Offices closed. Public distracted. A good opportunity to “bury the bad news” or at least something unpalatable.
Here’s two:
#The Tourist office consultation
# Air quality in St Lawrence
http://www.thanet.gov.uk/news/latest_press_releases/air_quality_views_needed.aspx
Here’s an overview of some things for Santa for Thanet next year:
1. A tourism office closure programme described as “improvements”. Not dissimilar to “improving-air-monitoring-by-removing-air-monitors”. More “Little Margate-ism” again. The sooner each town directs its own c.£16M expenditure from the £60M District taxtake the better – or will it simply be wasted on admin and process? Fixing the plywood on the window of the tourism office would be an improvement – not really showing the town at its best for visitors
2. Thor mercury cleanup: what have the council been doing? 750 of them and 130,000 residents and there’s no cleanup schedule?
3. The Van Gogh Museum at the derelict Cavallino building in Harbour St to celebrate Van Gogh, Coleridge and local artists. Let’s hope the Regeneration Department is busy organising funding and grants
4. Richboro: time to blow up the derelict cancer towers
5. Asbestos in schools and computers in schools: where is the detail and cleanup schedules? Where is the ratio of computers to children?
6. Manston: a copy of the existing vision and a revised version is below
7. Cancel the New Dual Carriageway: more farmland destroyed for traffic jams as East Kent becomes the East Midlands - a land of car parks, business parks, retail parks and office parks - but not park parks
8. Good to see Vattenfall looking to fund improvements to Pegwell Bay and the Hoverport built on coal ash as part of the world's biggest windfarm
9. The “2nd Pfizer” programme for full employment: malaria vaccines and nets production
10. The Kent Film Office and Studios developments for Margate and Ramsgate
Dreamland of course will be derelict another year and the Turner will open - facing the derelict site.
And if you’re bored of turkey, in-laws and telly here’s a long document on the Thor pollution at Cato Ridge in South Africa with several mentions of the Margate factory closing in 1988.
Except it never closed. "Permits to pollute" from the Environment Agency and no checks at all by TDC. Not even a contaminated land survey.
Just the June EA presentation on "How not to Pollute your water supply".
What has been going on?
http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/documents/davis.doc
And why no mention in Parliament? No mention at County Hall? No mention at Cecil Square?
Keep quiet? Keep your head down? Don’t tell the public? Don’t clean it up? A cosy club of incompetence?
It’s as if Thanet’s citizens deserve nothing better than to be lied to and poisoned by our politicians and civil servants.
And still the planes fly over the town.
Still the cancer rate soars.
And still the coffins pile up.
Failed. Failed. Failed.
Time for Change.
Current 2030 Vision: Manston park and Airport
Manston is the commercial centre of Thanet. Kent International Airport has established itself as a major cargo base for the UK receiving 300,000 tons of freight per year, particularly from nearby continental markets. Scheduled passenger services run daily to popular UK and European destinations.
Manston Park has drawn in businesses from around the world. The airport has been a catalyst for the businesses which have set up in the business park, and it is also developing significant airport-related activities for airlines that cannot find room at other London Airports.
Residents have taken advantage of the thousands of jobs created over the past 21 years.
New 2030 Vision: Manston Park and former airport
Manston is the green heart of Thanet. Kent International Airport collapsed as a major cargo base for the UK receiving 30,000 tons of freight per year, day and night, particularly from short-hop flights form Ostend, loaded onto trucks and then driven to Heathrow or around the M25.
Scheduled passenger services collapsed without taxpayer subsidy from an RAF base or council funds except for the Summer Holiday Coach Service to Gatwick and Heathrow.
Manston Park has drawn in businesses and visitors from around the world to the Blue Flag beaches and parks to see how brownfield sites and major water pollution can be cleaned up. The TDC and Infratil “MonitorGate” scandal of deliberately removing noise and air monitors and fudging health and safety data has been a catalyst for reform.
Infratil’s Board faced significant airport-related jail time for corporate manslaughter in Kent if the courts cannot find room at other London jails.
Residents have taken advantage of the thousands of lives being improved and created over the past 21 years without suffering from lung cancer or genetic birth defects.
A wider understanding of the “cancer cause” resulted in rapid clean up of Richboro, Thor, cargo ships off Margate, Pegwell bay and the Gasworks to reduce the 17 year early death rate in Thanet compared to the rest of Kent.
The council moved slowly and with full regard to due process so not many of the public died over the 20 years of planning.
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