Friday 18 December 2015

History of the Pleasurama site

The history of the Pleasurama site goes back many years and as we are all waiting for something good to happen I thought I would provide a resume of the site back to the start.

The site is based on land reclaimed from the shrinking chalk cliff and is formerly a beach and in 1860-1865 the land was bought by the railways and a massive tunnel was dug from the beach up to the top of Hereson Road with the chalk spoil being used to raise the beach level to build a station.
In 1926 the railway decided to transfer their station into Ramsgate itself and close the "Sands" station and the land was sold to Ramsgate Corporation and they decided to lease the land for Leisure purposes and it underwent a transformation.



All went well until the 1970's when two unrelated incidents occurred, firstly Freddie Laker invented the "foreign holiday" and Ramsgate Corporation was dissolved and TDC came into being.
To bring things closer somewhere around the mid 1990's James "Jimmy" Godden attempted to change the Pleasurama site and rumours abounded with plans for "Yuppie" flats which were refused until the infamous blaze in May 1998.
From then things went downhill with plans being refused and then granted but no work was carried out. Patience finally ran out in 2001 when TDC decided to CPO the lease from Godden however this succeeded only after a controversial offer to Godden allowing him to keep the insurance money in exchange for not contesting the purchase.

In 2002 the then Labour administration advertised the site see this link In the beginning

By 2006 with Planning permission granted to a shell company owned by Shaun Patrick Keegan a development agreement was signed by the Tories under Ezekiel and Latchford we all waited for building to start and guess what NOTHING.
In 2009 the Agreement was amended, again under Ezekiel, with Cardy onboard as builders and again no building started.
In 2012 rumours started circulating that the Freehold of the site was about to be handed over and this was the last straw for many Ramsgatonians who banded together to petition TDC not to hand over the Freehold to these landbankers. See link to Vindication

The development agreement terminated in February 2014 however because it was "poorly" written a way needed to be found to remove SFP Ventures (UK) Ltd so Cardy came to the "rescue" something that many believe was contrived to save the blushes of TDC officers and has little substance behind it.
See link to "Goldan Balls" link

Now we have the unedifying sight of UKIP being left holding the baby with the wrong paint being used to stabilise the cliff face and no work contemplated until June 2016 at least.

Questions that need answering
Lin Fairbrass, Cllr Suzanne Brimm, and Chris Wells there are some questions that need answering and then communicated to people living in Ramsgate.
1. Do Cardy own the freehold to the site?
2. Has the £3M+ been paid to TDC?
3. Has Shaun Patrick Keegan been removed as principal shareholder?
4. Have the Leases been revoked?
5. When will building work start?
6. Who is paying for the repainting of the cliff face?
7. What has happened to the £1M paid to TDC in 2009 as a surety to ensure the work is done?


The people of Ramsgate deserve better than these two pictures. It has been 17 years since it burnt to the ground. Get it sorted and tell us what is going on.

13 comments:

  1. Well said Baz and ukip as the new regime can cancel the whole mess and start again...

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  2. re Q7 the £1 million paid on 209 must have accrued loads of interest by now or was it 2009?

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  3. There´s so much coruption in Thanet about time it was uncoverd,starting from now!

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    1. Hardly corruption it is basic incompetence. Some elements of TDC have CYA down to a fine art

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  4. What does CYA mean please Barry.

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  5. Thanks for the CYA info Barry,could Corruption be argued as incompetence in a court of Law?

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  6. Barry you are a star. Start your answer to Anon with Mens Rea. Best of luck

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  7. I note no one has picked up the issue with the insurance

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  8. I been busy with NCA stuff writing since 5 AM then I may quick read Gales move re bypassing TDC to get RiverOak application in at national planning inspectorate.

    Pleasurama site may be flawed re contract not flexible (consequence for insurance ?) re a chalk face boundary. Michael has done good work for a long while on the associated safety issue.

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  9. Yes picked up insurance bribe thing,what did TDC and the insurance have in common?and Mens Rea would be upto the Jugde,would it not.Told U RivernoOaktrees would be back,Humpty.

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  10. well said again Barry. they forget so easily that we remember, remember it all.
    Merry Christmas to you and your family.

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