Time for Change: Campaign for an Independent Green Thanet MP and Ramsgate Mayor

Poisoned water and a cargo airport without any controls. Bloated salaries and featherbedding for the liars and cheats that pass for some of our civil servants and councillors. Some of the worst deprivation in Western Europe - and the worst council in Kent and Britain. A disastrous council. End the incompetence. End the corruption, lies and delays. A failed council. No wonder nobody votes any more except by their feet: 30% turnout and 3,000 empty and derelict properties. Do we have another 2 years of failure from the Gang of Four? Sack ‘em. No payoffs. No pensions. Sack ‘em. Removing noise monitors from an airport. Refusing to provide mobile noise monitors in the towns. Shredding complaints forms. Wasting public funds on fraudulent 0% but 25% pay rises Poisoned drinking water. Time for a 10% recall vote and vote of no confidence for councillors and civil servants. Time to publish all salaries, expenses and costs by department: if it's good enough for MP's and the Royal Family -...

Here’s the EA pollution report to TDC just last month (!). http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/EAWater/ThanetDCPresentation2_files/frame.htm Most polluted water supply in Kent and South East: beware of pesticides etc such as: Atazine, Simazine and Diuron. Check garden sheds, farm supply, shops, council industrial spray sites. Do not use them. They cause cancer and pollute the water supply. Do not use them. The chemicals again are: Atrazine, Simazine and Diuron. The water supply is only 1M - 40M below the soil: 2-3 spade depths to little more than an on-end swimming pool depth. As you can see from the slides showing the aquifer the reason Thanet’s towns are built in a thin strip around the coast - is that the rural land to the West of the towns is the aquifer: an underground water reservoir. Building on these fields or “nibbling” at them, or siting the most polluting infrastructures (a cargo airport and fuel and stores and petrol stations) increases the risk of polluting the water from spi...

Water bowsers in the streets? I don't know. Could be. We need to see the Environment Agency and TDC and Southern Water testing results: drinking water, contaminated sites like Infratil and Thor, sea water. Clearly nothing has happened at Thor nor Infratil for major pollution: andrew.pearce@environment-agency.gov.uk They need siting in Ramsgate Town Hall with KCC for the next few years. Still no contaminated land register from TDC. The EA presentation (see Michael's bookshop site) to TDC (only last month) showed (slide 7) Thanet as the most polluted water in Kent. Thor mecury water pollution has spread beyond the factory site. Infratil repeatedly polluting - and the airport sits on the drinking water supply. The outfall pipes need sumps/sealing. The toxin results need publishing. What is happening at the site? NHS on alert: hospitals and GP's - especially around Thor and Infratil locations. Police at the Thor gates. Suspend flights: a crash or spill wipes out the water suppl...

G'day. At Rotorua aerodrome most of the councillors never complained. Jobs. Sheep farming. Tourists. Jobs. Night flights. Sometimes. Not any pollution. No. None at all. Well, some, but jobs. I'll let Paul Carter answer that. Look at the shiny plane! Oh. Drinking water supply. Under the runway. And all round the airport And I'm drinking it too? I'll let Paul Carter answer that. And Thor mercury?! In the water! We only removed the noise monitors with the council. We only polluted some of the drinking water. It wasn't me. Deaths? Cancer? I don't know. I've this letter from the Environment Agency since 2005: water. pollution. danger. I'll let Paul Carter answer that. Dumped jumbo jets - a few. I think they look nice rusting in the sun. Can we fix another meeting?

What is there to say? Yes we have no noise or air monitors and we don’t care? Yes we allow dumped jumbo jets, night flights and overflights of the towns and we don’t care. Yes we do care but not enough to do anything. Yes we'll say we're doing something. Is the meeting over yet? Yes we’ve built the airport on the drinking water supply? Yes the water supply is polluted? Yes TDC is one of Britain’s worst councils and in KCC’s area? Yes 70% of council tax in Thanet is provided to KCC: £60M Yes KCC has a £2B budget Jobs! Jobs!!! Jobs!!! Look at the jobs created since EUJet went bust. Look. A cancer job for everyone at Manston. Don’t show me the figures that prove it. No I can’t mention the Tesco bag of receipts for ChinaGate and political donations. No I can’t mention the 0% pay rises but £25,000 pay rises for TDC. Both of those would be admitting fraud and besides what’s wrong with the developer funding the largest-ever Planning application and pay rises that aren't but are. A...

A bizarre set of notes from the Environment Agency. They’ve now confirmed under EIR that they have presented to TDC last month on Thor and Infratil and so on. Except their documents never mention either of them. What they have presented is a general update on the dangers of polluting your own water supply. You don’t say. Thanet’s supply is so polluted it’s pumped in from West Kent. While as the chalk allows cracks and fissures to the water table which sits only 1-40M under the soil it’s very susceptible to spills and leaks from pollutant sources. Like an airport – which sits right over the water supply – and a mercury factory: banned in Kent and Africa. For killing the local population and workers and polluting the water supply. Yet the EA refuse to release the toxic reports on how cleanup is progressing. Either they’re very slow at searching their filing cabinet or there aren’t any reports. With Thor supervising its own cleanup for the EA - have a guess. In fact the EA offered to “wal...

Clearly the “redacting” or “censoring” of MP’s expenses released yesterday just shows the whole approach of MP’s and the civil servants to the public. Desperate to cover up wrongdoing they censor everything on the forms: making themselves look even more foolish. If the “censored/redacted” forms were the only ones released – as they were meant to be – then none of the information on moats, and duck houses and flipping properties would have been revealed. Surely our MP’s must: # release monthly reports of costs with receipts from now on # detail family salaries # require the same transparency from civil servants and councillors But where are TDC’s costs and expenses: the most incompetent and corrupt council in Britain doesn’t feel able to release its costs? Why not? If museums are being closed but there are £100,000 salaries and £200,000 MP's then the public need to know what's going on for these lavish salaries for failure. All public organisations: quangos, councils, Police, Pa...

One of those is a good idea. Messrs Latchford, Ezekiel, White and Samuel seem to have no policy other than selling off assets to fund their own strange 0% salary increases with bumf window-dressing and fake consultations for failure. Yet with Infratil and TDC continuing to refuse to return noise and air monitors nor effective radar since 2006 – is this also typical of the Infratil’s Board working procedures at Lubeck and Prestwick? No monitors. No data. No problem. Presumably mobile noise monitors would be moved to where the planes and people aren’t – to help mask the failures of regulation to safeguard the public at the airport. And why such inaction from Kent County Council? 70% of council tax and 0% of effort it seems. It’s as if Messrs Gilroy and Carter are twiddling their thumbs while Thanet burns. Let’s hope jobs for cancer or mercury don’t result in corporate manslaughter charges for our public or private organisations. Nor an air crash over the towns of East Kent. Or Western Eu...

# Pleasurama: British Virgin island tax haven company – no details of Directors or funders for Kent’s largest seafront planning application # Manston airport: noise and air monitors removed by Infratil and TDC # Infratil and Environment Agency: airport built on the drinking water supply and polluting the sea with aviation fuel # Thor mercury factory: closed in 1988 by Health and Safety but not closed and water and soil polluted # Richboro power station: derelict 30 years with 1950’s brown asbestos technology # Asbestos in schools and public buildings: 100 deaths in Thanet in 10 years # KCC and Environment Agency: widespread water and soil pollution: no cleanup in 20 years # China Gateway: TDC and KCC arms-length company of TDC and KCC officials - and donations to both political parties for Thanet’s largest-ever planning application # China Gateway: China trips funded by the developer for SEEDA cargo warehouses on the drinking water supply # Thanet water supply: polluted and extra water...

Good to see the No night flights petition here: http://nonightflights.blogspot.com/ Yet despite bizarre “0% but really £25,000 pay increases” and fraudulent public statements on public money, the Gang of Four’s Richard Samuel and Brian White still seem incapable of providing noise and air monitoring for Thanet. Or Herne Bay. Or Canterbury. Nothing for Deal. Or Sandwich. Too much fuss and bother putting them where people are, and monitoring the effects of air and noise polluition. With NHS funds due to be cutback let’s hope the Gang of Four are not going around pulling the plugs on the heart monitors or life support machines. Certainly with the new EU noise maps required around airports it would be sensible to put the noise and air monitors in the wrong place or not provide them at all. Or as at Manston remove them. No monitors. No data. No problem. While the Environment Agency so far refuses to provide each month’s records of toxic waste sampling from Thor mercury – even the seawater t...

The first meeting of Ramsgate Town Council sounds positive to begin changes and improvements to Ramsgate. I thought I’d jot down some of the key points to be discussed: # New Mayor/Chair: the largest number of public votes – or a show of hands by the public - seems as good a system as any – the days of the political parties self-selecting should be gone # regular monthly public meetings and minutes – transparency and accountability # councillor roles/manifestos # recall/dismissal of councillors and civil servants for poor performance # rebates/reduction of council tax for poor performance # Police/Ambulance/Fire/Coastguard updates and elections # Thor mercury: how poisoned is the water, copies of toxin reports and what’s the cleanup schedule # Sericol chemicals in the water: same # Infratil chemicals in the water/sea: same # Infratil Manston 106: update on breaches, fines, monitors etc – presumably KIACC will be held at Town Council meetings # TDC/KCC funding for RTC # Contaminated lan...

The elections are over. 5 more years of whoever is in charge. Maybe 4 or less if the unusual system of calling elections willy-nilly isn’t improved to fixed terms like in USA. KCC votes are largely wasted: Conservative for 70 years there has never been a year when it hasn’t been run by Conservatives. The latest trouncing of the opposition parties confirm that overwhelming fact. That can’t be good for democracy. While the turnout of c.30% in all the various elections means that 2 out of 3 people don’t vote. With splits between the main parties, the winning party is elected on about 20% of the vote. With 99% of people not belonging to a political party it does seem that democracy becomes more constrained each year. The Rowntree Trust confirmed that the problem with politics...was the parties themselves: unrepresentative, unresposnive, few different polices, block voting The last main reform of politics must be to open the public sector books: council tax levels form 50% of KCC’s budget f...

It comes as no surprise that there's no credible or effective complaints system at Manston as reported on the front page of Your Thanet today- given the removal of the noise monitors and absence of air monitors. No monitors. No data. no problem. No complaints system. No complaints. Perfect. Yet this is hardly new. Infratil removed the monitors with the assistance of TDC in 2006: from a tower block and a school. Infratil have owned Manston since August 2005: complaints are still not accurately recorded - only a telephone answering machine? Richard Samuel and Brian White of TDC have sat on KIACC for the same period including a spell as Chair. What have they been doing in this bizarrre game of Emperor's New Clothes with public safety? Imagine TDC approving the fire alarms on a building by removing them. And then reporting each month that the fire systems are fine and data will be provided next month. For months. And years. On public time and money. Next there'll be suggestions...

Wot! No noise monitors or air monitors at Manston? Our politicians wouldn’t allow the removal of safety measures from Manston would they? Nor the civil servants? These are the people supposed to both represent and protect us aren’t they? Then how can it be that in 10 years of Manston as a normal commercial airport the requirement for mobile noise monitors has never been provided? The public have requested them. KIACC and the parish councils have requested them. Penny Button of TDC is even photographed with a hand-held mobile noise monitor checking noise levels in the local Tesco. Yet Brian White and our local councillors have never provided one mobile noise monitor in 10 years. They aren’t expensive. A few hundreds of pounds. A few thousand if you wanted a top of the range one, or a few of them to take noise readings. The reality is that mobile noise monitors would be deployed to the towns and the readings taken on a regular basis. As with Manston and other airports you could move them...