Monday 25 June 2012

£5,000 reward for Infratil arrests


As Mayor I’ll put a £5,000 bounty on the head of each Infratil Director for information leading to arrests for corporate manslaughter for removing the noise and air monitors.

The cost would be a fraction of the missing airport fines – even now the aquifer is in danger, pollution into Pegwell Bay repeatedly highlighted by the Environment Agency and overflights by Cargolux etc.

The reward will extend to any senior official at TDC etc who have aided and abetted this deliberate endangering of the public.

Civil servants with cancer. Coppers with cancer. Ambulancemen with cancer. Firemen with cancer. Judges with cancer. Lawyers with cancer. Councillors with cancer. Children with cancer.

Our councillors and McGonigal remain silent. The Toxic Three of Carter, King and Wild were keen to develop Manston and fund Infratil until a month or two ago.

Deliberately polluting the public that fund them. Deliberately refusing to provide effective monitoring. Deliberately refusing to charge the required fines and banned flights.

Shtum payoffs for the Gang of Four and Cancer Bob morphs into Cancer Clive and silence on the rates.

Random meetings of KIACC and playing let’s pretend on monitoring for an airport potentially the size of Stansted - and banned Afghan and IranAir flights.

A £5,000 bounty per Infratil Director seems too cheap for this shameful incident. And certainly the best use of council tax in a long time.

Why are Kent Police dragging their heels on these issues?

Bring the Killer Kiwis back in chains to join Buchanan in Pentonville for corporate manslaughter.

Time for Change.

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Duff politicians and civil servants to debate East Kent’s future. Nothing to do with them.



A miscellaneous blog note on various points:

• Roger Gale on the radio on the future of East Kent waffling about how important it was to improve Dreamland. You don’t say. After 30 years as MP. And wasn’t he photographed launching some cheque with Steve Ladyman 2 or 3 years ago at derelict Dreamland? Useless

• Remember Nigel Farage at Broadstairs 3 or 4 months ago? I asked him various questions on Manston and Thor and TDC corruption – after he said he supported Manston. I’ve written to him at least 3 times. Silence from Mr Farage. Another empty bullshotter on a tax salary.

• Mark Seed at TDC: apparently there is no coordination of public compensation from EA etc. You’re on your own. You sort it out is the publicly funded response. He expressed a vague surprise at Manston on the aquifer. Yeah right. And wasn’t even sure of the outfall pipe length

• Audit Commission reviewing TDC and RTC accounts – more later. Ask the auditor if you want to know or see any costs, invoices, Pleasurama contracts, Manston fines, pollution levels, 0% salary fraud, pensions, expenses etc etc: a-mack@audit-commission.gov.uk, j-bellard@audit-commission.gov.uk It’s your money spent by the councillors and civil servants. As Mayor I’ll FOI all costs every month routinely.

• Worth remembering the RTC accounts were signed off by councillors and provided to the AC without any public scrutiny. Same-old, same-old if the RTCers are just the TDCers.

• The BBC True Love show on Margate I thought was a bit boring but good to see Margate albeit looking empty and cargo ships off the coast. As Mayor I will create the East Kent Film office to encourage more filmmaking in and about Thanet – as with the £600k tourism budget we seem to be funding West Kent to ignore us or dump on us.

• Horrifying Newsnight programme – the UK is abysmal at missing persons and runaways from care homes is unbelievable. No busfares or mobile phones. No Police oversight of care homes. And social dumping again.

• The windfarm hotel ship in port for loo paper and pot noodles – so much for windfarms stimulating the economy if they’re berthed offshore most of the time. As Mayor I’ll ban it from Port along with animal exports and introduce a foot passenger ferry.

Another lost year.

A lost decade.

What have they been doing all these years?

Picking up their paycheques and pensions by coverup, delay and deny.

Riding the decline down.

Manston bust and on the aquifer.
Pfizer halved.
Westwood Cross destroying the town centres.
Nothing for 2012.
The Turner on the rates after 15 years.
Asbestos in schools.
Sewage leaks.
NHS services removed.
Every lifestage problem off the scale.

The politicians and civil servants have failed us.

And created Third World Thanet.

Time for Change.

Friday 15 June 2012

Kent's Water and Rio20

Water, water everywhere… yet more can be done to improve Kent’s water.

Perhaps the Jubilee washout has come at the right time. Along with Thanet’s Blue Flag beaches faced with outflows of sewage over the Bank Holiday Kent’s water supplies have been thrown into stark relief.

Hosepipe bans are still in place with reservoirs only just beginning to refill. With rainfall less than Syria Kent seems to be facing a collapse in future provision of clean drinking water.

With the Rio20 Summit beginning next week to try to resolve many of the world’s environment problems, perhaps greater focus is required on Kent.

Stricter EU guidelines for Blue Flag beaches will keep the pressure on the Environment Agency to ensure Kent’s premium tourist product our beaches and oceans are spotless.

While Southern Water – can they really be making $285M profit by discharging poop to sea when it rains – need to consider if in the county with both the longest coastline and most Blue Flag beaches, if discharge to sea is viable in the 21st century.

And with over 90% of Kent’s water supply drawn from aquifers, there is woeful regulation such as Infratil at Manston having the aquifer both under the runway, and discharging fuel into Pegwell Bay a UNESCO wetland.

The sale of Manston only demonstrates the failure of KCC’s airport policy there and Lydd and Boris Island except as quick-fix dumping grounds far from Maidstone or Windsor.

While the need for using more farmland for reservoirs that fail to refill looks doubtful when desalination plants have already opened in London.

Surely too Margate being used as an impromptu anchorage for cargo ships is a Torrey Canyon-style disaster waiting to happen as well as being a blight on the ocean and eye.

Rio20 will be considering the world’s fish stocks with the Great British Fish and Chips species of cod and haddock facing extinction.

And with Kent’s coast almost fished-out, reviews of fishing discards, and the Marine Protection Zones due off Margate are ever-more important for all Kent, with both Ramsgate as the South Coast’s largest fishing fleet and Hastings as the only beach-landing fleet in the South East.

Consider too that, after the Fukushima tidal wave (and resulting closure of all Japan’s Switzerland’s and Germany’s nuclear stations), the potential is for greater storms and more floods.

But the damage wrought by an incident at Dungeness before it closes down, or EDF and French nuclear policy at Gravelines or dumping off Brittany would be disastrous for Brand Kent as the Garden of England glows nuclear.

If we are all connected then Kent may be at risk not just from rogue companies such as Infratil, Thor and EDF but public sector failure of regulation, and oversight of the regulators such as Southern Water or the Environment Agency.

Fines of public organizations simply result in higher tax bills and not resolving the underlying problems of mismanagement.


Perhaps the greatest failure to date is KCC a $2Bn organization having almost no policy on water supply or river or ocean management. A couple of blokes with a binbag and some photocopied beach closure notices or both the Medway and Stour as the two most polluted rivers in UK doesn’t really cut it in the 21st century does it?

Surely reworking sewage discharges, zero landfill, disposing of dog waste in separate household rubbish, desalination plants, river cleanup and fishfarms and Police “eco-cops” and NHS scrutiny are simple steps forward.

The reality is that Southern Water’s failure on the beaches doesn’t just mean a few days of beach closures but rebounds around the world as Kent being incapable of managing its own natural resources.

A resounding failure, not just in economic growth, but in Brand Kent struggling to live upto its remit as the Garden of England and looking more like a leaky toilet.

Wednesday 13 June 2012

What now for Manston?

It’s bust. Of more concern is the public funds and time invested and wasted. And missing millions of pounds of fines. And pollution. Even today an unmarked 747 illegally overflying the towns. And landing on the aquifer. Manston can’t be sold – who’d buy an airport on the aquifer? As Mayor I’ll put a $5,000 reward on the head of each Infratil and TDC Director for information leading to arrests and jail for corporate manslaughter. We’ll hear less from Buchanan in a prison cell in Pentonville. He and Infratil knew exactly what they were doing in removing monitors and not replacing them at an airport due for expansion. Worse, is so did your TDC and KCC councillors. As blatant as the Gang of Four and 0% fraud. Even now flights continue illegally. Even now. A Third World Thanet where the growth industries are cancer and corruption. A 21st century Britain where the police and civil servants even poison themselves in dithering over corporate manslaughter. Every week an unmarked 747 and Cargolux and Infratil laughing at them. And when it's closed and they're gone? Just the cancer gift that keeps giving through the blood and bone for your children and their children. Time for Change. Time for Garbutt for Mayor in 2013 and MP in 2015 - or earlier. Zero landfill – plastic and food waste recycling and pig bins. Zero animal exports. Every day a drug-den raid. Solar panels and industry. Viiv at Pfizer. Water so clean you can drink it and bathe in it. Remember Manston. Remember Thor. Remember the Gang of Four. Remember “paint down the sink”? The delay in TDC et al placing a Public Health Order on the site is shocking. Your children being polluted by your council. Fiddling as Thanet burns and drowns Time for Change.

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Shit Council. Tax strike.

10 tonnes of shit flushed into the sea off the UK’s most Blue Flag beaches. Just dismal. Then fumbling and bumbling over whether it was flushed out on Monday – or last Wednesday. Then almost no signage or advice. And all this with ships anchored offshore – a pollution accident waiting to happen. The cover up of the Manston monitors. The Manston aquifer. Pegwell Bay and airport fuel. MOD Fires at Manston on the aquifer. Dismal. Clearly TDC, Southern Water and the Environment Agency’s, and Coastguard, remit is simply to ignore the problems and then cover their backside when it does happen. Fines simply recharge the cost to the taxpayer. P45’s and arrests are required. In the meantime stop paying council tax and business rates. Pay it late. Cancel direct debits. Pay the wrong amount. Delay payment. Pay it wrong again. They can’t jail you: the courts won’t convict such failure and the jails are full. If you want to pay your tax for failure then send a letter to TDC and pay the right amount to the RNLI instead. Without clear improvements the tax-agencies are simply not fit for purpose. They’re shit. Time for Change.

Sunday 3 June 2012

Appalling mess at TDC

Just more abuse and scoundrels at TDC with the latest councillor disputes. While these scoundrels are huffing and puffing Thanet is failing and $60M tax wasted in civil service bloat and corruption and vanity construction. They have no policies. Only clinging to power. Why? Just because. It gives them a platform they wouldn’t have in their normal lives. And they pick up a few quid for bickering and whining. That’s why we have a bottom 10% council and bottom 10% area. Another lost year in a lost decade. As Mayor I will: 1. Call in the Police to investigate Infratil and McGonigal on the missing monitors and fines and 0% salary 2. Close Manston (a field and Water Protection Zone) and Thor and MOD Firebase 3. Cancel Pleasurama-Bungarama and review with Ramsgate Tunnels 4. Establish votes at 16 5. Establish Pfizer-Viiv with Glaxo 6. End windfarm hotel ship and offshore ships 7. Demolish Arlington House as part of the redevelopment of Dreamland 8. Establish Margate Town Council and cancel TDC to a quarterly committee of the Mayors 9. Instigate pandemics policy eg rabies, TB and flu vaccines 10. End doublehatters and publish manifesto 6 months before elections 11. FOI all costs, documents and contracts routinely every month and on request 12. Nukefree Kent: end EDF investment, close Dungeness and Gravelines and sea dumping of nuclear waste 13. Pedestrianise Ramsgate seafront and Arches 14. Refurb Eastcliff bandstand and dancefloor and Westcliff lift 15. Establish foot passenger ferry 16. Town centre markets improvement 17. Motion sensor street lighting/car parks 18. Fund beach shelters refurb from tax 19. Remove litter from the clifftops eg Churchill Pub 20. Remove the Hoverport rubble and create a Pegwell Bay Corridor 21. All council vehicles and heating phased out for solar power 22. Room size, garden size and solar power building policy 23. Heritage building policy – the style of new housing is abysmal for a heritage and conservation area 24. A free tablet PC for every schoolchild – and wifi/web access 25. Free windfarm electricity for OAP’s in winter 26. A Thanet credit card pegged at 10% interest, Thanet quid and improved Euro rates 27. Town utility purchasing: insurance etc 28. Council tax strike: revoke payments to KCC and TDC 29. Police daily drug den raid policy 30. Police investigation into Southern Water and Environment Agency: Thor, Manston, flood defences, water pumps 31. Monthly festivals and events 32. Free town centre wifi network and improved broadband 33. Free 101 calls, backoffice reform and phone box calls 34. Every beach Blue Flag and every park Green Flag every year 35. Asbestos and road accident map and improvements 36. Zero landfill: food waste for pig bins and plastic collections and sorting factory Another lost year in a lost decade. Time for Change