ANOTHER POSTCARD FROM EIVISSA

The sunset was almost as good as those from Margate last night. The temperatures are dropping away but a high of 22C is still enough to warm the pool and justify the opening of some ice-cold San Miguels at mid-day.

Friends report that 'Mowice' is claiming those who opposed the Gateway Application are responsible for 'scaremongering' and that this week's KM Extra had the word blazed across its front page. From a Councillor who swore at an outgoing Mayor at a Civic Event and allowed 'his' Council to accept a gift of £12.500 from the developers CGP whilst it had a 'live' application before his Council, this appears to be just another arrogant and ill-considered outburst that will come back to haunt our Conservative Councillors when the electorate next has the opportunity to vote.

We seem to have a real problem with integrity in this country; the Labour Government at national level in respect of exalting to the peerage, a man who has resigned twice over issues of probity and at local level, a Tory led District Council , that sees fit to accept a planning applicant's gift of sponsorship for a civic event!

This reminds me of a tale attributed to Churchill but perhaps not;

At discussion over dinner the conversation got round to prostitution. "Would you sleep with me for a thousand pounds?" was the question put to the lady on his left. "Certainly not" was the reply. " If I offered you a 'hundred-thousand', would you reconsider?" After a pause the answer was "Well just for one night, I probably would for that amount". " In that case, what about a 'quickie' outside for a fiver?" "No! How disgusting! Do you take me for a common tart?"

"Madam", came the reply, " We've already established that fact. All I am now negotiating is a price."

So what you may ask? It is the 'principle' !

Whether TDC accepted a 'gift' of £5, £12,500 or £250,000 is irrelevant. It has behaved 'like a common tart'. It's 9 meetings with CGP reps, 'Woger' or 'Mowice' or both with Senior Officers in attendance, between Jan and Sep of this year alone, WITHOUT MINUTES BEING TAKEN, raises questions as to why were minutes not taken? This seems odd.

TDC has lost its probity and integrity in the eyes of many of its electorate over 08/0400.(only 10 Councillors saw fit to decline making a decision on the Phase 1 Application, that would have then put the matter in Independent hands.)

'Mowice' has yet to wake up to this fact. Hurling insults at principled and concerned members of Thanet's electorate only serves to reinforce the low regard that many may already have of him.
=======================


(four more days of warmth and back on Thursday, if the air-line hasn't gone belly-up! Thanks to Senor de Latona for time on his computer.)

THE DESTRUCTION OF THANET, AS YOU KNOW IT,COMMENCES

Bertie, is off to Ibiza again to contemplate his navel and ponder on the odd workings of Thanet Council in Full Council mode.

Was it right to squash Cllr Poole's attempts to add conditions that would limit hours of operating of HGVs that will blight Acol or Cllr Wells' attempts to get the X types off SPZ1 and away from the poor people of Acol? If that is the open democratic process at work then that is the decision our elected representatives have made. If we are unhappy with it, then we have the option of the ballot box in a few years time. Perhaps Thanet deserves the Council it has.

So tonight our Councillors made their decision to begin the move to make our Isle , "The Home of Chinese Globalisation"and approved CGP's application for Phase 1 of the process. Sit back and wait for the process to gather momentum. They have said that many conditions will have to be scrutinised by Planning Committee but we wait to see how effective that will be.

An impassioned plea from Sheila Bransfield, the Chair of Acol Parish Council, to spare Acol misery, fell on deaf ears, as did Mr Kirkaldie' s concerns about lack of protection for Thanet's drinking water. Mr Thomas may as well have saved his breath concerning the fact that whilst the Cabinet members were pushing job creation, his simple news that over 1000 job vacancies are presently advertised in Thanet's Job centre with very little response from our 'rump' of unemployed was ignored. I have been sent the following by a contact that was presented by Mr Wells and quite frankly he may as well have not bothered either. I attach it for you in full.

"Mr Chairman and members, thank you for this opportunity to address you.

Few are likely to object to high quality development that brings jobs to Thanet. This application isn’t a high quality development.

I have a number of serious reasons why I feel Councillors should not approve this application this evening.

This application is quite clearly not ‘stand-alone’ and to argue otherwise, is to fly in the face of all the evidence to the contrary including the memorandum of understanding with Chinese Industry to develop agricultural land and Mr Wills’ own TV admission last night. Approval will create ‘inland Docks’ with more HGV traffic than Dover.

If we accept the ‘charade’ that this application stand’s alone, then I urge you to reject it on the basis that it is quite simply a shambles. KCC has said it is over-crowded; Theatrical Pyrotechnics punches a hole in the plans. What is left, is effectively a Gateway Building and 5 huge redistribution warehouses placed closest to Acol and on the most sensitive part of the aquifer.

There is, in the background, a serious issue of this Councils property company partnered with KCC, East Kent Opportunities. Your own ‘company’, with your TDC Director, Cllr Latchford, is charging CGP £2.25 million for 5 acres for its Gateway Building and a ransom strip. If ‘your’ property company, Councillors, had released all its holdings, a better plan could have resulted. Is this Council now compromised being a direct beneficiary of its own approval decision?

My final comments to you , concern the perception of integrity and probity in this whole issue and the good name of this Council. Your Cabinet and Senior officers over 2 years have developed a close relationship with the developer. This may require your scrutiny in due course. A ‘respectable’ distance could and should have been maintained.

.An acceptance by Cabinet of £12,500 sponsorship for TDC’s Big Event from this developer whilst its planning application was ‘live’ and under consideration by this Council has, I would suggest, in one fell swoop, undermined the integrity of this planning process. Who was responsible for such folly?

I urge you to consider not only this Council’s good name and integrity which is now in question but if you move to pass this application, you will have missed the opportunity to enhance this Council’s reputation rather than further damage it. It is time for an Independent Planning Inspector to look at this application with clean hands and fresh insight and the sooner the better.

Thankyou"
===========================
I am now off to Gatwick with Ranulph Fiennes book on Scott of The Antartic (Captain Scott) to remind me how honesty, honour and integrity were once traits that were held in some esteem. To paraphrase, Captain Oates, " I might be gone some time".

DECISION TIME ON CHINA GATE

Too busy on other things to worry too much about China Gateway today. I just hope that all our Councillors will come to an honest and righteous decision that restores the credibility of Thanet District Council.

I have a link to a BBC article that follows up the Inside/Out Programme item made by Glenn Campbell and shown last night. Here it is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/articles/2008/10/06/south_east_thanet_chinese_s14_w4_feature.shtml

I hope it works and as Thanet's Premier Blog quotes Dave Allen, let me do so too:
"May Your God go with you".

A CONSPIRACY THEORY OR THE TRUTH, THOM?

On Thursday 17 April, 'Strife' reported that something was 'a foot' down at the Eurokent site for industrial development (See "The Business Barons Carve Up Thanet". )

With the local press getting onto the 700 houses on Eurokent instead of industrial development for jobs and our two MPs coming out with a big 'No Way' just over a week ago, I thought I might like to draw readers' attention to the fact that you might have read it on Strife first, almost 6 months ago.

For those who accuse Bertie and other 'bloggers' as 'conspiracy theorists' (Thom Morris at IOTG, please note that I was a little miffed to have Strife dumbed down the other week in Thanet Times) let me show you again what I wrote in April:

"No, the Business Barons of Rose Farm Estates and Ken Wills at Commercial Group Properties seem to have other ideas that TDC et al are going along with. My theory runs like this; Commercial Property Group: you guys can go and cover all that land down in Manston with 40 industrial/business sheds to create 'jobs' called China Gateway and we no longer have the need for business units at Eurokent over at Westwood. Let's have a jolly good re-think and wow! we can have a new master plan for Eurokent! It could be used for more 'jobs'(those silly TDC councillors and planners love that added to a scheme as it gives it credibility) "better recreational facilities, family homes (nice touch from the PR team there, 'family' gets us all feeling warm), NEW SHOPS and MUCH MORE!" ( And between them all they make more £millions) . I am quoting from the http://www.eurokent.org/ site. Go and look at it."

If you bothered to go to Clarendon School on Sat 13th Sep, it was all laid out for you: a nice lucrative money earning housing estate of 700 homes with local facilities presented by that property firm EKO (Your own TDC Council with 'Woger' as Director & KCC). Even more interesting was TDC Cabinet meeting on 18th September to discuss redesignating land for employment at Manston (our Ken Wills & CGPs Phase 2 and 3 purchases in 2006 and 2007 after discussion with a TDC Planning Officer).

Let me finish with a snippet that the new members of Strife's R &D Team came up with today. This is an extract from Rose Farm Estates (RFE) Director's Report dated 31 March 2008 and issued days after EKO LLP (TDCs Property Company ) was formed:

"Also during 2007and still ongoing RFE have agreed to work with TDC and KCC to look to revise the masterplan and overall planning issues for a more mixed use development to take account of the emergence of this area, including the new retail at the adjoining Westwood Cross, as the new Town Centre for Thanet overall. All parties are working towards a revised Planning Application being submitted the summer of 2008. IT IS EXPECTED THAT THIS REVISED APPROACH WILL ADD USES AT A HIGHER VALUE THAN CURRENTLY ARE ALLOCATED TO THIS AREA." (my capitals)

So 'Woger' ( pwesumably egged on by his attached twin'Mowice') is making sure that CGP and RFE will make oodles of cash (he is after all Deputy Leader and a Director of EKO) as Thanet gets covered in concrete. Thanks a lot.

(Next time, young Thom, be careful who you accuse of engaging in conspiracy theories!)

WHO'S MISSED OUT FROM SANTA WILLS?

Mrs Biggles was amazed to see Christmas has started in TKMAXX at Westwood but I had to remind her that for some its been Christmas since 2007, courtesy of Santa Wills and CGP.

It all began in 2007 with a perfectly legitimate political donation to Steve Ladyman of £25,000 and South Thanet Labour in 2007 which quite properly was admitted to in Parliament's Member's Interests and noted by TDC Planning Commitee meeting in August when Labour members declared it. It has since come to my attention , via Big News Margate, that a similar generous offer was made to TDC Tories with £12,500 for Thanet North and £12,500 for Thanet South. It was clearly turned down and quite rightly so. Nice to see 'balance' though.

Santa's largesse did not end there. Acol Parish received a DVD Player and flat screen TV for a raffle prize earlier this year, courtesy of Santa CGP; did any other Parishes receive 'pressies'?

But more seriously, TDC Cabinet accepted sponsorship from CGP towards 'The Big Event' in Palm Bay on 14/15th June. I show you the pic from KM Extra with 'Woger' in Santa's shiny helicopter with Santa Wills and his little elf helper, Rob Prince.

I reported on 15th June that this was worrying. Let me elaborate further. CGP presented a Planning Application to TDC in April (08/0400) and for TDC's Cabinet to accept a contribution to it's Big Event (reputedly to be £12,500) was to say the least, un-wise.

One of my team rang TDC on Friday to try and establish exactly how generous CGP was in June's sponsorship. A cagey response was then given 'Who are you?' and then that the Press Office would ring back. They never did.

The issue is quite simple here. What will be the Secretary of State's view that TDC's cabinet accepted a 'donation' from a property company whilst that Company's Planning Application was 'live' and under consideration by its Planning Officers and due to come before Council? It begs the question that TDC cannot possibly decide this Planning Application as a result and that it should be referred to The Secretary of State forthwith.

SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME?

What an interesting IOTG we had this week. Some pretty computer generated pictures of happy office workers strolling around their CGP version of 'Nirvana' at Manston.

The reality of 5 re-distribution warehouses in Phase 1 with 1365 HGV movements per day or the whole project as envisaged by 'Mowice', 'Woger', TDC Cabinet, Senior Officers and of course Ken Wills, producing 5,600 HGV movements , was carefully omitted from the IOTG pictures. So just in case you have trouble imagining as many HGV movements as Dover Docks, as Thanet becomes an 'in-land' version of Dover Docks, let me give you an impression of The East Kent Access Road by Richborough when a serious accident closes the road.


And now let me take you forward in time to the year 2038 when CGP has long disappeared and Chinamex have abandoned Gateway at Manston and the site has become run down with some dodgy businesses going on around our now polluted aquifer.

We could have left it all alone and here is another view of the year 2038 of Phase 3 land actually undeveloped and growing a healthy crop of oil-seed rape. These are sadly, the options we face at Manston with this massive development.

Oh, by the way, was I the only one to pick up Ken Wills' rather vague comments on the jobs and businesses? The intrepid Gazunder scribe, Thom Morris put this question to Ken Wills: " Have you got any companies signed up yet? Answer: " We're still in talks. We need to chat to the Chinese businesses".

Sorry? Did I read that right? Is that 'CGP speak' for NONE? Could it be that Memoranda of Understanding aren't worth the paper they are written on and Aigo do not fancy being squeezed into sharing an office in the new Summit building? Oh, dear! This is all beginning to sound like that wonderful iconic Turner thingee to be built in the sea at Margate; all a bit of a fairy tale.

A TALE OF TWO MP's

A reader has contacted me from Ramsgate to say that KM Extra this week has a half-page, no less, of South Thanet MP Steve Ladyman extolling the wonderful benefits that will accrue to Thanet from having a massive 3 Phase , or more, China Gateway built on our aquifer and vital farm-land. The song he has been 'singing' has been the same for the past few weeks. Gateway is good; all will be well and don't believe a word of the anti-Gateway campaigners. He seems to have gone out of his way to villify them.

On the other hand those who have been reading North Thanet MP's 'Views' in the past few weeks, on the same topic, will find a more cautious and balanced view and certainly no vitriolic attacks on 'campaigners'.

For those who find this unstinting support from a Labour MP for a speculative property company which expects to make many millions from its self declared speciality of gaining planning consents, odd, then I must remind you that it has nothing whastsoever to do with a perfectly legitimate political donation made in early 2007 by Ken Wills, a CGP director, to South Thanet Labour of £25,000.

The problem , as Dr Ladyman is finding out, is that the acceptance in 2007 of this perfectly legitimate political donation, with a CGP Planning Application in the pipe-line, automatically has the effect of 'tainting' whatever argument he makes in support of CGP, even if it was valid. His arguments in support of Gateway would have been far more respected without this donation.

I am reminded of Kipling here and a suitable mis-quote comes to mind:

" Once you have taken the Dane-Geld, you are expected to speak up for The Dane".