Thinking The Unthinkable?

If you thought there was a fight over this years Budget, next year's could be worse. The big debating point is whether Council Tax should go up. Have a read of the following from February's Full Council meeting. Its a long transcript taken from the webcast but this is the first argument about next year's Budget so it matters.

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Cllr Clark (Chair): Cllr Driver.

Cllr Ian Driver: Yeah. Thanks Chair. Im gonna be supporting the recommendations but I think one thing that nobody’s mentioned yet and hopefully people will start talking a lot about and thinking about in the next year is where do we go from here. It really is…it really would be an economic miracle if we can continue to deliver services at the already reduced level we are delivering them in another year. There’s simply not the scope for further efficiency savings. There’s not the scope for re-organisations to save money. We’re running out of scope for actually cutting back and reducing services and goodness knows they are already reduced enough anyway.  And as well we cant carry on year on year giving the zero per cent pay rise to our staff or a one per cent pay rise in the case of Thanet when the cost of living is actually increasing at four per cent and beyond. So options have run out, this year is probably the last year when we will be able to get away with a zero per cent Council Tax rise and that I would say that all parties should give serious consideration in that planning for next year’s Budget, to look at the possibility of increasing Council Tax, and its not just me just saying that because its not been said so far. Tonight, Brighton and Hove Council are meeting tonight to debate a 3.5 per cent increase in Council Tax and if the BBC are to be believed, Labour-run Nottingham, Leicester, Darlington, Middlesborough, Barrow-in-Furness, Stoke-on-Trent have all voted to increase their Council Tax and it doesn’t stop there. Surrey, Chelmsford, Peterborough, Tory-run authorities are also increasing their Council Tax. The days of cutting back, saving, re-organising, driving down the wages of the people delivering the important social services are coming to an end. There’s no more wriggle room and this Council, if it does want to continue to provide decent services to the men, the women and the children who live in Thanet and the tens of thousands of visitors who come here. Next year we should be talking if we have no other options seriously about a sensible increase in Council Tax.

Clark: Thank you. Cllr Nicholson.

Cllr Nicholson: Yes. Thank you Chair. The Town Council precept for Ramsgate was mentioned. I think I should point out that there are several factors at play. One was the low tax base that we were starting at, therefore any increase was going to be in percentage terms vastly inflated. However, the organisation and the way that Ramsgate Town Council is run is very efficient. I’d also like to put on record, even though it isn’t really any business of this Council that the cross party support from the Conservative Member on Ramsgate Town Council voted to accept it and agreed it. And I’d also like to remind Members, at a previous Council meeting when a motion was moved, requesting free parking in Birchington, yes, some of the more excitable Members from the Party opposite, not all of them, but some of the more excitable ones were shouting “If you want it, let Birchington Parish Council and the people of Birchington pay for it”, so you can’t have it both ways. We will ensure a tight ship over that side of the island and work to the benefit of the people of Ramsgate who decided that they wished to have a Town Council. Thank you.

Cllr Clark: Cllr Green.

Cllr David Green: Thank you Chair. I’m surprised actually at the bare-faced cheek of the Leader of the Opposition to comment on Ramsgate Town Council’s precept because only months ago now, the people of Ramsgate totally rejected the Party that is in opposition and voted for a manifesto that we put forward for the Labour Party that explained that we needed to try in a small way to address the total neglect that his administration at TDC had imposed on Ramsgate. The residents of Ramsgate know that, that was existing, they wanted to put it right, they wanted small things done that would improve the environment and the vitality of Ramsgate and I’m pleased to say that over the coming year we are well equipped to do that, that change.

Cllr Campbell: We are already on the way.

Cllr Clark: Cllr King.

Cllr King: Thank you Mr Chairman and I would like to very much concur with what Cllr Driver said tonight, and I do welcome the fact it’s good to see some of the Councils now beginning to see the wood from the trees. The £2.5m that was rejected by I think Brighton Council in favour of a small Council tax increase and the return of real local services, services that had been cut to the bone for far too long, and it is right. I concur with Cllr Driver this cannot go on for very much longer, this is probably going to be our last year. All this will ever do is see the demise of real services. Now we are told for example and Im looking again at the street cleaning service, this is a disgraceful excuse of a service. 25 percent of the streets of Thanet get swept. 75 go unswept. This is not good value for anybody’s money and it in no way is a first-class service delivery. Our streets constantly are reported to me in Westgate which I serve as, with dog fouling. One of the biggest issues, dog fouling. We have a machine that can do the necessary work to remove it but we have no funding to have it operating. We need dog wardens to try to catch the perpetrators of this anti-social behaviour but we can’t afford to employ them. There is no such thing as a free lunch and if you are going to buy cheap you going to buy twice. So lets look at this at the backdrop of this area and the health of this area. This is one of the poorest and most deprived areas in the South East. In a recent National health report there were 32 indicators of deprivation and 15 of them were indicated for Thanet. Deprivation, child poverty, crime, smoking in pregnancy, least physically active children, teenage pregnancy, least physically active adults, obesity, mental health, alcoholism, diabetes, death from smoking and of course if you’re a man you die 10 years earlier and a woman 5. Now, you’ve got to look at it that you cannot keep on cutting back, if you are gonna improve the life of people in this very much deprived area and I fully support what Cllr Driver has said and that next year we must seriously look at implementing a small, modest rise in Council Tax. Thank you Mr Chairman.

Cllr Clark: Thank you Cllr King. Cllr Wells.

Cllr Wells: Thank you Mr Chairman. I would have to say I do wonder what planet some of my colleagues in this Chamber are on. They do admit to living on the planet Thanet but I think sometimes they have to look a bit wider afield to see exactly what is going on around us. In the week in which 53% haircut was taken as it’s called by investors in Greece, and Greece has narrowly avoided temporarily at least going to the wall, to hear calls for Council Tax rises, but only small ones Tom relative to what one can afford no doubt, in a circumstance where we are unlikely to see economic recovery because of the trade situation with the European Union, I wonder sometimes if I’m alone in understanding that calls for enhanced increased expenditure in such circumstances is actually catastrophic. There are situations where you can juggle within the Budget you have got, and if we were to have presented a budget from whoever presents it this point next year, which took some of those things that were not priorities, that were not as important to people and put forward the things that people wanted to do within the context of the money we have got, Im sure it would attract general and widespread support. To talk in terms of increased Council Tax, to talk in terms of increased and enhanced budgets, to talk in terms of looking at how and where this country has lived for almost 30 years beyond its means and to go back to that within in a matter of months is something I thought we would not hear for some time as common sense actually put its head forward. And whilst I enjoy Cllr Drivers many and varied interventions I think in this case, he should remove his head from his backside and think.

Cllr Ezekiel: Its always easy to follow that. I think Cllr Wells has articulated very well the position we find ourselves in and I think we still need to look at that zero increase next year. Its going to be tough. There are always tools, new management tools. Universities are developing these management tools that we need to ensure we are aware of and put in place. There are always machines if you want, that can do the work of other people. We do need to ensure our Council is run the most efficient way possible with the budget we have. I do feel even talking about an increase is wrong. We should be always looking to decrease. If were a private business you cant go out there and just increase your expenditure or your products. You have to look at other ways and continually look at other ways of reducing your expenditure in these very very tough times. And it saddens me when you have to lay people off, when I’ve had to lay people off because of reasons of trade or whatever but it also pleases me that there are small shops that are surviving and doing extremely well, and they are doing extremely well in Margate, in the Old Town, in Cliftonville, in Ramsgate. Just changing the subject slightly, I’m a little bit concerned to hear about the efficient Ramsgate Town Council. It can’t be as efficient as what the Charter Trustees were for example. I understand exactly the issues now that they can’t raise 137 but again we could be looking at other alternatives, which is what I propose, that we do look at other alternatives. I don’t want to go into details of that, but there is a ways and means where we don’t need expensive town councils ‘cause they are expensive. Let’s not run away from that, they are, and there are different ways this Council could raise funding and direct it specifically through community groups, through other agencies, that could deliver with Councillors being on a Board of Trustees or whatever for example, that means Cllr King, you could have a share of dividend from your Westgate residents without an additional cost or a very small increase. The amount to you would be significant. I suggest you explore some of these avenues rather than just say “We’ll increase tax”. That is not what we are about on this side. We will continue to look for other ways of being efficient and delivery and there are more modern ways to do that. Thank you Chairman.

Cllr Clark: Cllr Moores.

Cllr Simon Moores:  I wanted to express my support for one of Cllr King's statements and I did have a meeting with Officers on Monday on my shadow portfolio and I would say that we are suffering from an epidemic at the moment dog mess. It was something that I was going to look at. In fact I started the ball rolling in November of last year because we have an epidemic of dog mess, we have an epidemic of anti-social behaviour in regards to the ownership of dogs and we have problems with dangerous dogs in Thanet too, and I would urge Members opposite and in fact my Opposition colleague to look at this more closely, we need to actually establish probably a regime of zero tolerance or at least try a great deal harder to deal with a problem which is affecting a great many people in Thanet and been stressed to me by residents of the Westgate Residents association or indeed colleagues in Birchington. I cannot walk from my house in Westgate to the town without for example treading in something on the way and the same way when I walk to Margate on Monday for that same meeting I saw the same problem all the way across the seafront into Margate itself so I would urge members opposite or indeed my Cabinet colleague opposite to please take appropriate steps to try and mitigate the problem that we are now seeing with greater regularity in Thanet. Thank you.

Cllr Clark: Cllr Driver, you’ve already spoken but is this going to be a point of order or personal explanation?

Cllr Driver:  Yeah Chair, and I was named but wasn’t quick enough, but I tend to be polite in my interactions in this Chamber and the talk of heads and arses is hardly appropriate form a man I could talk of beards and genitalia. And I do not take lessons in economics from a man who masterminded a community hall in Broadstairs that would have bankrupt the local Council. And I do not take lessons in economics from a man who’s member of a party whose government will not introduce a Robin Hood tax on the bankers.

Cllr Clark: Cllr Campbell.

Cllr Campbell:  Thank you Chair. I’d just like to put this in context of the situation this Council actually finds itself in. The Government whose representatives opposite here have enacted a 29 per cent cut in the grant that’s given to Thanet. They haven’t cut that to the rich people of Ashford or Royal Tunbridge Wells. They’ve enacted it on the poorest area which is Thanet. That’s the situation we find ourselves in and that is why the services for this Council are diminishing. The fault lies with this Government.

Cllr Clark: Thank you. Cllr Harrison.

Cllr Harrison: I worry sometimes Chair that the members opposite have lost sight of the fact why we’re here, why we’re elected, why we stood for election because as I understood it to represent the people in our various wards and to try and make life a little better for them, try to somehow maintain what they already have. Well that means providing things like street sweeping, it means providing things like flowers in parks, it means keeping our open spaces what they already have and so I just worry that sometimes people get so wrapped up in this cut cut cut cut cut, it just seems to me they get some perverse satisfaction from making a cut here or making a cut there. No, its wrong, its completely and utterly wrong. And in this party we’ve always accepted that if you want a service, at some point its got to be paid for. At the end of the day, whether you run a local authority or whether you run a business, if you have a business providing a service to somebody, the user pays and that’s the basic principle, you cant get away from it and its exactly the same in local authorities. If the residents of an area demand services from their local authority, they have to be prepared to put their hands in their pockets and pay for it. And if at some point it means an increase in their Council Tax, well so be it. And you do have a duty and a responsibility to keep that increase to a minimum, but if people are demanding services from a local authority, whatever local authority, it has to be paid for, and at the end of the day the user pays. Let’s remind ourselves while I’m on my feet about dogs fouling and zero tolerance and I know I’m getting old and senile and I forget things but I don’t forget that I was the Cabinet Member responsible for the introduction of the dog fouling legislation in this District. I was the Cabinet Member at the time and as far as I know we still do, we hold the national record maximum fine for dog fouling and that was approaching £800 from memory when somebody allowed their dog to foul. I’m very proud of that, but of course lets march forward to 2003, whenever it was when all of a sudden dog fouling wasn’t a priority anymore and we found the dog wardens slowly disappearing from around the island, pop pop pop pop pop  until eventually they all went and the last dog warden was I believe is now working as security in the reception downstairs. So yeah, lets not have any more lectures and lets not have anymore bleating about all the dog fouling and how terrible it all is because remind yourselves who removed the wardens from this Council, it was you lot over there in 2003.

Cllr Clark: Cllr King, you had your hand up but you’ve spoken, have you got a point of order or personal explanation?

Cllr King: No, I was named actually Chair. Id like to reply. I was named by the Conservative Group.

[a bit about responding to being named]

Cllr King: Maybe I believe that I have been misrepresented by what’s been said about my attitude and what I’ve said here tonight regarding Council Tax. We’ve heard here tonight the term “tough times” and “tough decisions”. Would somebody probably from the, I won’t name anybody, but from the Conservative Group like to tell me what their interpretation of a tough decisions is, that has to be made by a multi-millionaire? Is it the same tough decision that is being made by an old age pensioner couple on a high rise estate who have to say "Shall we put our radiators on tonight or shall we have something to eat"? Is that the kind of tough decisions? These are the kinds of tough decisions, this is the kind of attitude I’m coming from. Mr Chairman, I haven’t finished, because the attitude that is coming from the Conservative Party tonight is to me, it is their trying to promote not so much the trying to tell us about the deficit and this is why we’ve got this terrible bills to pay and this deficit to pay. Is this really about that, or is this a return to some old ideology, an ugly ideology, one that last raised its head about 25 years ago? It was a time when the long shadow of Thatcher had spread all across this land, the time when the rich got richer and the strong got stronger, and the weak and the poor got left to fend for themselves. Is this the road we’re gonna go back on? Is this the road we’re gonna go back on? That’s where Im coming from, Mr Chairman. Thank you for listening to me.

A Ramble In Favour

Ive seen the news from Thanet Life, confirmed on the TDC website re. Cllr Jack Cohen joining the "other" Independent Group. I'm going to hold fire a while until Ive digested the Full Council agenda for next week. 


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Yesterday, I made my first proper comment on gay marriage and spent most of the post tackling the outer issues such as why the case in favour not being made. In fairness I didn't really make the case either, so here's my two cents...
The motion coming before Council next week is:

“Council therefore agrees to submit the following response to the consultation.
“That Thanet District Council:
a) supports the removal of the ban on same-sex couples being able to have a marriage through a civil ceremony;
b) supports the proposal to allow transsexual people to change their legal gender without having to legally end their existing marriage or civil partnership."


My answer, "Yes, but". I don't think the above is a full enough response from TDC against a consultation document which is around 22 pages long and which sets out 16 questions (though perhaps half of them are ones for personal responses). Bearing in mind all the argument that has stemmed from this document, the above isn't really good enough, though as I argued yesterday it's not the motion that matters as much as the reaction to it. Yes, its a KCC issue but it's before TDC next Thursday. Not much can be done about it now so let's roll with it.


For me, gay marriage is about commitment. When you talk about marriage you are talking about a lifelong commitment to each other above that of a civil partnership. As far as I'm concerned, as long as the two people whether gay, straight or whatever, make this commitment genuinely, there shouldnt really be a barrier to it. Yes, divorce happens too, but the commitment is for it to last even if it unfortunately does not. Its a key institution in our society and we should should be encouraging it.


As we've seen in the debate on the blogs, there aren't too many differences between civil partnerships and marriages. I get the point about a man and woman making a married couple, but is it too much to ask that a man and a man be allowed to make the same commitment to each other on equal terms? Whether they really are the same thing depends on the person comparing but I'm not persuaded by the argument that it has to be a man and a woman.


The Church is understandably concerned about this and as Nigel Farage pointed out once you take that first step its hard to slow it down and avoid the Church being shoved further than they wanted to.  This is a big sticking point here and this is why its absolutely essential that in any response to this consultation its made clear that religious organisations should be in no way compelled to conduct civil or religious marriages and that legislation resulting from this must be very clear that its a choice.


We've kinda been here before with gay adoption. In that instance the Catholic adoption agencies were forced to cut ties from the Church in order to remain within the law. As I felt at the time and still now, those agencies should have been exempt on the basis that they provided such a service that it wasn't fair to force them.


I don't think its right for the State to dictate to the Church on a matter such as this and on this I differ from those on the Left who feel that this consultation isn't going far enough and that the Church should open up to gay religious marriage. I see Peter Tatchell has spoken of this and I cannot agree. It's for the Church to decide for itself when it is ready to accept gay marriage. The Church performs a key role in society and should be treated fairly with this bearing in mind its own internal pressures.


Going back to the motion itself, to sum up, its too short a response to be meaningful as representing the views of 56 Councillors and again, the case in favour has not yet been made by those in favour. The debate has only been happening on the blogs and has been led by the Conservatives. You can argue the toss about whether this debate should happen at all but the motion's there and that's that. 


So there we go, that's my view and as this is the second post in a little over 24 hours on that topic, dont expect much more. Perhaps a mention next week but about all folks.

The Ties That Bind

The issue of the moment in the blogsphere is the gay marriage one. There's been a lot of debate about this and I think every other blogger has now put their point forward. I've been waiting a while to see how things were playing out, so here goes...

To get it out of the way nice and early, I support gay marriage. We are going in that direction as a country and as Tim Montgomerie has argued, it could help boost the institution of marriage and I very much agree with that sentiment. There are definitely strong arguments against it such as the sanctity of marriage and whether this is even necessary or wanted. Comment has been posted by Chris Wells, Tony Flaig, Luke Edwards. Simon Moores and Michael Child have put bits about on this issue as well.

Without doubt there are far more important issues facing us as a District and as a Country than the issue of gay marriage. Watching the Full Council webcast, there was a big focus on Council services and a good debate about how the Council provides services and an early shot across the bows about a possible Council Tax rise for next year. THAT is the debate we should be dwelling on, seeing how the Council finances might look at the end of the year and planning ahead because clearly the Members recognise there's trouble ahead financially and that TDC isn't home and dry at all.

My reservation is that this has been nothing to do with the issue of gay marriage itself. It's been - as predicted - about John Worrow's obsession with what he sees as Conservative homophobes. We've been here before and this was knocked on the head back then with the closing of Worrow's World. Its clear this is the case as no argument has been pushed in favour of gay marriage by either John or Ian but instead they have criticised those who have made arguments against it. Their entire strategy is defensive.

John and Ian have argued that there was a consultation asking for opinion from local authorities and that's justification for it. I dont buy that. They are meaning relevant local authorities, that is those which handle marriages, which TDC does not. The vote is meaningless unless in light of the aforementioned background tactic to expose bad guys...


I remind them that there was a consultation on reforming Business Rates to allow greater local flexibility last year and neither Driver or Worrow were interested in that even though its clearly of interest to Thanet and that TDC did reply, listed in the summary of responses. I wonder if there's something in having Council considering relevant Government consultations. The downside would be that with the volatility of the Council Groups, this could lessen the effectiveness of such an idea.

While I support gay marriage, I'm thoroughly unimpressed by the behaviour of both Ian and John and I distance myself from it. John's ballsy yet bush-league questioning of Nigel Farage shows us another facet of the Councillor the residents of Birchington South have. I've twice posted on his "Thanet Diversity Network" Facebook page and both times they've been deleted without any explanation. I thought we were past all this, John.

The thing is, this didn't have to be handled this way. If the advice given by Matthew Brown back in December was heeded, this could have been an example of leadership rather than an attempt at Tory-hunting. He could have made an actual case and we could have had a full debate about this.

We now have the prospect of a public meeting hosted by Ian Driver at the Margate Media Centre. Originally this meeting was purely about the gay marriage issue but has now been overshadowed by Driver and Worrow's sensitivity to adverse opinion and now the main subject for this is "STOP HOMOPHOBIA IN THANET". This relates to Roger Gale's comment about "militant homosexuals" and secondly to the blogsphere debate. 

Well, Roger Gale has been talking about gay rights like that for yonks and should be of no suprise to anyone. Having been an MP since Thanet North was born way back in 1983, whether you agree with his views or not, its fair to say he's earned the right to express his views without such an over-reaction. Boris Johnson doesn't get this sort of reaction anymore... As for the blogs, I don't see any homophobia and the commentary by the other bloggers has been very well put. To throw the homophobia term about is reactionary and lacks maturity. The comment about Worrow being hung is no different than Clarkson's comment about executing striking workers. Just a joke.

Neither John nor Ian have made a case for gay marriage but slam anyone who disagrees with the idea of gay marriage as making "vitrolic comments" or threatening legal action. There is no right or wrong answer here, just different opinions. Both Councillors would do well to remember that.

Thinking over this, the following comes to mind.

Parking Hell

Big turnout for last nights Cabinet meeting with Cllrs King, Watkins, Worrow, Driver, Campbell, M Tomlinson and Edwards along with the motley frontbenches and a bucketload of officials. A few of us commoners turned up too...


The Royal Sands agenda item was deferred till an Extraordinary Cabinet meeting to be held on 5th April owing to discussions over the past days meaning more time is needed. 


Onto the Draft Corporate Plan. Cllr Wise seemed to make the strongest points though I got the impression the Cabinet wasnt really listening to the criticism, however good the argument being put. Wise's point that he "want to see what you are going to do", seemed to go over their heads. Overview made the same point with Jo Gideon being particularly sharp back then. It was pointed out by Iris Johnston that work started back in September but even that ignores the fact that Labour's had this for 3 months now and could have changed it to whatever they wanted, which we can see they have. Passing this off as the fault of the Tories doesn't really work.


East Kent Opportunities up next with a bit of miscommunication. Driver spoke here asking about the TDC liability for EKO should it go under. Iris Johnston was side-stepping Driver's assumption that EKO was going under though she admitted there "has to be a Plan B". The liability incidentally was revealed at Overview a while back to be around £2.5m.


Onto Parking fees. Cabinet voted Option 2 aka Linear Lite. Final Approval will come at Full Council on 19th April. A shouting argument kicked off during this item, with Campbell making a comment that wasnt welcomed by Chris Wells as he was talking about what he saw as a "shoddy" report into the Birchington stuff. Bit of shouting with even Clive Hart seeming to lose his cool a bit. If ever there was a visible sign that this sort of thing is no good, a member of the public left the meeting at that point. 


Other items went with little serious debate. Bit of an argument about Budget projections relating to the reserves but I want to properly digest the report first so it makes sense when I blog about it. 

Urgent Decision - Ethelbert Crescent

TDC Cabinet considering a lot of items Ive mentioned in past reports tonight so Im not going to go over that again. Simon Moores got in his preview last night and Michael Child has commented on his area of interest (dont knock it. Its good to see someone is paying attention to the issue and asking for answers, however uncomfortable they might be). Ill be coming along so Ill stick something up tonight once Ive put together some congent thoughts. 

Margate Architecture following on from their talk on the Post Office planning application last week with a couple of observations put down on pixels. Food for thought.

An Urgent Decision notice was signed yesterday by Cabinet Member Iris Johnston so that TDC could enter an auction yesterday to go for 26 Ethelbert Crescent in Margate. The guide price was £195k, TDC wanted to bid pre-auction for £198k and it sold for £194k. This is because of its current use (pretty low usage looking at the info at the auction site) as an HMO. In short, this is the same reason why TDC bought Hotel Leslie.

Ive no problem with this one so Im not going to criticise the decision. I doubt there'll be complaints about lack of consultation with Ward Councillors this time round. The Housing Revenue Account is one of the items tonight so I would imagine we will get an update on this seeing as the money for the property comes from there. I do have one question though. Property auctions dont get put together in 24 hours, so when did TDC first become aware of this auction?

On the Full Council webcast situation, I hear the webcast was put up over a week ago and disappeared off the TDC website frontpage because of the number of links being added. They've now made sure the link is on the frontpage. Still costing an eye-watering £250 a pop though... Ill stick up some thoughts soon.

Planning and Scrutiny March 2012

A couple of meetings to recap (I'm bunging out a pretty haphazard report here readers so dont be too picky about it), starting with last night's Planning Committee. 


The Hereson/Honeysuckle junction application passed with unanimous support. A bit of debate over the St Peters Court rear extension but the Committee felt that the alternative of the applicant pushing "permitted development rights" was worse than what was proposed. Personally a Site Visit could have been a goer with a couple of Members wanting one and a very good speech by the local resident against the proposal, but approval is fair enough as the Committee was being very realist.


Then we have the Post Office building at Cecil Square. Proposal is to retain the Cecil Square facing chunk and demolish the rear section, replacing it with new housing. The retained part seems to be fine for the Committee but the rear section came under fire by a number of sceptical Members. A Site Visit will take place with the application coming back before Planning on the 18th April.


Then onto tonight's reconvened Overview and Scrutiny Panel meeting, another 2 and a half hour job. Thing's kicked off with the Canvass Growth Bid - basically boosting the electoral roll. A bit more spending needed for this but its agreed that its worth it. There's talk of "data-matching", that is of comparing data from say housing records to find people but from what we heard there's still some way to go yet. The Electoral Review (shorthand) Working Party is going to continue for a bit longer than its May deadline as its still got work to do. 


"Urgent Decisions" got debated and finally we got formal explanation for the Hotel Leslie argument and the report backs Cllr Wells over that decision on the basis of it's urgency. At least now we have it out in the public domain about the rules in relation to this. 


We then had a big crime section. One of the big criticisms of the Police was that it covered Margate Central and Cliftonville West as a priority which was fair enough but that Ramsgate seemed to be left out even though when looking at deprived wards, Eastcliff wasnt far away. There was also comment about the lack of detail in the Community Safety Plan when looking at budgets or alternatively the lack of executive power behind the Scrutiny Working Party report.


Interesting to hear reports from one Member about PCSOs choosing not to enforce rules on dog fouling and that rubbish dumping is another chronic problem. Anyone who's read this blog before will know the number of times I've moaned about dumped rubbish and it's an ongoing problem in my patch. I've followed the clear up operation behind The Oxford pub (shout-out to Alistair Burgess for reporting this on FixMyStreet) and while its good to see it being sort of cleared up, the neighbouring shell of a building at 5a St Peters Road is in a state that guarantees no chance of that problem going away for good. 


Finally, an item on Food Safety with a revealing debate. Given the number of food businesses in Thanet, its good to see the Council getting a grip on this issue.


Next week is Cabinet, so Ill try and do a preview for it. Michael Child might add to his Royal Sands comments so keep an eye on Thanet Online. Don't expect much comment from me on that one!

A Long 24 Hours In Thanet

First up, Infratil inevitably put Manston up for sale. Its been talked about for a while so its not really much of a suprise. Who is to blame for this? To be fair, Infratil's not been having a good time and Flybe pulling out only made things worse. Politically, no one's come out well. The big boys comment at Thanet Life, Big News Margate and Thanet Online.


Labour gets first hit being at the wheel. They've made a big thing about their rigid adherence to the manifesto for some time and as we know, their "no night flights" policy was a key reason for their strong results in last year's elections. While it's honourable to stick by it, its very off-putting for those whose interests aren't best served by that manifesto, like Infratil. It also looked an unbalanced policy, centred on a small core of residents rather than a policy for Thanet as a whole. Labour had plenty of opportunities to ease off the heavy rhetoric a bit without losing the strength of their argument and to look more balanced, a Governing party rather than an Opposition.


The Conservatives haven't come out of this well either. Labour got good play out of the Manston issue at the doorstep and that proved particularly useful 6 months later, taking power. Labour's problem is of straight jacketing themselves while the Conservatives issue has been looking a bit weak and indecisive by arguing that the full process of evaluation needed to go through. Whether or not either case is true is irrelevant. What it might be matters so much more than what it actually is. 


Its possible there will be a shift in policy at some point. Incidentally I should point out, this blog is me just shooting the breeze. Don't place too much weighting on my views. 


Margate FC's flagship hotel on hold too. While I can understand the reluctance of the Council to grant a lease, I can't expect that they would have wanted to see this fall and chatting to the fans at the first game after the big Cabinet meeting, the view seemed to be that it was a matter of time. There seemed to be slow but steady progress on this looking at the club's website but this is rather strange. Brinksmanship gone wrong perhaps? Whatever's going on, this isn't good news and I really hope an alternative operator and a path through this stalemate is found.


CCTV to go back to 24 hours monitoring looking at a notice from Council Leader Clive Hart and announced at Overview last week. No costings or details other than the headline folks.

The Numbers Game

Photo by Alex Proimos, 2009

Still problems with the microphone system, leading some Councillors to avoid using them at all during last nights Overview meeting, so I missed some of the speeches (the whirring behind the public gallery didn't help either). It was reported in the preamble that the report into Urgent Decisions wasn't ready so that will come at a later meeting. I completely agree about the frustration here about the lateness of reports. Excuses about cuts aren't good enough. Just get on with it.

Clive Hart spoke about the Forward and Draft Corporate Plans and gave some updates on key things from each. There was quite a debate here about the balance to be struck between detailed actions in the Corporate Plan and its strategic nature. I agree with the Conservatives here that the Plan is too vague and sanitised and has too many priorities. On that last point it was undermined by Harts own argument about the limiting effects of Government cuts. If there is less to go around, and you don't believe in localism, then surely it means fewer priorities? I'd rather the Council aimed for less but delivered all of it than to spread itself thin trying to do more and failing. A motion was passed that the Corporate Plan should be looked at again and brought back to Overview in 6 weeks.


The theme of the meeting was the Conservative lead on the voting as alluded to in the preview. For Labour to win a vote, Tom King would have to vote with them. That didn't happen. The result? A motion was passed asking that Cabinet reconsider the Birchington parking scheme.

Hart asked for input into moving towards a "linear" parking fees system from the current, buying a big block of time, idea. Tagged onto this is the feeling from the Cabinet that this isn't the way they want to go. An indicative vote was held here and I think I might have gotten my notes wrong because I have all but one Member voting against this linear system. Hopefully a reader will confirm or correct me...

The Community Safety stuff came up with a couple of comments about Ramsgate seeming to be lacking with police. Sadly that's about all we got because a motion was put to adjourn the meeting and come back as soon as to complete the remaining items.

Agenda items 8, 9, 11 and 12 have been put off and its unlikely Ill be able to attend the reconvened meeting because the Council's website sucks so much, I probably wont know where and when the new meeting will be. I'm still waiting for the Full Council webcast and Minutes from 2 weeks ago!

All motions mentioned are subject to Cabinet whim. As we've seen with previous motions, Cabinet can just ignore them, and I expect no different here. They will say they note the motions but that's about all.

Planning On Something

After a quiet month for me in terms of attending Council meetings, I should be able to make 5 meetings this time round, so hopefully the coming few weeks will make up for what has been a bit of a layabout last month.

Overview and Scrutiny this Tuesday with lots of Plans being reviewed. Dont forget readers, there has been a change to the membership numbers with the Conservatives holding 7 seats, Labour 6 and Tom King as Independent Chair. Lots of links on the Council page for this meeting, so try this link and read those two pdfs instead.

Draft Corporate Plan comes up after a speech by Clive Hart on "The Future Cabinet Priorities in relation to Key Decisions in the Forward Plan". As we know from his Braveheart moment in January, he and Labour don't do the "Big Society game". Curious because Priority 3 from the Draft Corporate Plan is about voluntary and community organisations and develops aspects of the Big Society even if it doesnt call it that. This idea also features in the Kent Forum's "Vision for Kent" as Ambition 3.  The Draft Corporate Plan comes before Cabinet on the 29th before going to Full Council.

There's also a report on "Urgent Decisions". You might remember this was opted over a Working Group, much to my relief. As I said back then, there does need to be some thought into this, so its a fair cop. The report is not available at time of blogging. If it appears, Ill stick the link up, though its likely to be too late for the meeting.

We have a crime section in this meeting with the Strategic Assessment (interesting reading) and Safety Plan for the coming year. Attached to this is a report by the Crime Reduction Working Party. 

With the Parking Review, I would really like to hear more about the discussion and possible further changes to the parking scheme for future years in Minnis Bay, Joss Bay, Westgate and Margate Old Town. Readers, got any ideas?

To finish, again I want to make the point, all meetings should be recorded for the public to access. Agendas like the one above are really important with Thanet-wide implications and the public should be hearing about it in full. I know theres a webcast pilot taking place but for me, its not worth the expense, providing a substandard service. Other Councils record  all their meetings through a relatively cheap and user-friendly mp3 system. OK, you lose the video, but given the quality of that at the moment, its not much of a loss...

Nonsense and Oversensibility

"We have a society in which one of the greatest things you can do is a platform to see victim status, and one of the qualifications for that is that you have these exquisitely tender feelings about things and sensibilities which are easily offended." - Brit Hume


So here we are again on the blogs talking about people being offended. Ever since the local election campaign last year, it seems everyone's looking for the next sign of offending someone and jumping on it like its going out of fashion. In the past few months we had John Worrow over comments here, Tony Flaig hurt by being called a "lickspittle" during a debate over Children's Services and now Ian Driver hurt by a blog entry by Mike Harrison about a description of some woman as a "frustrated, dried up bint". Does anyone in Thanet even know this woman?


Come on, these complaints wont result in anything so why bother? Alright, you get a bit of attention for a while but nothing meaningful actually results from it. So what if Harrison is a misogynist?! He's a grown man and can say and do what he likes. Whatever happened to being tolerant?


The problem is that this hyper-sensitivity to anything offensive to anyone is that you end up with the constant threat upon those commenting. Eventually bloggers will cut out the entertainment from their blogs. In short, you'll end up with Ville Views... This subtle form of censorship is absurd and perverse. Why does talk of exposing bigots usually mean silencing them instead?


I'm sure I've hurt someone's feelings in the writing of this. If so, I await the Blog Warden's cuffs and interrogation...

Questions and Allowances

Full Council comes about again and so the preview show does too (Simon Moores has already gotten his in). I can't be at this meeting, so if anyone going to the meeting could let me know what the results were, it would be useful, not to mention far quicker than me waiting for the Minutes to come through on the TDC website.

Questions from Members usually has a couple of items then moving on but this time round we have 8. Its a strange batch on offer including the weighting of the Manston consultation, the economic strategy, selective licensing and seaweed removal in Birchington. I'm sure there will be some press releases to come from this so keep an eye out for new stuff on Thanet Press Releases. 

Yep, Worrow has a question as well, though I'm still unsure what exactly the point is driving at. Can a telephone system be in breach of equality rules? He had a more combative point to make 4 days ago but deleted it from his "Thanet Diversity Network - Progressive District Action" page along with reasonable comments by me and another blogger.

Some post-Budget bits to debate, then onto an item with some spice. This is the Labour proposal to cut Special Responsibility Allowances by 20% to fund Councillor Grants. Each Councillor would have about £364. There need to be very carefully put together rules here if this is to happen. 


Kick off 7pm Thursday evening. 

TDC Planning Cmte Feb 2012

Short and sharp Planning Committee meeting last night so this will be a brief recap rather than an actual report. I do feel like I'm short-changing you guys on this so Ill try to get another blog done later today to make up for it. We shall see.


- Richborough Power Station's alternative condition wording accepted.
- Chambers Wall Farm refused unanimously after a little discussion.
-Solar panels at Thanet Crematorium and Council Offices approved.
-Embassy Hotel, Cliftonville approved without debate.


The only one with a serious debate was Bramble Lane. As I said before, it comes with planning history including appeals and Inspector reports, so there was arguments both ways. There were concerns about side issues relating to this, but they didn't really count as part of the application themselves. Eventually it was approved on Chairman's second vote.


On public speaking, if doing a speech for the Committee its really important to stick to planning reasons and to have prepared something beforehand. Basically you get three minutes to speak. There's a clock on the Chairman's bench and once the red light hits you have 30 seconds left. You cannot defer to let other speakers go first and respond later.

The Three Towers Part II

An easier Planning agenda this Wednesday. First up is the site inspection at Chambers Wall Farm.

The former Embassy Hotel in Cliftonville is perhaps the star item of the evening with proposals to overhaul the building, turning it into 2  4-bedroom properties as part of the Housing Intervention project. Getting rid of the front extension and most of the rear one is a very good idea and this looks a strong application.

Bramble Lane comes up next with a bit of planning history to it and this is for retrospective consent. Its a self contained plot but its in the countryside so is against the Local Plan. I think I'm missing something here. Recommendation to approve.

A couple of applications for solar panels this time round as well, one for the Council Offices and one for the Thanet Crematorium. For the Council Offices one its an approval recommendation but for the latter it needs to go to public consultation so it’s a defer and delegate jobbie with approval attached.

Second to last is Richborough Power Station for a second showing. This is about the specific issue of at what point the blast can be stopped, in case of an electricity issue. A number of Councillors took the view that the relevant parties needed to get together to sort it out between themselves and to come back once they had. Well, they did, and the Committee now has new wording for that condition. If only they had done that before the last time this was considered...

Rounding things off is a report on enforcement decisions.

Labour U-Turn on Runaways

The minutes for the Cabinet meeting last week have finally been published (a week’s wait?). Everything got passed as expected, except one.

You might remember from previous posts about Labour making a push on runaways, getting a motion passed at Full Council back in December asking Cabinet to set up a Members Working Group to look into this. Well, the result: Labour changed it's mind and went with the Officer's recommendation to attend the Local Children's Trust Board and confirm it is the best thing to work though.

Having been at the Full Council meeting that passed that original motion, I remember Cllr Chris Wells making it very clear that duplicating already existing work was a bad idea. The same advice would have been given at that Cabinet meeting. Given Cllr Iris Johnston is both Cabinet Member and the Member who put the original motion, it begs the question of why she put the motion in the first place. She was determined to push with this in December...


That said, better late than never.

Snow Problem

Some photos of Poet's Corner where the hoped-for rubbish collection (Monday) did not happen. This wouldn’t be a problem if they had wheelie bins but because of the location (very small pavement) they can't and while I don’t blame the Council for that, I do have a problem in that the nearby St Peters Footpath is clear of ice along with the road part (the majority) of Poet’s Corner.

 

 

A TDC press release now says this rubbish wont be collected till next week. I really don’t understand the problem here. Poet’s Corner is light traffic wise and while perhaps the pavement itself is icy, the road is easily walkable. Park a van at the St Peters Footpath end and get the guys to walk it up the road…

While its great to see the ivy cleared thanks to the local street cleaner, the rubbish keeps appearing there along with Milton Square (collection on Tuesdays). Again, the roads round there are clear. A mattress remains on the YMCA side and has been there for about two weeks now. Incidentally, that dumpster has been flung open for about the same period and its a horrible eyesore.

St Johns Road (Thursday) is amongst the photos. The rubbish there has been an issue for a while now and the spilled rubbish was there well before that snow. 

Running On Fumes

Easing back a bit on the blogging recently and this is likely to last for a couple of weeks. Looks like everyone else is doing similarly...


Cabinet (2nd Feb) agenda out:

First up is the “Still Running 3” item about runaways, where the report says that using what’s already there is a better option to setting up a new Working Party. I agree with that recommendation. Specifically relating to looked after children, there are already a number of different Groups involved with this and an extra one isn’t likely to improve things. I’m not saying that TDC shouldn’t be looking to help where it can but that when it does, it has to be focused. I commented nearly 3 years ago on this and proposed the relevant Cabinet Member being involved in an “overwatch” role. Looking back at it, while I don’t think it was an awful idea, it doesn’t quite fit in with the Council’s own position. The Cabinet Member (in this case Cllr Iris Johnston) should really be ensuring that there are sufficient facilities for those needing help, working with the KCC counterpart to ensure the delivery of services is maintained properly.

Next is the scheduling of consideration of the half hour free parking in Birchington. I touched on this during the Full Council preview last month. Discussion dates can now be pencilled in for Overview (March 6^th), Cabinet (29^th March) and Full Council (19^th April) and the new set up will take effect on the 4^th June. 

The Statement of Community Involvement comes up afterwards with a consultation to come there.

On the issue of consultation and in particular Manston, it’s clear the report places serious doubts on the evidence produced to support night flights. As much as consultation was promised, if it’s clear that it’s not going to happen, consulting on it is a pointless thing to do and a waste of resources and Labour might as well have simply returned to sender.

On the pre-determination rules which caused the Labour Group such trouble that they changed their policy to one of free choice before making it clear that their manifesto was the choice all along, those have now changed. Basically as long as a Councillor declares themselves open minded, even though they are blatantly biased, its cool.

Hartsdown is next and the final decision on the leases. If the item lasts longer than 10 minutes, it'll be too long…

Budget Monitoring Report and a look at previous Overview recommendations, which might get a little debate but unlikely to be anything serious. A look at progress against the Interim Corporate Plan too which is worth a look at then the press and public get the boot…

 ...because an intriguing discussion about a Housing Intervention programme for Margate Central and Cliftonville West comes last which is a big thing for the two wards and with serious implications for both TDC and KCC. I will come back to this when Ive had a bit more time to mull this over.

Sadly I cant make this meeting, nor the Full Council meeting later in the month so there wont be a results show, but Im sure we’ll hear plenty about it Friday morning regardless!

Sparrow Castle/Cowper Road, Margate

I regularly walk around Margate specifically to see how street cleaning and rubbish collection is going and I'm becoming more concerned at the increasing frequency of dumped rubbish in the Cowper Road/Sparrow Castle area. Given the YMCA building is not in use, it’s become a dumping site now, so much so that in the car park there is a TDC Enviro-Crime sticker informing people that it's being investigated. It was put there months ago... The two wheelie bins and the handful of black sacks to the left of them in the first shot were put out two days ago.

The FixMyStreet website has numerous complaints of rubbish being left on Sparrow Castle (its been a problem for years). A local businessman back in July had to sort it out himself.

The broken glass has returned to the Lord Byron Alleyway, strewn along the right hand side of the following photo:

...and the unbeatable black sack has returned to Dane Park. 

Labouring over Budget, Conservative Scrutiny

Labour got its Budget, the Conservatives got their way over Ian Driver's lost seat and Margate FC fans got a serious case of arse ache… Good to see Tony Flaig standing sentry in the Chamber last night. Always nice to have fellow bloggers appearing. Even better to see a full house in the Chamber.

The public gallery was the vast majority Margate FC fans so logic would dictate that Margate FCs lease item should really come first. Instead the agenda was followed strictly and the fans had to wait considerable time before their time came. I see no reason why mercy couldn’t have been shown there and the item bunged up the agenda, after the A&E item. We knew the Budget was going to take a good while anyway.

First up the A&E presentation from Stuart Bain. There was concern from Members about the distance and how this would impact upon the effective treatment of those patients being rushed to Ashford. Best question was the sobering one from Cllr M Tomlinson asking whether he would have survived his cardiac arrest years ago with this new system.

That one done with general agreement about it, we moved onto the meat of the meet starting with the Leader’s Report, or not, as it was withdrawn from the agenda. Chair Cllr Doug Clark decided that as this was an Extraordinary Council meeting, it wasn’t necessary.

Then onto the Budget debate. This debate dragged on for an hour and 40 minutes so bear with me. First up the starting statements which were in essence the same speeches I’ve heard in past meetings. The Red Rose had her say about how money should be used to help the most vulnerable and brought in a bunch of documents including a 2001 anti-poverty strategy, the Portas report and others (Iris?) for others to read though throwing them on the table in front was a tad overly-dramatic. 

Hart made a truly grandstanding speech. Very old style Labour speaking directly to his own Group rather than the Conservatives, including a comment that people were being “hoodwinked by the Big Society game”. This I will definitely come back to in a future blog. Cllrs Harrison, Fenner and Poole continued this Socialist theme as expected with attacks over “Tory bankers” and comments about whether private or public money was better.

The Conservatives in response argued that there is real concern about “top-slicing” and therefore the money should be kept as a reserve in order to fill a possible funding gap. Cllr Gideon again made a very good point that civic pride isn’t always about fundraising. The Conservatives proposed an amendment to go back to the original budget. Labour tried to have it thrown out as they didn’t have the document on them even though they had to have read it at some point when coming up with their own changes to it. Eventually the Chief Exec listed the differences of which every single one had already been talked about in previous debates.

The amendment was defeated and the meeting was to move onto the next item until another amendment was proposed to redirect the £185,000 being used from the New Homes Bonus fund to go towards services for vulnerable people, unemployed and wider community. This one didn’t really have much traction and was defeated after some sharp debate, revolved around advice given on whether the NHB could be used to pay for someone to be employed. Cllr Wise being accused of recording the meeting on his phone by Cllr Poole. In fact he was looking for a message relating to that topic. Yes, that was the sort of behaviour last night…

Some comments were made regarding the subsidising of EKO. I missed that section, so I hope a Councillor will fill me in obviously bearing in mind the rules about restricted info. Along with that I’d love to know what NHB money had already been spent by the Conservatives [19 Hawley Square bought from Orbit for £75k - living nearby, I definitely agree with that decision. Difference is that the money can be recouped with its eventual sale].

In the end Labour got their Budget passed, and the Margate FC fans were able to have their moment. A lot of debate over who/what was to blame for the delay in dealing with the leases. We’ve seen the arguments online so I won’t bore you with them. Margate FC’s press release gives the results which now return to Cabinet (as the decision makers) for final sign off. It was stated during the meeting that an offer had been made to Cllr Binks to work with the Labour leadership in helping with this. Whether this cross party working is a sign of the future, it remains to be seen.

I know fans really want to see the 125 year lease, seeing that without it the development cannot go ahead. I’ve said before and I still think it’s the case that once a first lease is granted and the thing built, it’s extremely unlikely that TDC would refuse a lease again on the site. That’s why I think that the length of the lease is perhaps a red herring.

The final item of what to do with a problem like Ian. Labour proposed as expected to lose a Member in Licensing, the Conservatives proposed Overview and Scrutiny. Cllr King made the best contribution as you’d expect from the OSP Chair, arguing that given Labour has the Chair of the Council and the Cabinet, the Opposition should have the lead on Scrutiny to balance it. This was supplemented by Cllr Bayford’s point that it should be an “effective watchdog”. Cllr Johnston made the point that voting is all too often along Party lines, which while true, is not exactly groundbreaking political analysis. When it came to the vote, there was surprise when Labour failed to get a majority of the Independents to back them. The Conservatives now have a 7-6-1 lead on Overview which spices things up, providing a counter-weight to the Cabinet.

I’d be remissed if I didn’t talk about Cllr Worrow, an issue I’ve deliberately avoided comment on recently. With John’s blog disappearing along with what was said about the NTCA and its membership, what was said in the past month is just that. I fully understand that this may well be a lull before another storm and if it re-emerges I will deal with it then. I hope readers will respect what I say and treat Worrow as they would any other Councillor. What’s done is done.

Fuse In Mouth (updated)

Richborough Power Station, as you'd expect, took most of the time to decide upon during tonight's Planning meeting with a lot of debate over how to reconcile UK Power Networks concerns regarding the electricity supply to the applicants wish to demolish the site. Cllr Dark's relatively simple condition was passed unanimously to make the demolition happen between March and November. 

The second one was rather more difficult to find agreement on, the issue being how soon before the demolition could it be stopped in case of say an outage. Cllr Everitt tried 2 hours warning which didn’t make it, deemed to be unreasonable and unenforceable by the Officers, and I think supported by only three other members (Cllrs Dark, Matterface and Gibson?) and controversially perhaps needed Cllr Dark to second the amendment after Cllr Campbell withdrew from seconding it originally, after hearing advice from the Officers and checking the report. Instead Cllr Campbell's 24 hours got the support of the Committee and the planning consent as a whole was granted unanimously with those two additional conditions.

Next up, Western Esplanade, Broadstairs, was granted consent pretty safely with some debate over whether this would be a blot on the landscape or not. Cllr Dark argued it was too close to the neighbour, which is actually a fair point as it is very close to the boundary but then again so is the current building. Most speakers were supportive of it with Cllr Gregory admitting he had his concerns about it at first but had been wrong about this sort of thing before and was happy to support it. Cllr Matterface had her concerns about the size of the development compared to the previous consent it had (a very different building though). It passed with support of all but Cllrs Gibson, Alexandrou, Dark, Everitt and Matterface.

Onto the Barretts application, where on the preview blog I put my foot in it by saying it was unsuitable for Pilgrims Hospice. The recommendation was rejected unanimously and instead was approved with a condition that this is personal to the applicant, to stop the danger of creating a precedent in the area. Happy to take it back.

On the remaining items, Chambers Wall Farm has gone to a site visit and the Ryder Avenue duo passed without debate. 
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To update the preview for the Full Council meeting tonight, a late addition to the tail-end of the agenda is a change to the Council Committees in light of Cllr Ian Driver's decision to leave the Labour Group. Those who've asked whether it's genuine have had their answer with a big fat yes. Labour has to lose one Member from a Committee and the choice open to Members is that it be either Licensing or Overview and Scrutiny, leaving the Conservatives with a seat more than Labour in whichever one is picked.


I would imagine Labour would name a replacement in Overview and Scrutiny rather than lose a Member on that politically useful Committee. I could be wrong though. Details in the review tomorrow morning.