Communication

This is the reality of 18 years of piss poor communication from Thanet Councillors. Promises made and broken by a series of Conservative and Labour Councillors and lack of a will to take the land back and develop it for Leisure.
This is the press release from FORS on the 1st of September 2014 and sod all has changed. The only thing to change hands is the Freehold of the land.

Dated: Monday, 01 September 2014

Re: Pleasurama Site

Following the release of the Cabinet papers today Friends of Ramsgate Seafront would like to make it clear that the proposed deal with the current builders Cardy allowing them to rewrite the Development Agreement with TDC is inappropriate and is the wrong use for the site.

Allowing for the caveat that Planning has been granted in 2004 and “work” had started it is unbelievable that TDC would still be considering allowing housing on this site despite their own call for leisure related activities in their own plan (Ramsgate Renaissance documents) in 1998.

Notwithstanding this we believe that 3 things are made clear in the new Development Agreement that will have to be signed by TDC and Cardy before building can start.

1. The Freehold of the site must remain with Thanet District Council and not be sold to Cardy or any other party
2. That the cliff face maintenance be part of the leaseholders responsibility as it used to be up until the current leases were assigned
3. That proper “due diligence” be done on the new developer to ensure that Shaun Patrick Keegan and his associates cannot benefit in any way from any profits ensuing when the development is sold

FORS want to make it clear that we in no way condone the Council’s actions however we understand the position past actions by previous administrations have placed the Council in a very difficult situation.

Further to this a previous member of FORS asked TDC in an Freedom of Information the following questions

Dear Thanet District Council,
Please provide details of any payments the developer(s)/buyer(s) of the Royal Sands Development, Ramsgate is/are contractually bound to pay Thanet District Council as per any legally extant planning permission, development agreement, contract of sale, memorandum of understanding OR any other document which might contain this information.
Where payments have or will be made please provide the following information for each amount:
(a) Name of organisation providing the payment
(b) Purpose of payment
(c) Date funds paid/will be paid to the council
(d) Details of any conditions attached to payment
Yours faithfully,

Their answer last May (2015) was to refuse citing the following answer

 Thank you for your communication received on 15/04/2015 where you
requested information about contractual payments regarding the Royal Sands
Development.
 
I apologise for the delay in responding to your request, it is the
councils intention to publish this information once the legal process
concludes so this information is exempt under section 22 of the Freedom of
Information Act and is therefore being withheld. 

So like any concerned ratepayer we all sat back and waited, well on the 20th July 2016 all contract work was concluded with the payment of the outstanding £3M and the required statement was made by TDC as follows:

"Thanet District Council can confirm that the sale of the former Pleasurama site on Ramsgate seafront completed on Wednesday 20 July 2016 with Cardy Ramsgate Ltd.
The council has received the monies from this sale.
The site has transferred to the south-east based firm who will be responsible for delivery of the scheme.
Once complete, the development is set to include a hotel, residential apartments, leisure/retail facilities, cafes, shops and a playground. This is in line with the existing planning consent.
The scheme is expected to employ up to 200 people. This would include opportunities during construction and jobs in the hotel trade, commercial units and in the servicing of the residential areas.
The council understands separately that Cardy Construction Ltd. has filed a notice of intent to appoint an administrator. The council does not have any further information in relation to this process at this stage.
The Sale Agreement for the site was completed on 13 March 2015. This marked the exchange of contracts binding the council to complete the transfer of the land.
As with the original development agreement, the council retains ownership of the cliff wall and completed works here in April 2016."

Now if you compare the promise to the actual it is patently obvious that the response last May is a denial of the right of the individual to have the truth. 

 18 long years Ramsgate has been waiting for this scandal to be sorted and time and time again what we get are broken promises. It has to stop. Administrations promise to sort out the messes caused by previous administrations yet all they succeed in doing is making it worse.

Follow the story on the original blog here http://pleasurama.blogspot.co.uk/

What do Friends of Ramsgate Seafront exist for?

In September 2014, whilst still the Treasurer of the constituted group I announced at a committee meeting that I was moving to Southampton as I was going to become a grandfather in May 2015. I made arrangement to sell up my business in the Medway Towns (anyone who has sold housing knows how long that takes) and get the business up and running in Hampshire. At the time the committee consisted of a few stalwarts like Dave Steele, Kandy Jones and a couple of others and thoughts were on managing Winterstoke Gardens and the possibility of another music festival.
However it became clear that Kandy was not going to have a festival working with Angela Stevens and by January it was clear it wasn't happening.
Reward for all an offshoot of the National Lottery Fund had granted us £10K towards the festival and it became clear this money would have to be returned as soon as it hit FORS bank account.
Mum became ill early February and was taken to A&E where I stayed all night. When I returned home to change clothes I received a phone call from Jones ranting at me over some FB comments and I realised that she had completely lost it. (She apologised later but it seems that was fake as well).
Communications were curtailed after that and I dealt with another committee member for the return of the unneeded monies and collated accounts up to and including the end of March and returned same to another committee member for safekeeping.

John Davis had never been part of FORS not even when it was a steering group. I have never met the man and I suspect neither had any of the original FORS members.
To make it 100% clear there has NEVER been any Covenant in any paperwork owned by FORS neither has there EVER been any mention of a Covenant at any meeting attended by either the steering group or FORS when it became constituted in November 2013.
This story is entirely a figment of John Davis's imagination and its terminology is incorrect as if it existed it would be a restrictive covenant attached to a piece of land registered at HM Land Registry.

The Covenant wasn't burnt in any fire at Ramsgate Library. What was stored in the basement at Ramsgate Library was old files pertaining to Ramsgate Corporation which was merged into TDC in 1974. Ramsgate Library isn't Land Registry and if it existed it would still be registered not lost in a fire in August 2004. Neither could it be in Janet and Geoff Woods files as they would have used it against Ezekiel's administration in 2004 when they campaigned against Royal Sands in 2004.

Neither have I kept it, destroyed it, or otherwise disposed of it because it doesn't exist. John Davis seems to believe in the existence of an imaginary piece of paper and it subverting a constituted group for his own ends. I will make this clear he has no personal knowledge of myself and can only have gossip pumped into his ear by a deranged person or people.

Yes John, research done by Janet and Geoff and myself. Janet's was borrowed and photocopied and returned. John's grasp of reality is extremely strange especially as he has no 1st hand knowledge of events. I doubt he can name any of the steering group, when and where they met and how many petitions they presented to TDC. Maybe he can explain just why no one used a restrictive covenant for leisure when the campaign ran from late 2012 to Feb 2014 to stop the Royal Sands from being built on.
Now as I said I have NEVER had any personal dealing with the man so all his information must come from someone close to him but it is obvious he has no idea how long I lived in Ramsgate nor has he any idea of how to conduct himself in a public forum either.

So John I saw you discussing this with ex-councillor Vincent Munday some while ago, and do you remember the advise he gave you. "Put up or shut up" when are you going to take that advise and while you are at it wheedling yourself into a constituted group to subvert it takes a special kind of person.

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.

They live among us

Believe or not there are some that believe Lee Rigby's death never happened and he is a figment of imagination. This is according to a judge who described Christopher Spivey's behaviour as abhorrent as he made Lee Rigby's family's lives hellish. This is from the Daily Express today, and the article goes on to say "Nothing would ever convince Spivey that he was wrong".


Further the article says "Such people all function perfectly normally in everyday life and before the birth of the internet most Conspiracy Theorists were harmless and caused no great sensation other than incredulous laughter in a pub. NOW they can disseminate their views sufficiently widely to hurt survivors or families and even attract others to their cause"

Now you might ask what has this to do with anything however it seems that not only is John Davis still peddling his conspiracy about a Covenant on the Pleasurama site and still accusing the author of somehow stealing said piece of paper he is now involving a new UKIP Councillor in his dream. The original story was discussed at length here "Covenant my Ass" and he seems now to have decided that not only is there a Covenant (which he is unable to prove) this author has somehow got the only copy in existance.

Well John, firstly TDC have no idea what you are talking about, neither has Michael Child (A well respected Ramsgatonian with many years experience of the whole Pleasurama saga), neither has David Green an ex-Councillor who actively campaigned against the development, with Janet Wood, through 2003 -2010 and who sat in the Cabinet prior to losing the election in 2003 and sat again in the Cabinet from 2011.
So if you have any "Credible Witnesses" where are they?
Vince says on an open FB page "Then produce the documentation" and "This is really Academic, hearsasy will not hold up in Law" all good advice John except he forgets "Conspiracy Theorists will never change their minds" however I do believe conspiring with others to cause harm to others is a criminal offence, so John here is a challenge for you. Are you prepared to visit a police station and make a statement under oath that I have in my possession any evidence that proves your Conspiracy Theories? Remember it is also a criminal offence to waste police time especially on such a witch hunt

Oh and Jon Brooks if Vince wants to have a chat about said Conspiracy Theory I HAVE NO ISSUE IN TALKING TO HIM. Plenty of people have my mobile number.

In other words John Davis "Put up or shut up"

BTW John spell it out, Just who is paying me? Do you have some evidence or is this more libellous remarks which you are infamous for?

Definition of a Land Covenant " A restrictive covenant is a private agreement between land owners where one party will restrict the use of its land in some way for the benefit of another's land. Restrictive covenants, once agreed between the parties, are placed in the title deeds to the property. They bind the land and not the parties personally."

Covenant my ass

In recent weeks stories have appeared on social media about a possible Covenant for leisure on the former Pleasurama site. Now it would have been something to batter Thanet District Council with, especially during the last 3 years of protests trying to stop the Freehold being transferred to the developer.

Quote Derick Smith "In the (London) Gazette of November 29th 1861 there is a copy of the presented act by which the Kent Coast Railway and the London Chatham & Dover Railway would acquire lands by compulsory purchase and transfer in order to extend the railway from Faversham / Herne Bay to Ramsgate Harbour. It would appear that the Act gives provision for the land at Ramsgate Harbour to be transferred from the Board of Trade to the railway companies. There is no mention of any covenant." 

Basically what the above means is the beach under the cliff was owned by the Board of Trade and in 1861 the land was transferred to the railway, they dug a tunnel from there to the top of Hereson Road. A tunnel 1 mile long and the chalk spoil was deposited on the land to raise the level to provide a platform for the Sands station. This state of affairs lasted until its closure in 1926 and the newspaper article above shows this was purchased by the Ramsgate Corporation.

So there is no chance that any covenant was registered at Land Registry as the land wasn't donated but purchased. This state of affairs lasted until 1974 when Ramsgate Corporation was absorbed into Thanet District Council.

During Ramsgate Corporation's time the land was leased to various leisure companies until it finally resurfaced as Pleasurama in the 1960's

Now there is no sign in that history for any opportunity for the land to be safeguarded for the future as only for leisure use, so is there any scenario that meets that need?
There could be if Ramsgate Corporation had written that into the deeds when it was transferred to Thanet however there is no precedent but the records were stored in Ramsgate Library and destroyed in the August 2004 fire. So might someone have found it between 1974 and 2004. This is unlikely but possible so lets look at the facts.

December 2002 Thanet District Council agree to the development of the land.

November 2003 Planning permission for flats and a hotel applied for

January 28th 2004 Planning permission granted

After planning was granted a very vocal protest group got 5000 signatures together and took a trip to Westminster to meet the local MP Stephen Ladyman.

August 2004 Ramsgate Library is destroyed

The window of opportunity to examine the files is rather small however the most damning evidence there is no document is the fact that for 13 years there has been no use of "a piece of paper" to derail this development.

Michael Child had this to say and remember he has been at the forefront of the campaign for its entire 13 years.

"Barry basically these old covenants are a waste of time, and in the case of Pleasurama I doubt there would be one as the council bought the site from the railway company.

Ironically I would guess that the railway would have needed an act of parliament, which I doubt has been repealed, so if people want to waste their time that would be the one to peruse

Best regards Michael"

Says it all really

If I discover anything else I will post it here

Video nasty

Following on from this original post today I wake up to a video nasty being posted on a closed group "The Friends of Ramsgate Seafront of which I'm not even a member. Thankfully I have friends who alerted me to the video which has now been taken down, mainly because it has backfired on Kandice Jones, who actually secretly filmed me and my wife with her mobile. She can certainly be heard on the video and as such no matter who posted it she certainly is responsible for its uploading to Facebook.

The poster was a profile "James Clark", a profile that some feel is a fake and although I am unable to say yay or nay what is true is the profile was admitted onto the FB page at circa 2a.m. 24/7/2015 by Kandice Jones. This is odd seeing as the admins vet every profile so Kandy letting in a fake is certainly strange. Then the video is posted and pinned to the top by admin, certainly posted with the collusion of admin then.
To deal with what is said is difficult as I haven't played the file and it is now gone but the background to what was said is easily explained as is some of its confusion.
For nearly 2 years I investigated the fiasco know as the Royal Sands. This is evidenced here. and during the investigation I met a long time opponent of the scheme who allowed me to take her papers away which I photocopied and duly returned, so it cannot be the papers to which Kandice refers unless she is paranoid. David Green a Labour Councillor gave me a box of papers relating to the site as he was having a clear out. When he heard I was leaving Ramsgate he requested their return due to the confidential nature of the paperwork.

He makes that point as one of the comments on the thread.

Also to make it clear as to ownership Friends of Ramsgate Seafront was constituted in November 2013 therefore files before that in FORS possession cannot exist. David Green's papers where given to me late 2014 and could , in theory, belong to FORS except they have been returned.

As I was treasurer of FORS from its inception I felt obligated to return checkbooks, cash box, monies, and provisional accounts back to the committee however there was the small? matter of returning £10K grant to the Awards for all and at this point I was being abused and harassed by Kandice and her partner so I returned the (very) small box to who I thought was a committee member. This was handed over in Lovetts office and signed for. Jo Hanchett confirms this in the post.

It was only after this that Kandice rocked up on my doorstep with Margarita Moscoso and a guy I didn't recognise. It was at this meeting I said I have nothing belonging to FORS and for them to leave my property. Even though I left the doorstep Kandice continued to film my wife (who had nothing to do with FORS). When I was warned back in March this secret video existed I emailed the FORS committee to warn of the consequences should it be released onto Social Media. The feedback I got was Margarita didn't know it was being filmed however not ensuring the secret film was deleted is on the head of the entire FORS Committee which seems to have sunk to an all time low.

Now that FORS and Kandice have released the video the gloves are off and the Police are involved. I do wonder how much lower FORS can sink but as they say not my problem.

p.s. There is also the matter of the rumour being put about that I left Ramsgate when the heat was turned up due to me about to be outed for being paid £29K by the Labour party to infiltrate local groups. This is so funny seeing as the local Labour party hasn't got two pennies to rub together. And "in a hurry" don't make me laugh I told the committee in September 2014 I was leaving because my step-daughter was going to have our 1st grandson. To move I had to sell 4 properties in Meday and buy property in Southampton. Anyone who knows the house buying process this isn't anything done in a hurry. This will also be part of the police investigation.

Ramsgate Seafront

Ramsgate was and still is a wonderful place to live blighted by a bomb site, once Pleasurama, now a building site which has changed little in the last 15 years.

From the Marina swimming pool, now a car park, through Pleasurama, above, past the Royal Pavilion, closed since 2008, to The Royal Port the whole area looks like it got abandoned back in the 1990's.

And the good folks have had enough.

Some trace the demise back when Ramsgate became just part of Thanet district Council and this has been heightened by the perception that TDC is incompetent, that may well be true however what is more certain the people of Ramsgate feel that money has been spent in Margate to the detriment of this part of the island.

Things are changing slowly (IMHO too slowly) however Ramsgate Town Council needs to do more.

Some of the changes are, work is starting on Albion House once the Mayor's Parlour and soon to be a boutique hotel. Project Motorhouse will be refurbishing the old Westcliff motor museum, Finally we are getting both a Neighbourhood plan and a new Ramsgate Town Team.