To save you time, it's 2 grants (awaiting the latest excuses) - both prepared by volunteers not the actual civil servants(!).
You couldn't make it up and Richard Styles excuses as Town Clerk are special.
This on top of his lengthy note (see previous blog) that they'd put some flower pot planters out as justification for a year's worth of activity for £400k.
Two other brief points:
* shoddy publicity for RTC Remembrance Day: a note on the bulletin board jut this week
* no news as yet on the Xmas tree in the own and Xmas events - you can guess...last year's tree was particularly weak looking like roadworks. And only in EK could you leave the town Xmas lights up all year...
Time for Change
@timg33
Misc:
* astonishing that Leader Wells of TDC admits today that he led the presentation for Brett way back in July - why the sudden announcement now for 1M freight lorries. With Manston, Wells needs to resign as do Gale and Mackinlay. Brett is justification in itself of shoddy governance
* With Abigail Raymond TDC Planning Director resigned off - as with Edwina Crowley a year ago - we need a review of 100SE Rd garden grabbing etc - all in breach of TDC's own Local Plan
* More astonishing revelations of Dreamland now with Caymans tax haven companies as with Pleasurama and BVI - Wells needs to fully explain these before he resigns
* As KCC Leader in May 2017 for direct Leader against Carter and the Toxic Three and to oust Shonk and Kent UKIP failures I will reverse all the above - the weak turnouts: less than 20%, almost-instant failure of main policies and utter incompetence show we cannot let these buffoons and criminals continue
* A long service medal needed for Kent Police's DCI Morgan Cronin (call 101 for yourself to check what he's doing)for service in long-delaying the 2015 election fraud by Channel Four on head office staff bussed in for elections - hopefully Kent Police have been using the delays to catch rapists: 67 rapes in Thanet and zero arrests. Yes, that's zero.
* more points later
--RTC emails on grants etc:
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Thanks but these seem rather elaborate excuses for inaction.
I've never read anything like it.
Can you also email the £10k economic plan.
Points repeated for reply:
* your point 4: £10k on an economic plan? RTC does this from its salary/remit?
Can you clarify the other £40k? It seems to have been spent beyond Harbour st? Invoices are available under FOI?
* your point 5: is the £1.7M bid? Shortlisted to c.50 other councils?
Stagecoach provide bus shelters?
No other bids in a year have been developed or won?
On the last point it's concern that £400k RTC funds a year has resulted in just 2-3 bids this year and those prepared by volunteers?
Were any bids prepared in the previous year?
Tim
Tim Garbutt
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From: Eileen Richford
To: tim garbutt
Sent: Tuesday, 1 November 2016, 12:02
Subject: RE: RTC bids and funds
Dear Tim,
See response below which the Town Clerk has advised me;
1. Out 450 bids now shortlisted, our bid is one of 54.
2. It takes weeks and many hours of patient, plodding work to deliver even the simplest application nowadays. Unless has ever has ever done one, they could have no comprehension of the work required.
3. The competing bids are likely to be done by professional full time paid bids from big city Councils. The Ramsgate CCT bid is being done on a shoestring in comparison, but it is nevertheless being done as well if not better than the paid professionals.
4. A Town Clerk has many functions and this is but one tiny part.
5. The Town Council costs every house holder less than a round of drinks or a half tank of fuel for an average family saloon per year. The money RTC raises in precept is a tiny amount in comparison with the amount needed for investment in the Town and therefore it can only work on the margins of the problem at the moment. Even TDC and KCC are under resourced in comparison to amount needed to revive the local economy.
6. The problem is so large and so deep seated, that you can have no conception of the amount of money required. The Town Clerk estimates that Margate has had over £100m in the last 10 years and still its economy is not firing properly. Ramsgate would need more (est £250m) to encourage investment, regeneration and reducing the educational attainment deficit in the Town. If aspiration is to supplant distrust and anger in this community, that is the sort of money that will need to be invested from a range of sources.
7. The Coastal Communities Team is but a small part of a movement to get that investment. We may fail, but we will have tried and will try again.
That is all that we can tell you on this matter at this point in time.
Regards,
Eileen
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From: tim garbutt [mailto:timgarbutt@yahoo.com]
Sent: 31 October 2016 15:58
To: Eileen Richford
Subject: RTC bids and funds
Thanks Eileen:
* your point 4: £10k on an economic plan? RTC does this from its salary/remit?
Can you clarify the other £40k? It seems to have been spent beyond Harbour st? Invoices are available under FOI?
* your point 5: is the £1.7M bid? Shortlisted to c.50 other councils?
Stagecoach provide bus shelters?
No other bids in a year have been developed or won?
On the last point it's concern that £400k RTC funds a year has resulted in just 2-3 bids this year and those prepared by volunteers?
Were any bids prepared in the previous year?
Tim
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From: Eileen Richford
To: tim garbutt
Sent: Monday, 31 October 2016, 14:33
Subject: Your enquiry
Hi Tim,
I have now got the information your require;
• The Coastal Communities Team is a partnership of RTC, the Town Team and the Neighbourhood planning group.
• It is therefore a part voluntary, part Town Council organisation. Most of its work is done voluntarily(even the RTC input) and seeks to deliver much needed investment in the Town.
• There is no guarantee of success, but if successful it will deliver more investment to Ramsgate than has been delivered for many years.
• The £50k was awarded by the Coastal Communities Fund to the CCT and the Ramsgate Society to fund the professional work needed to deliver the evidence for the Ramsgate Society Heritage lottery bid for the Clock house and the CCT project which became known as the Compass Plan. The CCT spent its half as directed on the Compass plan bid in survey fees, drawings and background information, including a planning application for 33-35 Harbour St. We also helped out the Ramsgate Society in meeting its architectural fees for the Clock house and its immediate area, because it was part of the original brief and is also included in the Compass plan. Some remedial work in Harbour Street was done. £10k was received to deliver an economic plan for Ramsgate and this has been achieved. There are some funds left which will be spent as required if more survey work or emergency repairs are needed.
• It looks like we have been successful in obtaining a grant to carry out an in depth consultation with the entire population of Ramsgate and not just those who respond in the conventional manner. I am also putting in a bid for a grant for the Leopold Street bus shelter.
• In the next phase of the Coastal Communities Fund other organisations can put their project bids into the application for funding, but they will have to make sure that their bids are fully worked out and are not just want lists. The CCT will help them in their applications but will not run their project for them.
• TDC are the responsible body for this money.
It is the Town Clerk’s intention that all spending will be available to the public via the website towards the end of the financial year.
Best regards,
Eileen
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