etc.

Not a problem says the QEQM spokesman. I beg to differ.

Is our local health authority insane as well as broke? What is personal content doing on NHS servers and has anyone ever heard of eCrime or Netcrime?

If content like this is on hospital computers, Lord knows what other “malicious” content might be on board and capable of stealing confidential and personal patient or hospital authority information. What the hell is going on as regards the hospital’s own acceptable use policy in the middle of an online crimewave.

I had a word with the BBC earlier and their report says:

"Staff were downloading music for use on their MP3 playersStaff at a Kent hospital have been banned from downloading music and videos from the internet after they clogged up its main server.

The problem came to light at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in Margate when a new server was being installed.

The work took half a day longer than it should because there were so many files downloaded for use on MP3 players.

Manager Stuart Nesbit said patient records were not affected.

"Separate clinical systems run all the various packs for X-rays and so on," he said.

"The only things that were compromised were access to Word documents and that sort of thing."

He said the server was five years old and due to be replaced.

"We looked at what these large files were and they were deleted.

"An email went round to people explaining that it was unacceptable practice."

East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust is now looking at computer systems at its other large hospitals, the Kent and Canterbury at Canterbury and the William Harvey at Ashford to see if they have the same problem. "

Situation vacant - Equal opportunity political space - Please apply.

In his first Gale’s View after deciding to suspend his column in the Isle of Thanet Gazumph, Roger Gale takes a hard look at the shambles being managed by our nation’s very own” Nanny.”

Prime Minister Blair has, we are told, taken personal charge of the Health Service.  Not quite enough charge to personally face the nurses, of course but enough charge to be held responsible for the financial shambles that the "Nation's  Nanny", Patricia Hewitt, has allowed to evolve.

So perhaps Mr. Blair would like to come to East Kent and to visit Fordwich Ward at the QEQM hospital in Margate.  He will find that it is shut.

Fordwich Ward began life as the Hatfield Ward, taking the hospital’s private patients until the opening of the new Spencer Wing at the end of the last(20th) century.  It was then transformed into a fourteen-bedded short-term surgical ward operating for five days a week as Fordwich Ward.

In August 2004 the ward** was closed, fully refurbished and extended to take24 beds and re- opened for business on a seven-day a week basis in January 2005.  A dedicated team of  more than 20 nursing staff was built up and ran the surgical ward until December 2005 when an overnight switch was made to create a medical ward to respond to the "Winter Crisis" that did not happen.

Medical wards take mainly elderly and longer stay patients  Surgical wards tend to take younger, fitter  patients who attend for operations, recover and leave.  It is, therefore, easier to switch from surgical to medical treatment than to reverse the process.

Nevertheless, it was expected by nursing staff  and patients that Fordwich would revert to the surgical use for which it was designed on 3rd April.

A Government funding cut of £20 million, not bad management as has been suggested, precipitated the planned closure of the ward at the end of May.

The ward was in fact shut when a toaster caught fire on 10th April and it has not re-opened.

As a result of this closure “outlyers" - patients for whom there are now no beds on specialist wards -  are having to be regularly  accommodated and last week nine extra beds, for which there are no curtains and no privacy, were being crammed onto other wards.

And all this while Fordwich lies shut through lack of funds.

The dedicated Fordwich nursing staff are, I understand, now peripatetic.
They turn up each day (or night) not knowing where they are going to work or what kind of services they are to be required to provide.  Nurses are trained to do, and will do, whatever nursing tasks are demanded of them but patient-contact and relationships and job-satisfaction matter and, for these people, no longer exist.

Are you proud of this "best year ever" Mr. Blair?

Staying with the schools and education theme, here’s an encouraging item of news for you, More than 4,500 crimes in Kent and East Sussex schools were recorded by police in 14 months, figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws have shown.

The BBC reports offences included wounding, theft, arson, drug-taking, vandalism and harassment.

One school Bexhill High School, a specialist technology college, has 1,600 students and had the highest number of reported crimes since January 2005 among South East schools.

Head teacher Mike Conn said the school was not "crime-ridden".

If it’s not, then I’d hate to see what a really “crime-ridden” school is like.

Just in time to reinforce those allegations of political bias, here's a release from Roger Gale on cauliflowers, just in.

Kent Farms Suffer as Government withholds Cash

Kent's farmers are suffering financial difficulties while this Government fails to pay money due to them, claims North Thanet's MP Roger Gale.

Speaking in his North Thanet constituency - famed for its cauliflower and potato production - this morning the MP says:

"At the turn of the year agriculture Minister, Lord (Willi) Bach claimed that most farms in England would have received payments due by the end of March.

We are now heading towards mid-summer and the response, received this week, to my parliamentary question, reveals that less than fifty per cent of farmers in England have in fact received the Single Farm Payments due to them. This is causing real hardship in a farming community already suffering from the buying power of supermarket chains and from cheap overseas imports.

In Scotland, farmers received their money months ago. The shambles that is the Ministry of Agriculture (DEFRA) in England has meant that vital funds are being denied to English farmers.

We are now at a stage that the deadline for farmers to submit claims for the coming year is fast approaching. The farmers do not have the figures to work on because last year's claims have still not been settled and the Government refuses to shift the date of the deadline! I see more chaos and more farm closures ahead.

The Prime Minister might like to sack Lord Bach and take personal charge of agriculture as well as of the Health Service and the Home Office!"

Some criticism today of my Sandy Ezekiel interview. Apparently I’m not giving equal opportunity to other political colours by having MP, Roger Gale and Cllr Ezekiel, appearing here.

I would like to say that Tony Blair, Steve Ladyman, UKIP, Pol Pot (I think he’s dead) and Joseph Stalin (he’s definitely dead) are welcome to contribute. I’m not sure about the ‘Lib Dems’, as they are almost dead and may not otherwise qualify as a political party but it takes all sorts I suppose.

On another topic in today’s papers, I had thought that schools were something to do with education and teachers were supposed to be focused on, well, teaching but The Times this morning tells us that schools are to be required to balance the social and racial mix of all their pupils under new government rules designed to end backdoor selection.

It writes: “In plans described as a “minefield” by head teachers, schools will also have to carry out detailed research into applicants to ensure they “attract all sections of local communities”.

At the same time they will be banned from asking about the financial, employment or marital status of parents before a child is admitted, to ensure fairness. Heads will also be barred from inquiring about a child’s “behaviour or attitude” at primary school when deciding on admissions. “

The paper comments that this move will introduce “An extra bureaucratic burden on head teachers when what they should be focusing on is raising the quality of teaching at the school. Instead, they will be bogged down conducting analysis for social engineering reasons.”

I’m trying to imagine how our local schools will handle this. I suppose they will divide their places into a proportionate mix of coloured jelly babies. Red ones will be those from solid, middle-class nuclear families with a good school record, green will be the total opposite, orange will be special needs and yellow will represent ethnic diversity. Can you imagine how much paperwork will be involved in trying to determine whether a school in Ramsgate has the correct ratio of colours and flavours in contrast with a school in Broadstairs? Forget literacy, teaching and standards, it’s all about diversity, statistics and pupil management. No wonder more and more parents in this country are making financial sacrifices to send their children to school in France of all places!

Yesterday afternoon, I met with Thanet Council Leader, Sandy Ezekiel and put to him, some of the questions that readers left for me last week.

A five minute audio interview turned into ten minutes, Sandy Ezekiel’s first ‘Podcast’ but I suspect that we had more than enough material to go on for an hour or so.



With this in mind, we came up with another idea. Each week, I will take what readers tell me is the most pressing issue to take-up with the council. It could be Westwood Cross, Dreamland, Litter, Planning, you name it. I will then put this and any supporting material to Sandy Ezekiel who will give us a written answer in a column of his own.

I think that this is an excellent idea. It makes local government in Thanet more accountable, receptive and more visibly “in touch” with what people are thinking than ever before and every and any step forward towards a more positive working relationship between public servants and the population at large has to be a good thing in my mind so my thanks to Sandy Ezekiel for his cooperation.

On another note, I’ve had an email from the BBC Politics Show which says:

“We are currently filming our first two campaign groups and are planning to film a couple more later in this run – June time. Either myself or Trudi, the programme editor, will be in touch later this month when we decide which groups we’ll be focussing on.”

So Perhaps ThanetLife will feature on the political landscape this summer?

The RSS Feed can be found here for Podcast enthusiasts. http://drmoores.audioblog.com/rss/zentelligence.xml

With the Guardian newspaper headlining the fuss over Academy sponsorship money, I notice that the Marlowe Academy is not listed among those who have either received the full £2 million of sponsorship or not received anything at all. It must lie somewhere in between.

Does anyone know?

The Guardian writes: “Most of the sponsors who agreed to fund the prime minister's flagship academy programme have not paid the £2m they pledged, the Guardian has learned. Four academies that opened last September have received no cash at all, and 10 others have received some money but nowhere near the promised sum. Only four have received the full amount. In all, 23 of the 27 academies opened so far are still waiting to receive what was pledged.

Details of the payments, which were outlined in a parliamentary answer, angered opposition leaders and the teaching unions, which had understood that the full £2m would be paid before any academy opened.”

I suppose I’m politically incorrect but I suspect that I’m a member of the silent majority.

The fuss over the failure to deport foreign criminals, such as the recidivist Somali burglar, Mustaf Jama, featured on the front page of two of today’s papers goes on. Somalia is considered too dangerous to send anyone back to, including the US military, for those of you who watched the film, “Black Hawk Down” and Cardiff, I’m told by a police officer friend, is now home to the largest population of Somali refugees in the UK, most of whom I’m sure, are living peaceful and law abiding lives.

The figures for re-offending foreign prisoners and in particular, those from Jamaica and Nigeria are not encouraging. The Civitas think-tank has issued calculations suggesting that nearly 700 of the 1,023 foreign offenders released since 1999 without being considered for deportation would have committed new crimes within two years.

Civitas said that Home Office data suggested a reconviction rate of 67.4 per cent for ex-prisoners, which amounted to 689 out of the 1,023.

Of the 288 released since last August - when ministers knew of the problem - an estimated 141 would have been convicted again within a year, the think-tank said.

But here’s a thought. If someone like Mustaf Jama, a key suspect in the killing of WPC Sharon Beshenivsky knew that if he abused our hospitality, he would, after being found guilty by the courts, be deposited back into to the lawless hell-hole he came from, would he be less inclined to commit a crime here?

One might argue that contemplating the consequences of their actions is not a strength of most criminals and that the threat of immediate deportation would not make any significant behavioural difference but then why should the British tax payer be expected to pick up the prison and re-offending costs of men like Mustaf Jama and others with more violent inclinations?

Why, I wonder, can’t the European Union governments get together and agree on some small changes to the Human Rights legislation to protect the interests of the indigenous populations of the member states; i.e. we welcome refugees but in return for our accepting you and giving you generous state support, you agree to live your life in a lawful manner. If you don’t, Abou Hamza, Mustaf Jama and many thousands of others, your’e on the next flight out to where we believe you came from originally, regardless of whether you have ripped-up your passport or not.

But society doesn’t work that way and such a fantasy is immoral, unjust and unfair to the majority of those who choose to take refuge here. Wouldn’t you agree?!

North Thanet`s MP, Roger Gale, is questioning the Home Secretary over the levels of alchohol-related crime and anti-social behaviour in Kent.

The questions follow concerns expressed at the weekend by Kent`s Chief Constable, Mike Fuller and are due for written answer next Monday (8th May).

"I am asking for Home Office figures for crimes and anti-social incidents reported in each of the years from 1996 to the present" says Roger Gale "and I have also asked for information gathered since the implementation of the 2005 licencing act at the end of last year.

I think we need to know what the Home Secretary intends to do to address issues that are causing very real problems for Kent police and residents and that generate huge costs upon the taxpayer.

Certain sections of the press may consider it amusing to promote the "ladette boozing culture" but others are left to pick up the bill for the social and health damage caused.  There is all the difference in the world between the responsible attractions of "café society" and the wreckage caused by juvenile binge drinking".

The Kent Messenger reports that a motorcyclist who died last week in an accident on the Thanet Way has been named by Kent Police.

He was 37-year-old Michael Pedley who came from High Street, Sittingbourne.

He was on the London-bound side of the A229, near Herne Bay, when his machine was in a collision with a Rover Metro driven by an 86-year-old woman from Herne Bay.

Police believe the Metro was travelling the wrong way along the dual carriagewayamd officers are investigating how she could have got access to the wrong side of the road.

Thanet police spokesman Dougall Bell said it was too early to say if the woman would be charged with any offences, but said was being interviewed as part of officers’ inquiries.

The accident, which happened in daylight at about 6.30pm on Tuesday, April 25, closed both sides of the road and caused huge traffic jams in the area. The road did not reopen until after midnight.

With Labour heading for its worst local election drubbing in almost 40 years this week, as voters protest at the failings of Charles Clarke and the lurid sex allegations involving John Prescott it’s almost sad that we won’t be having any ballot-box action here in Thanet. That said, I’m off to see our own council leader, Cllr. Sandy Ezekiel this afternoon to record the first of what I hope will be a regular series of audio interviews and he has the questions you added to the news-piece last week; so we’ll aim to tackle as many as we can in the short interview of about five minutes. You might describe this as Thanet’s first party political ‘Podcast’ although that’s not what I’m looking for.

I’ll try and have the results up as quickly as I can, depending on how busy I am and how long it takes me to clean-up the audio quality and upload it to the web.

If they hadn’t changed their mind at the last minute, today, I might have been floating a “Vote Labour” banner over London. The party there could lose up to ten of the fifteen councils it controls as local government pundits predict a “meltdown” in support for the government on Thursday. Instead, Tony Blair will be joined by Gordon Brown and Ken Livingstone, on the campaign trail over the next two days to shore up support in London. No air support then unless they plan to spend £15,000 on a helicopter to get into the really tricky parts of the city that are off-limits to light aircraft.

Commenting on the media frenzy of the last week, David Aaronvitch comments in The Times:

"It is important to realise that stories are not the same thing as the truth. Modern media stories, with all their dramatic requirements, exclude far more that is important than they include, and are of limited use in making big decisions about how countries should be governed."

He concludes: "Now, you can argue that Labour may deserve to suffer in this way because of the party’s various media sins, not least in exploiting the anti-Major firestorm of 1996-97. But that doesn’t mean that we citizens deserve to suffer too. A mature democracy badly needs more than media frenzy. "

If you are interested in historical extracts from the local Thanet papers of 1906, then visit this site, Women in Kent. Men are welcome too!

The website offers an insight into women's lives and their concerns and covers a fascinating era in women's history: the period when the suffrage campaign became increasingly militant, against a background of stories of heroines, criminals, victims, achievers and losers.

In one example: “Mary Ann Todd, 38, of 5 Castle Road, Ramsgate, was charged with attempted suicide. This she had done because her husband "abused me so badly I had nothing to live for."

Contrasting the news from then and now,  the example below, shows a remarkable and depressing similarity to one report in the Thanet Gazette last month.

“George Young of 82 South Eastern Road was charged with cruelty to his wife. Among her injuries were a black eye, bruises and kickings. Her doctor testified that this was true. He had also tried to strangle her and had threatened her with a dagger. The housemaid and a neighbour testified to this. The husband promised to be good and the case was dismissed.”

With all the Weblogs now springing-up in Thanet – see sidebar links – this semi-detached island of ours is starting to develop a healthy ‘Samizdat’ underground information and news resource, as well as an interesting perspective on what’s happening around the place.

Yesterday, I had an hour to take a good long look at the Great Yarmouth sea-front area from the air and was impressed at how clean, tourist-friendly and well-landscaped it all was, with a long water feature park running parallel to the sands. Even the pier and the sea-front amusements looked inviting and evoked distant memories of Margate as a boy and walking along the pier with my grandfather.

Now, look at Margate seafront from the air and there are hundreds of photos available from the links section on the sidebar and you’ll probably come to the same conclusion as me. Great beach but doesn’t it look messy, a crumbling sixties presence, with the huge and almost empty space of Dreamland behind it and the towering slab of the tower block adjacent to a crumbling station approach.

What does regeneration really mean in this broader context and not just the Old Town but the whole seafront, to bootstrap Margate up to a level with other resorts?

I’m told we made an appearance on the BBC’s “Match of the Day” last night, although by then sleep had caught up with me and try as I might, I couldn’t stay awake long enough to see how big the banner looked from a Spur’s fan’s perspective.

Flicking through today’s papers after a lie-in, I’m once again left with the impression that the world is collapsing around me and it’s not just the footballers.

There’s Wayne Rooney’s Metatarsal for starters. My own theory is that the present generation of footballers are the first to demonstrate calcium deficiency, growing-up after the end of free school milk. As a consequence, their bones may be more brittle than their predecessors. If I’m right, then it’s the young women of today who will really suffer once they pass the menopause into old age, and the strain on the health service in forty years to deal with broken bones, if we have one, will be even worse than it is today.

Staying with the theme of things falling apart today, we have the story in The Times, of a grandmother who spent a night in a police cell after a scuffle with a group of children in which she was threatened with a piece of wood.

The Times reports that Brenda Robinson, 66, a church volunteer in Bournemouth, said that she was given only a glass of water by police before being interviewed the next morning.

She was arrested for assault after challenging the youngsters, one of whom had kicked a football against a family car.

She said she had given the boy, 11, “a clip around the ear” after he called her a “f****** bitch”. Mrs Robinson was then threatened in her garden by a teenage boy carrying a lump of wood, and two 13-year-old girls, one of whom starting pushing her. She said that she pulled one of the teenage girls by the hair and threw her out of the garden. Shortly afterwards the police arrived and arrested the grandmother for assault.

Mrs Robinson, who said her daughter-in-law’s partner had been killed by a gang of youths five years ago, told The Times that “the dice were loaded against law-abiding people”.

So we have literally thousands of foreign prisoners running amok in our society, kids committing vandalism and violent assault with impunity and grandmothers ‘banged-up’ with bread and water, overnight in a cell, for reportedly slapping an aggressive foul-mouthed little thug. No wonder so many of us express despair as our society continues its spiral down the plughole of social history.

Meanwhile you’ll be encouraged to read, also in The Times, that under the rules that replace the scheme by which employers were encouraged to give their staff personal computers to use in order to boost computer literacy, office computers used in part for non-business purposes are now treated as a benefit in kind, meaning that employees will have to pay income tax on them, and employers will have to pay national insurance contributions for them as well.

This means, in principle at least, that I will now have to pay tax for writing this weblog.

On a computer bought for £2,000, an employee paying higher-rate tax would face a £160 bill each year and an employer would have to pay an extra £51.20.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation said the result could be “a new bureaucratic burden” on employers to make sure that private use of computers was kept to an insignificant level.