Saturday 29 October 2016

Brett scandal: the waste of East Kent


The Brett scandal seems to have been sprung on us all again, showing the weakness and corruption of East Kent governance.

A KCC Planning application (led by KCC? Or Brett?) suddenly pops up at the Ramsgate town Council meeting 10 days ago. And is rejected.

But apparently it’s some sort of non-democratic pseudo-order by KCC too.

Yet it’s an order that apparently is not approved by any KCC councillor. Although it may have been approved by TDC councillors.

Confusing and murky given the doublehatter status of most councillors if not triplehatters on RTC, TDC and KCC trying to crowd out democracy.

We need more detail on this farce and it was good the public review of the process began on Thursday with the Gravel Tsunami public meeting. A packed meeting of over 200 people with the usual bizarre 100% public opposition by public and councillors MP’#s to something that is already well-developed.

We’re now starting to see the volume of documents and maps prepared by KCC and TDC at public expense.

While the aggregate works that was a fairly small-scale part of the port dredging activity also seem s to have had a cement plant constructed in the last year or two to the surprise of the public (approved by who and when?).

And this cement works will also be mega-expanded, and with minimal detail on the choking clouds of cement dust over the port and harbour and town.
I’ve described this activity as very fishy – for the whole port and seafront and coast of East Kent seems under secret and sustained attack:

• We have the UK’s largest crane doing some building work for HGV ferries
• We have Jack back, the RTC decorator, with the Slipways cade/porthole restaurant/Hornby centre thingy, rejected numerous times
• The Goodwin Sands listed site have aggregate/cement plans
• As does the Port of Dover expansion
• The mega-boozer by Wetherspoons at the Pavilion hustled through and signed off by one clerk without any councillor involvement – utterly illegal as you’d expect

While to add insult to injury on the very same day of the Gravel Tsunami meeting, BBCTV Kent were able to get hold of plans that show the cement works at the port would be linked ot mega-warehouses at the Manston site.

Shades of the O’Regan plans a year ago and ChinaGate warehouses and night flights before that.

Clearly this is larger than one Brett application – with mega-sites and multiple sites.

And very, very fishy.

And letters to the local newspaper by the capable Bill Moses MBE the former port developer, now detail the involvement of John Bunnett the former TDC Deputy CEO and Ashford Council CEO – now the Director of Land at Brett.

Again shades of ORegan with the involvement of the Gang of Four’s Brian White the former TDC Planning Director resigned off over the Manston monitors fraud and cancer with Latchford.

And this week we have the resignation of Peter Evans the TDC Planning Chair over wanting to reopen Manston as an airport – and the farce of Suzanne Evans UKIP national leader wanting to open it but Leader Wells of Kent UKIP saying it should remain closed. And Kent UKIP of Latchford, Heale and Shonk failing to gain KC approval to reopen it.

And Gale and Mackinlay playing the blame game over UKIP failing to open Manston – but it was in their main election manifesto too. They’ve done nothing.
And now for LocalCraig along with pretending to live in Ramsgate rather than Chatham, hence the bussing on of central party activists, we have the farce of his only other main pledge to regenerate the port and harbour now sunk out of sight with a KCC plan to turn it into a cement works!

Or his equally ridiculous idea to rebuild the Royal Brittania yacht and berth it in the harbour or wasting parliamentary time trying to prop up tobacco sales.
Laughable.


But fishy.

Because there are 2 problems:

• Either our councillors do have knowledge and involvement in these Brett plans and are misleading us all as with Manston and Thor cancer

• Or they don’t know and are simply being led by the nose for a secret civil servant vanity project or worse secret bungs

For there is not one manifesto statement or public statement or public document or public consultation on any of these plans.

Not so much as a grain of sand – until the last week or so when it all plops out.

At least the East Kent Supercouncil may be a barrier against this sort of Maidstone/West Kent excess and imposition on East Kent. Any project you like as long as it's cement.

For the reality is that Maidstone (or the SELEP quango that’s merely KCC and other SE councils) have no plans for East Kent other than dumping or industrialisation as we saw with the Manston night flights mega-cargo airport.

And it’s concerning that TDC – with councillor knowledge? – have applied to SELEP for c.£6M in tax funds to develop the Brett port.

Much as SELEP gained £250M from Westminster for Stack mega-lorry park cementing the countryside or the missing £20M for the Manston Parkway invisible railway mega-station.

And were the secret Pleasurama plans that resulted in Cllr Driver being the only UK councillor ever to be sued and fined £23k part of the Brett activity?
All cement projects of little value except to Paul Carter’s cement and vanity project cabal with the Kent Developers Group.

And as with the Northfleet intestine children the horrific Infratil cancer and Thor problems brushed under the carpet.

East Kent’s coast is under sustained attack and we need to take back control:

1. A council tax strike perks up the councillor and bureaucrats – not just restrictions on salaries and pensions but difficult explanations to Westminster and Whitehall why the peasants are revolting
2. Sack any civil servant involved in this undemocratic farce
3. A vote of no confidence in Wells, Latchford and Gale and Mackinlay urging them to resign
4. Public meetings where these plans can be taken in hand with those directly involved in them: james.bickle@kent.gov.uk is overseeing the Brett process at KCC
5. Cancel the existing Brett contracts and Slipways
6. Retrospective planning applications to demolish the new cement works and 100 Se Rd garden grabbing all in breach of TDC’s own Local Plan
7. Organised mega-demonstrations for organised trespass onto Pleasurama and blockade next year’s animal exports: 1,000 cars in the port tunnel and organised protests with various rugby and boxing clubs and pub bouncers should ensure the peaceful demonstrators are unharmed and can ensure RSPCA review of the lorries
8. A Shadow-Council – in-waiting would be useful to replace RTC and begin the process of Ramsgate’s £17M tax spent in Ramsgate
9. Magnitsky list of corrupt and failed officials

While the inaction on Pleasurama and Dreamland and Eastcliff Bandstand that would improve Thanet have been ignored.

While the GEFCO car-dumping or £3.5M spent on the empty Manston lorry park is utter waste.

The GIAAA £500K Port fraud is still bubbling under - who was involved?

It’s an utter shambles isn’t it. We’re paying £100k salaries for our civil service experts for this mess.

£3.5M for example is a tiny part of KCC’s £2BN budget – yet would provide a free tablet PC or mobie phone to any schoolkid or pensioner that wanted one.
Far more use than bags of gravel or bags of tax-waste.

For, despite claims of a non-political Gravel Tsumani meeting, the MP and several councillors were there. And on every seat was a glossy colour printed leaflet by Thanet Labour on Brett. How did they know to print that?

And very delicately-worded guff was dancing around the issue of land and water toxic contamination of mercury and oil. No doubt in the next few weeks we’ll have a “crikey-golly-gosh-you-mean-there’s-manston and-thor-mercury –contamination-and-missing-monitors” from our councillors.

And strange that Cllr Hunter Sturmer-Schmelling the TDC Economic councillor produces a new Ramsgate Harbour plan along with the mega-crane this week.
Very. Very, Fishy and undoubtedly more will be revealed and not one bag of cement or gravel produced with public action.

It’s 18 months since the May 2015 election and nothing has been done only rolling back to corruption and secrecy and failed 1970’s mega-industrialisation. Our pensioners have failed us and they should stand down and step aside.

I will stand for direct KCC Leader against Paul Carter for KCC via Trevor Shonks ludicrous RTC/TDC/KCC/Mayor seat to cancel all the Brett plans and extradite Infratil with Charles Buchanan of Lydd, involved in Riveroak, and protect the East Kent coast.

Time for Change
@timg33

Misc:
• Year #1 of the UNSDG30 #global goals is nearly over. What’s been achieved? Certainly nothing has been done in UK. £13BN in aid is a lot of money to not spend wisely. For example the UK $20M fund to Cambodia could easily be reinstated
• And why another r14 years to achieve UNDG30? It took 15 years of UNMDG to achieve say 90% of children in school – it can’t take as long for the last 10%?
• And Hunger is merely logistics in supplying food and water and vitamins – the good folks of Tesco and Asda and Waitrose do that every day. And there’s so much food that 30% is wasted.
• Good news from Ramsgate Asda, with Yok St florist with a range of £5 Kent Orchids. Treat yourself or buy one for a friend.
• Time for Kent Orchids and the Battle of Flowers again. Red is Ramsgate. Blue is Broadstairs and Orange for the flames of Margate.
• Spanish Armada soon: 2018 anniversary and British sailors left to die in the streets of Margate. Not so different now with homeless veterans and failed admirals and generals
• Magellan Anniversary soon: 2019-22 from Portugal and Spain to Argentina and Philippines
• Free Economy underway: not just the good folks of British Gas with Freetime free weekend electricity but wider debate on a Universal basic Income in Switzerland, Holland, Canada etc – a step on the way to a full Free Economy eg as with Barclays ban on trading in a basket of food commodities why wouldn’t the next decade or even year or two have healthy eating of say baskets upto £10 each day? Already Scotland has followed Finland (and the similar Bounty idea) of providing free clothes and food to newborn babies. And UK?
• Tie for Project Johnny Appleseed: more later
• Gilagamesh: China declares 79 as its National Plan aim for longevity
* Manston Spitfire Museum. Time for celebration of The Very Few Polish pilots and Hurricanes and a Liberation Route Europe and EastKent-EastEU strategy: Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Croatia - more later
* Basketcase East Africa: more later
* Fab Lucky Iron Fish now not only features in prestigious Entrepreneur magazine but also cited by Mashable as one of the top ten aid products

Friday 21 October 2016

Kent Fails on Manston corruption : dig up the runway, sack more councillors/clerks, jail Infratil


What a dismal week for Kent.

First, the collapse of Leader Wells and UKIP on Manston, with their only policy rejected as essentially idiotic. No wonder Wells’ fat-suit has deflated, it's as if somebody had pull the plug on him and his policies.

Or perhaps his UKIP colleagues are eating him piece by piece for such blatant failure.

Failed.

Rather, the UKIP and Tory policy was simply pretending to reopen Manston while covering up the aquifer and monitors scandal and cancer.

Now Craig Mackinlay is caught up in a rape scandal with his aide in parliament. Exactly what Kent doesn’t need is a police raid on his Parliament and constituency office.

Nor what seems to be drink-fuelled excess on the rates in parliament, leading to rape.

Parliamentary jollies to Hungary and Gibraltar, and Instro military-not-military drones debacle, seem to be in the absence of Craig fulfilling any part of his manifesto.

Certainly he could have been active on reviving the KCC links with Hungary and Virginia.

All those are now seemingly empty guff on the rates rather than ongoing policies. With Tim Kaine the former Virginia governor (and Virginia resident) now likely to be USA Vice-President it’s a massive failure of Kent’s efforts so far.

Failed.

Then we have Space Cadet Russ Timpson of the Libdems who pops up after over a year to raise any sort of Manston manifesto… by calling for a Spaceport. I don’t think he’s quite understood the size of a Cape Canaveral – or the aquifer under the space runway.

A perfect candidate to send to Mars on a one-way mission though.

Failed.

Then UKIP were lucky to get away with just punching their own MEP and nearly killing him, and sparking yet another leadership contest.

Awful and failed.

But, a wider problem of parachute candidates as with Craig - or indeed turncoats as Wells and Latchford - is that what do they care if their constituency is dragged through the mud? Nothing to do with where they work and live.

Let’s hope Craig as a magistrate issues a full and frank statement of what’s been going on and assist police with their inquiries. For the rape incident, as well as the Channel Four fraudulent election expenses.

As with Matthew Scott the PCC Boy Commissioner another Tory Boy activist and MP aide – and indeed Mackinlay himself as a former PCC candidate – we have the destruction of grassroots democracy with head office candidates simply traipsing from election to election form John O’Groats to Land’s End to be elected.

And then do nothing as with Laura Sandys previously who at least resigned early.

For LocalCraig to claim on his election manifesto that he and his wife live and work in Ramsgate is as laughable as it is illegal. Our Chatham accountant may be able to count but he seems to struggle with geography. Perhaps he’ll just say anything to get elected.

We need a new law on local democracy banning anyone from being an MP who doesn’t work or live in the area for say 5 years previously. Plus doublehatter laws. At worst you’d have a local idiot for no more than 5 years. Or Gale for 30 years - though to be fair that's beyond mere incompetence.

The rota of four public general meetings at RTC seem to have been pushed back to the last few weeks of the elected year. Handy for delay and lack of scrutiny ad keep taking the paycheck.

Indeed the rape lawyer at Broadstairs seems to have been brushed under the carpet on Craig’s watch too. Who is that lawyer?

Margate’s Joshua French on Death Row in the Congo has also been ignored by Mackinlay and Gale as they indulge in the pollution and cancer and farce of Manston.

And silence on Thor mercury: and the streets around Westwood Ind Est: Farley Rd and Nash Rd etc

While the HSE are dithering again over the Pavilion and asbestos with Sanderson builders claiming there is a secrecy clause in their contracts with Wetherspoon on reporting asbestos removal...

Let’s hope they have cleaned it all up, given workers without masks and piles of rubble dragged onto the pavement.

And to add insult to injury, a rerun of the Edwina Crowley TDC Planning director farce with Abigail Raymond the new TDC Planning Director now also setting up her own private consultancy planning firm. Perhaps Consultancy Abigail will overrule TDC Abigail’s decisions or rubber-stamp them?

I’m sure Pleasurama’s mystery owners would be interested in that.

Certainly Madeline Homer as CEO on £120k with now not one but two Planning Directors in a row over dodgy dealings needs to act fast.

As with Edwina the only option for Abigail, TDC or Consultant, is a P45.

The reality is UKIP and Tories have collapsed in less than 18 months of being in power at TDC and RTC. The danger as with UKIP at KCC where nothing has been done, is we allow then to limp on for another 3 years bereft of ideas, claiming they're excellent and picking up the paycheck for nothing.

I will stand against Trevor Shonk as KCC Leader to remove Trevor from what little power he has left, as the old and failed rump of UKIP – and stand for KCC Leader in direct opposition to Paul Carter who has faded into obscurity along with the planes that fly out to sea, he claimed.

I will write to the Chair of RTC and TDC and KCC requesting a vote of no confidence in our political leaders and call for Direct Rule from Westminster before May 2017.

A council tax strike will help spur that on – simply delay payment, make short payments, wrong payments and refuse to pay TDC council tax.

The council couldn’t be more useless could it?

In particular I will call for:

• cancellation of the Slipways cafĂ©/building overbuild farce and Brett mess of another TDC clerk involved at the Port with John Bunnett following on the heels of the Gang of Four’s Brian White – both key figures in the Westwood Cross mess and destruction of the town centres

• cancellation of Wetherspoons mega-boozer and asbestos site – bizarre that the councillors haven’t called this in as approval was only given by one clerk, Philip Bensted. Even for East Kent that’s laughable democracy. If the councillors don’t take a firm grip of the civil servants and hire and fire for improvements and taxcuts then they will run riot on bumf and bloat and dodgy deals. And still no details of zerohours reforms by Sports Direct and Wetherspoons

• cancellation of the £8M(!) Ramsgate Kent fire station/garage and replace with a new swimming pool

• $1 CPO purchase of the corrupt Pleasurama site and £3M TDC blood-money given to the Red Cross charity

• Increasingly I think corrupt or failed councillors should have the removal of their portrait from the council offices and a bonfire of their ceremonial robes

Our Killer Councillors with the cancer of Manston and Thor have failed us.

Time for Change
@timg33


Misc


• no details as yet of the Eastcliff Bandstand repairs ready for the Sgt Pepper anniversary, or revoking of 100SE Rd garden-grabbing. Only in Thanet could the council ignore its own Local Plan

• no news as yet on the Old Police Station being made safe by Steve Albon at TDC, after a falling windowpane injured a passerby

• no news as yet on the demolition of Arlington House 1960’s tower block eyesore – which would assist the Dreamland amusement park of the future

• awaiting full details of the East Kent Supercouncil debates in Canterbury – none in Thanet?

• Astonishing with every Kent hospital and ambulance in special Measures and not one public statement from our MP’s or head of NHS (who is that?: all the more need for a PCC-type role for both Health and Education for accountability)

• Good to see Almeria UAL group of universities underway for closer links with EK universities and colleges – ASEAN too. And we need a top 200 global university in EK – I’m not convinced that many of the Beckham Studies non-courses will achieve that. I was astonished that one Advertising graduate had never heard of David Ogilvy, rather like studying Beckham Studies course and never hearing of Pele, or Beckham. I like CCU but reforms are needed especially with a new Broadstairs campus and Cliftonville for student digs rather than overbuild of Canterbury

• Some improvements on illegal drive-through after 10am in the High St – still parking on the pavements though and on a Sunday. It’s no parking at any time (especially on pavements and yellow lines) and delivery access only before 10am. Very foolish for the car-owners as people pushing past the cars with wheelchairs or pushchairs will undoubtedly scratch the paintwork or break the mirrors. And how foolish of Kent Police to charge £200M a year in tax yet somehow think they don’t issue parking tickets at night. Next they’ll be not catching rapists but making wolfwhistling a sexcrime and not investigating burglaries through windows.
No doubt payrises and drones expected instead. Let’s hope The Boy PCC Commissioner is taking a firm grasp of KP activity and budgets – he’s unimpressive to the point of being Barnesian so far

• Unimpressive too is Susana Galvan the British Council director of Myanmar now Taiwan – more later on the most bizarre conference management I’ve ever seen. The British Council is a rather excellent and important disseminator of UK Culture (some excellent work in Thailand and Laos and Vietnam with MAG too, you’ll be reassured to hear how your tax is being well-spent) but to have this sort of overpaid nonsense on the rates is appalling

• pleased to see Lucky Iron Fish featured in Entrepreneur magazine with Unilever – hopefully as a forerunner of wider distribution

• no sign as yet of the new UK and Laos postage stamp designed by a UK artist

• Good to see Heineken and Panasonic batteries taking wider root in East Kent – hopefully the innovative TOMS Shoes branching out from their first, new UK shop in Covent Garden as the official EK shoe

• Surin Charity busy working on developing schools for Buriram, Sisaket, Siem Reap and Battambang – a mix of Isaan and Cambodia: Justgiving site to follow soon. Thank you again for all your support for the first school especially Ellington School

• no news on the £50k RTC/DCLG Coastal Communities Fund for Harbour St from July– no doubt part of the absurd 30% reserves and thus of no use at all. Certianly just £50k in grants after over 5 years of a £400k budget per year is a concern

• Green and the BHS scandal underway with a parliamentary debate on removing his knighthood and a description of a "Billionaire spiv and criminal" – and certainly should ban Lord “Grabafee” Grabiner too, the BHS CEO as a High Court Judge and QC. An appalling scoundrel and mess. Would you want Grabiner sitting on judgement of you or friends or family? A hasty judgment and off to the gallows as he rushes off to fill his boots at BHS? More later on GlickQC and Hollingworth fraudsters and BSB Sara Jagger and PB Law aka PBI law

http://www.oeclaw.co.uk/news/patel-v-mirza-2016-uksc-42-illegality-and-restitution-explained-by-the

http://www.pbip.com/about-pb-ip/team

• Interesting that the repugnant Andrew Conway of Stephens Law (another law firm to avoid like the plague) admits that his firm was involved with pretending to be Inland Revenue Officials – although it definitely wasn’t him, he says. How do these scoundrels remain lawyers instead of being struck off? Or private detectives not being licenced?

http://www.lawrencestephens.com/people/andrew-conway/


• ClicheWatch: if any politician uses the phrase: “not providing a running commentary on Brexit” it simply means they haven’t a clue – the sooner the whole mess is scrapped and we remain in the EU the better. It’s not gone well, so far has it?

• I must admit after its first 100 days, to being rather underwhelmed with the new May government. May is looking like Maybe. Decisions such as not to call an election next year, Hinkley, HS2, Heathrow delays etc all look to be drift. On Heathrow I’m not sure we need anything more than a redistribution of airlines among the existing airports. Heathrow is stuffed but Gatwick and Stansted empty. As is Birmingham which had by far the best policies of the airport debate. The Boris foolishness over Boris island has also set back sensible long-term plans for an airport off Norfolk or using derelict US airbases for EU flights that are the growth area rather than Asian flights within Asia that are the hype of the aviation and cement industries.

• Crunchy policies by May on economic reform whether Whitehall out of Whitehall, or maximising DFID budgets beyond the gin-palaces of Brussels and New York are thin on the ground. 20k UK troops are still on the ground in Germany, rather than new bases in Sierra Leone or Kenya, is Cold War bloat of benefit only to Germany’s economy. While new aircraft carriers and submarines are bloat and vanity-junk that wouldn’t last past the first drone missile nor the thousandth. No wonder we keep losing the wars we fight. Churchill would have sacked more generals and admirals. And UK has no Space programme to speak of as Obama calls for Mars by 2030. OK there’s Timpson’s Manston-Space-thingy although I doubt we should rely on that. FGM and Modern Slavery are worthy issues but of minimal relevance to UK – and don’t the police do those anyway? Knife crime and Climate Change and Air pollution and Cancer and Drugs deaths are all greater issues afflicting Britain. Certainly for a Prime Minister’s new or defining policies. Hinkley and more nukes is unutterably foolish as the world moves to solar etc. Rather Brexit is looming as an albatross around her neck. Maybe though she’ll be excellent and win an election next year and do amazing things.


Time for Change
@timg33

* July Updates:


http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html


http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/august-2016-update-1-kent-and-brexit.html


http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/garbutt-manifesto-rtc-and-tdc-june-2016.html



* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror


Saturday 15 October 2016

Rape Nation and BHS scandal and KCC Transport Plan - more EK corruption



Various points from the KCC Local Transport Plan 4 consultation:


1.I agree with most of the recommendations and raise the following points.


2.In particular I support Thames Gateway2050/Ebbsfleet(20k jobs)/Paramount theme park(27k jobs)/Lower Thames Crossing


3.I would highlight though:


a.the need for working links with Paramount and Dreamland (now bust again and further court cases – KCC CPO?) and my EKFOS-East Kent Film office and Studio project


b.Kent Police early involvement on Ebbsfleet/TG50 town planning ie combined police/fire stations etc



4.I would flag up a concern though of a forecast of Kent’s population increasing by 293,000 people? That’s a 25% increase in 15 years – seems high?


5.I disagree with Operation Stack lorry park size and cost: the plan for overnight parking seems relevant for smaller lorry parks/preventing roadside parking etc – again Kent Police early involvement. Stack is only a traffic jam 3 days a year so hardly a huge problem, requiring billions of pounds of cement - nor it is clear why Balfour are already appointed before the consultation has begun


6.Manston Parkway rail station is no longer relevant and can be cancelled and budget saved


7.Misc points: no allowance made for 1960’s tower block demolition/road layouts/housing eg Arlington House


8.Stone Hill Park ie a Discovery Park #2 or Kings Hill #2 is a concern given the Manston aquifer while Discovery Park #1 is still only 2k jobs from the 4k jobs of Pfizer. I would recommend SHP/DP#2 is cancelled and the aquifer site kept as parkland: Manston Green


9.On Discovery Park #1 I am concerned at plans for 500 houses – again random Kent overbuild – but also reducing the potential for STEM/vaccine jobs which was the very basis of government support, not another bog-standard housing estate for $1

Gloag/SHP haven't paid the missing Manston monitors fines/overflight fines yet...


10.I appreciate it’s an overview plan but no mention is made of Climate Change ie new parks, room sizes, garden sizes, factoring in flats above shops/empty houses which aren’t recorded etc


11.The further road developments at Westwood Cross make little sense: it’s an out-of-town centre-built-near-the-town-centres so the problem of trying to design out traffic jams simply doesn’t work except by more and more Spaghetti Junction urban sprawl

For KCC and the Property Developers Group every problem looks like a need to pour cement on the rates


12.Dover and Ramsgate ports need a single plan ie EALP/Burgess rather than competition reducing the potential for both sites ie Ramsgate Ostend foot passenger link again etc. Hoverport site cleaned up


13.The emphasis on road safety and designing out traffic blackspots is a good one: is there a map of road casualties to begin that process more rapidly given the increase in deaths?


14.A specific traffic planning point: Germany last week confirmed that its car manufacturing industry (the largest in EU) will only produce electric cars after 2030 ie a KCC need for planning electric charging points/reuse of petrol station sites/cash-for-clunkers and extra recycling sites etc


15.A separate transport point: no provision has been made as yet for North Sea/Channel flood sensors/Arctic ice melt/tsunami surge as 1953 or 1978 deaths, or SS Richard Montgomery demolition/removal – and air pollution from shipping


16.On the Thanet part of the Transport Plan I would flag up misc points:

a.Old Police Station: still derelict and a schoolchild injured by falling window and glass recently – need for more office space


b.Carpet Warehouse: overbuild in town centre of housing


c.£8M Fire Station: wasteful and fake consultation – need for 2nd swimming pool instead


d.Ramsgate Arches/seafront/pedzone: pedestrian precincts


e.Pleasurama derelict corruption site: CPO – beachfront park


f.Eastcliff Bandstand – Sgt Pepper anniversary on 1st June: refurb Grade 1 listed


g.Slipway #4 KCC application: unclear what that involves - or Slipway 1


h.Pavilion: Wetherspoon mega-boozer and Grade 1 listed site and dodgy TDC process: CPO/cancel


i.Canterbury Pilgrim Trail


j.Pegwell Bay/hovercraft site protection /development


k.Van Gogh museum required: as site point or other refurb site


l.Landings attraction: a Jorvik style attraction ie Caesar, Hengist, Augustine etc


m.100 SE Rd garden grabbing/overbuild/TDC breach of their own plan – CPO/refurb


n.Concern over KCC slipways 4/Brett at Ramsgate Port - and revolving door of former Ashford council CEO



The KCC Transport Plan should also have formal oversight by the East Kent Supercouncil too.

On the £108M KCC overspend suddenly announced this week it seems less of an issue of only 5% savings on a £2BN budget. But, to help, the £20M Parkway and the £8M Fire station would go some way to the required savings.

A 2nd levy beyond the 1.99% referendum is illegal - and reductions in salaries and pensions, as well as job cuts, haven’t yet been fully considered by KCC yet.

I’m also concerned at c.10% of the 10k KCC staff on zero hours contracts - I appreciate the point that many of these are social services/2nd income jobs but KCC should lead in reducing these and setting minimum hours eg 2 days a week etc which leads to quality jobs and care.

Both Wetherspoons and Sports Direct have agreed to phase out their exploitative zero hours contracts.

As well the idiotic KCC shares in tobacco and fossil fuels could be ended as they will undoubtedly decline in value.

Thank you for all your messages about the death of Thailand's King: very sad, a great leader.


Time for Change
@timg33

Misc:

* the Manston fallout goes on with TDC/MP Wells, Mackinlay and Gale all calling for each other to resign. Good. They should go. They have done nothing and they will do nothing for 4 more years. They only had one policy to open Manston - not only have they failed but it was a bit of jiggery-pokery to get elected with no real aim of reopening it. You'll recall it fell to infighting within 6 weeks of being elected. The aquifer - and Infratil/TDC cancer pollution monitors scandal prevents it.

As KCC Leader I will dig up the runway, extradite Infratil's/TDC directors for corporate manslaughter charges, protect the aquifer and increase cancer tumour treatments and cemeteries.

* a bizarre Abigail Raymond new TDC Planning Director rerun of the Edwina Crowley old TDC Planning Director scandal: opening her own property consultancy along with her public sector job. Looks like another rP45 to me - especially with the Pleasurama and Dreamland and 100SE Rd mess and now Brett/Slipways. Should her consultancy be hired to argue against her TDC policies? Daft.

http://tinyurl.com/zrfndwr

* Tim Howes the ineffectual TDC lawyer will no doubt want to remain silent on any TDC corruption and keep picking up the pay cheque

* Dodgy lawyers #1: Philip Green of BHS facing Parliament calls to be stripped of his knighthood for the BHS scandal - also Lord Grabiner/QC/Judge the Chairman of BHS? How can he continue to sit as a Judge? Along with corrupt lawyers/excusers such as Hollingworth and Glick QC and Steve Palmer PBLaw/aka PBI Law?

Even the Speaker of the LOrds has urged "get on with it" for Lords reform which is easy: end Hereditary Lords, Bishops and over 75's (more over 90 than under 40), cap at 500 and review election with 16 years vote and a P45 Committee for Grabiner/Archer/Mountfield etc

* Dodgy lawyers #2: Andrew Conway of Stephens Law: his firm./suppliers pretending to be HMRC Inland Revenue inspectors to gain information(!) - surely a crime with instant jail as with impersonating a police officer?

http://www.lawrencestephens.com/people/andrew-conway/

Repulsive abuse of their law role.

* Dodgy lawyers #3: no news as yet on the Broadstairs lawyer threatening the EK rape victim with jail for speaking up (who is that lawyer?) - the Ched Evans rape case also described as putting Uk justice back 30 years and concerning in Rape Nation with 100k rapes highest ever and only 5% rape detection

* UK literacy - thanks for the info WK: the UK literacy rape is 99%...except 5M (16%)of the population are excluded(!) as functionally illiterate so that's actually 83% Literacy - but the bar set low at a reading age of 8 years(!) by age 16. And we have Medway as bottom of the UK's primary school nation. A Rape Nation and Retard Nation on the rates.

* a good Parl report on Railways - horrified to see though that Southern/Sussex Rail and the trade union dispute over a 2nd guard opening doors etc has taken place - yet there has been no review of disabled access without a guard. It involves putting out a heavy ramp etc - surely it's David Brentian to leave a wheelchair user stuck on the train in an emergency? And a no-brainer for Internet of Things that DofT have no data on ticket machines used/broken/ticket types etc

* Good the 2nd Deepcut inquiry has been agreed for Private Benyon another murder-suicide and coverup

* World Death Penalty Day last week but silence on EK's Joshua French in the Congo - left to rot on Death Row. Perhaps it could happen to you or your family.


Time for Change

@timg33


Misc.

* new sentencing laws on carrying and selling knives

* concerned at the Pavilion asbestos and TDC dodgy deals for selling off sites to bolster their own salaries after repeated failure (see the Richard Styles blogpost below) - the councilors are feeble in losing control of the council to the civil servants to lead them hither and thither


* July Updates: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html

* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror


Thursday 6 October 2016

Manston is a cancerous growth on the Kent body politic



Tim Garbutt KCC Leader 2017 candidate, and MP 2020 said:


"Not unreasonably, the latest Manston airport reopening report describes it as extreme risk and slim-to-no-chance of success. Even by 2040.


https://www.thanet.gov.uk/media/3500741/Final-Report-for-TDC-Manston-Airport-Viability-Oct2017_2.pdf


Rather, the Manston report is 86 pages of more backside-covering and wasted costs by TDC council and merely delaying the inevitable in not ending this farce and digging up the runway to protect the East Kent drinking water aquifer.




While Page 54-55 of the report has Sir Roger Gale MP confirming he knows of both radioactive low-level waste(!) at the site and problems with the aquifer - under the runway




And he details how Paul Carter's forecasts for Discovery Park growth/employment are false.




And yet he clings to the bizarre view that a Parkway station would somehow make Manston viable - over 2 years after the airport closed.




The report is all the more worrying that UKIP and Farage had reopening Manston as their main policy - yet the report details that Brexit (there other main policy) means it's even less likely for airlines to use UK airports especially Manston.




While UKIP were supporting the reopening of the airport, the report details how most previous flights were at least 60% empty if not 80% empty. The only full flights were the gunrunning and drugs night flights when the airport was supposedly closed at night.




We now need a Parliamentary inquiry into this ongoing farce and waste soaking up TDC and KCC and Dept of Transport funds.




And if Kent Police are incapable of a prompt and credible investigation then the Belgian Police should be called in as part of the Ostend gunrunning flights investigation.


Why Charles Buchanan of Manston is still licensed to run airports as at Lydd (and still involved in the Riveroak bid for Manston as Northpoint Aviation Services)is jaw-dropping failure by the CAA and Kent Police.




And a criminal inquiry is needed into the very real dangers of the radioactive waste, aquifer pollution and KCC/TDC/Infratil - and on through Gloag - deliberate corporate manslaughter in removing the noise and air monitors and faking the data causing untold cancers in the local population.




Clearly Sir Roger as MP is an elderly and out-of-touch buffoon and should resign and have his knighthood and pension removed. He's already harrumphing about resigning in 2020 if the Riveroak bid fails - don't wait, go, and go now.




Similarly, toxic sludge such as Farage as former UKIP leader/Thanet MP candidate and current South East MEP, and Wells TDC Leader, Carter KCC Leader and Mackinlay MP should resign.




They've been revealed with Manston as buffoons at best, or deliberately endangering the public for their own careers at worst.




Manston is a cancerous growth on the Kent body politic to match Bhopal or Klity Creek or nearby Thor mercury.




Our politicians and civil servants, and Infratil, have not just failed us but deliberately and repeatedly endangered us."




Time for Change

@timg33

Misc.

* new sentencing laws on carrying and selling knives

* concerned at the Pavilion asbestos and TDC dodgy deals for selling off sites to bolster their own salaries after repeated failure (see the Richard Styles blogpost below) - the councilors are feeble in losing control of the council to the civil servants to lead them hither and thither



* July Updates: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html

* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror

* One Essex Court and Inns fraud: Grabiner, Glick, Hollingworth, Leavor etc

Tuesday 4 October 2016

East Kent Supercouncil - or more of the same?

Tim Garbutt, KCC Leader 2017 and MP2020 candidate said:




"With the collapse of East Kent - indeed KCC - into a muddle of corruption and the pensioners of yesteryear, a new East Kent Supercouncil makes sense.




A Farageland of UKIP has proved to be mere idiocy, and Paul Carter of KCC along with the failed Kent UKIP of Latchford, Wells, Shonk and Heales rely only on the public's goodwill and patience as their offices end.



Reform of East Kent is needed with the Manston monitors corruption with Infratil and cancer, and even the latest GIAA/OLAPF £500k EU Ramsgate port fraud shows the councilors and civil servants are incapable of improvement.



Pleasurama is an icon of such failure that a Supercouncil may be able to overcome with P45 reform - and the Kent Police districts reform are a viable template.



TDC is overstaffed with 750 people for a small District council for example, and failures such as the Slipways and 100Se Rd garden-grabbing mess and drab events.



The sudden removal of the Grade 1 listed pontoons in the Royal Harbor, mystery of the £3M Pleasurama cost and Harbour St Coastal Communities Fund are part of the ongoing murk and secrecy that passes for EK democracy.


Questions over how Ramsgate's £17M tax-take is spent are worth considering. It seems to be spent on clerks in Margate telling us there is no money and nothing they can do.


Madeline Homer has had 18 month as TDC CEO and there have been no improvements - a role with a £120k salary and pensions is very unlikely to continue without P45 reforms.



The Flint Michigan-style contamination such as Thor mercury is an affront of corporate manslaughter as is the Manston collusion of civil servant such as Berry, Button, Sproates and Howes clinging onto their salaries and pensions, requiring clawback and jail, and Infratil extradition.



An East Kent Supercouncil simply attempting to rejig the same staff and salaries and pensions under a different name is doomed to failure - rather the first Canterbury Council consultations this week need to detail existing staffing and costs etc and areas of reform.



Only substantial reform is acceptable: the overbuild of Manston New Town should be cancelled and runway dug up, and Howes Barracks district dumping reviewed, along with the mess of Dreamland.



Improvements such as the KCC Transport Plan with Paramount theme park, new bridge and Ebbsfleet New Town need to ensure the highest environmental standards in room sizes, garden sizes and parks etc and a more detailed review of Operation Stack beyond merely starting up the cement mixers for 3 days of traffic jams a year.



East Kent deserves better, and a Supercouncil may be able to deliver on that."




Time for Change

@timg33


* Silence from Kent Police on the above investigations and Channel Four electoral fraud: try DCI Morgan Cronin yourself: morgan.cronin.kent.pnn.police.uk


* Interesting that Kent Police seem to have finally bought the UAV drone they deni3ed they were buying and all without the PCC detailing it:
https://www.kent.police.uk/about-us/unmanned-aerial-vehicles/ - how long before the rules of operation are expanded and then removed? And why would it be an addition to the police helicopter as well as UK satellites etc?


* As with the horrifying 5% detection rate of rape we seem to have deskclerks as managers rather than detectives, and a surfeit of technology and Gucci kit in the absence of results


* July Updates: http://sincerityagency.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/misc-articles-updates-july-2016.html

* Working on a misc issues: Magellan Anniversary - Spain and LatAm, Almeria Universities links and Kent-Thai orchids

* Also Solomon Islands cruise ships

* Benelux strategy: Panasonic and Phillips - DNA bathroom mirror

* One Essex Court and Inns fraud: Grabiner, Glick, Hollingworth, Leavor etc