Councillor David Green has addressed the China Gateway vote in a blog posting. In his post he praised the efforts of Michael Child to [...] get the Council to include more of the statutary consultees comments so the public can see them. In his post Cllr Green detailed that he had read all relevant documents and undertaken site visits and consultations over and above the minimum expected of him.

Cllr Green was very clear that he had yet to reach a conclusion as to how he will vote although commenters have speculated this is to avoid being removed from the vote. Similarly he addressed the issue of the donations to his party from the developer and if it had biased his opinion. I have concluded that it has not he said.

Councillor David Green also joined Cllr Chris Wells in calling for the debate to be broadcast. There is too much distrust of Councillors around this issue, said Cllr Green, broadcasting the meeting might help the public to understand the issues as they are put in a Planning context. I understand that the Planning Committee is already routinely recorded, so there is no excuse in not broadcasting it, even if it cannot be done live.

Local residents not so keen on the closure of the Maritime Museum in Ramsgate have started a facebook "cause" to raise money to get it reopened. Is this a case of "you don't know what you got 'till it's gone" or too little too late. I joined up with the group to find out.

Save Ramsgate Maritime Museum is a small group having just started recently. It has already achieved 16 members and US$0.00 donated.

Okay so this is not the worlds biggest group (yet) but if other face book groups are anything to go buy then we can expect to see a few thousand members. All signs point to this group being less than 24 hours old so this is possibly a huge start.

My question is - who handles the money and how will it be spent? The answer to this question will have a massive impact on how effective a fund raiser this group (cause in facebook speak) is going to be.

Thanet District Council have refused to remove dangerous rubble from the middle of a road widely used by school children travelling from and to Dane Valley. According to TDC Broadly Road is not their responsibility and so no action will be taken.

Broadly Road is an "unmade road" that connects Dane Valley with the A255. This means that the quality of the road is far below the usual standard of neglect for roads in Thanet being, in places, little more than a network of potholes. The use of this road, while not for everyone, reduces journey time significantly for journeys between. (see the map below). To most this public right of way is simply known as "the track".


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» Continue Reading: TDC refuse to repair Broadly Road

The Eleven Plus (otherwise known as the Kent Test) has started to change. As of this year the test took place in September with the results due towards the end of October. For the first time ever parents could well have two clear weeks to make their schools applications knowing the results of the test.

This decision which was rubber stamped by the Secretary of State and welcomed by KCC Cabinet Member for Education Operations, Resources and Skills (Mark Dance), finally addresses a long standing criticism of the test. That parents had to guess what the outcome might be causing both chaos and frustration if things did not go as expected.

Even so the proposal which was very popular with parents found significant reservations from some admissions authorities. So much so that proposal was referred to the Secretary of State for the a formal rubber stamping.

(You can read more from Kent.gov.uk for the full timetable of events for this year's school selection process.)

If you are feeling brainy you can try your hand at a Verbal Reasoning paper from the Eleven Plus. The BBC have an online version you can try your hand at. I managed to be correct on just 37 out of 50 (apparently this is "good" which is above "average") which means I got 13 of the questions wrong. I confess I feel "totally wiped out" now and need to stop and put the kettle on.

The eleven plus (aka the Kent Test) is a heavy duty test. What are your feelings about it?

We are all familiar with the stereotypical street preacher standing in some public space haranguing every passer by with his message of doom and damnation while perhaps waving about a home made sign saying, "Repent, the end is near!"

The truth is, much like the crackpots that come out during disasters the same spirit of doom seems to have settled on us that write about Thanet, at least us independent writers without our heads in the sand anyway.

While a large slice of the grass roots media proclaim with a melancholy tone that "it's all ashes", the world goes on. Children go to school, farmers farm what's left of the farm land around here and the water continues to be largely drinkable. Despite the doom-speakers, Thanet will shake this China Gateway off like a bad cold. It has to if we are to remain an non laughable democracy.

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» Continue Reading: Thanet's Water Will Be Fine. No, I'm Being Serious.

Ask if you need help is what the blue sign said. This sign is located at the local waste disposal site (tip to you and I). It says to me that if you are need of help it is available but as a friend of mine discovered these things can not be taken for granted.

A friend of the family (let us call him John to protect him) often uses a stick to walk having the full use of his left arm and right leg following a road accident in which he was almost killed. John, being a decent sort of person, went along with an elderly gentleman to take some old carpets to be disposed of. The gentleman in question is less able due to the passage of time than John, needing a stick to even walk and then is limited as to how far he can go.

These two disabled guys were in a van that was just slightly too tall to fit under the barrier. John saw the blue sign and asked for help.

I would not call what happened help.

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» Continue Reading: At the tip: Ask if you need help?

Generally I try to keep this blog focuses directly on issues that relate to Thanet and it's bloggers. Sometimes I do well at this and sometimes what I think might be a great story goes down in a manor not unakin to that of a lead balloon. Still other times something I write is much more interesting to people outside of Thanet.

The fact of the mater is that we live in the world and although our part of that is called Thanet it might be as well to remember the wider context. As such this offering is my way of sharing content from other locations that I have written. I hope some of it is interesting for you.

10 tips for "Battening Down the Hatches" - it will not have escaped your notice that we are facing rising costs and reduced means. This article looks at some of the things I have been doing to reduce my costs.

No More Poverty (Part One) - one of the things that matters to me a great deal is addressing and breaking the cycle of poverty. In this article I explore the history and nature of the current social and economic structure and look at those of the past. My conclusions while seeming obvious came as a surprise to even me but it was the direction that this series is going in that was the biggest joy - a possible cure for poverty.

Be Free to Eat Cake - keeping fit is something I try to do along with shedding some extra pounds. I'm not the best at it but I keep going and slowly I see the results. This article marked a significant moment in my thinking regarding such issues.

Lord Matt's Geeky Notes on Spreadsheets - in this article I look at the ins and outs of making a spread sheet to keep track of my personal financial status.

Effective Positive Personal Environmental Impact - this time I look at how we can make a difference that matters. One of the things I have come to realise is that even if the local councils arround the UK manage to force us to recycle everything the result will still be a negligable impact. So how can we make a change?

If you are like me you make spelling errors and grammatical errors like it's an Olympic event. However I feel it is something we should aim to improve about ourselves. Certainly that's the case for me - I wish to raise the bar (to keep abusing the metaphor) and this cheat sheet will, I hope, help towards that.

What I've done is listed the most common errors. If you see me making these errors then please feel free to point them out. I'll make no secret of the fact that my grasp of spelling and grammar is shaky but I refuse to let that stand between me and good blogging.

I feel that bloggers have the opportunity to take the lead from the printed media and in Thanet this is especially true. To do this we need to present the best version of our work that we can. This is where this cheat sheet might be handy (especially for me). If you make any of these mistakes then congratulations you are a human being. Like me for example - were it not for one last re-read I would have left a clanger in this article - right in the example itself!

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» Continue Reading: Common Blogging Grammatical Errors - Cheat Sheet #1

Changes in the law could mean that Thanet has a Mayor before the end of 2009. Claiming The state should be a platform under people’s feet, not a weight holding them down a government White Paper (p.13 "Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power" (9th July 2008)) from the Secretary of State for Communities (Hazel Blears MP) calls for a number of changes including incentives for voting and consultation on ways to make it easier to have a directly elected mayor.

So does this mean that a directly elected mayor is likely within the next year?

It has already been suggested and debated that Thanet could be better off with an elected mayor rather than a cabinet "leader". The government position on the subject of elected mayors is that they are the "way forward" and despite Thanet District Council being run by the "other party" they may soon face a change. The force of this change comes from the fact that the government is very keen to see more people vote and with only about 30% of Thanet's population currently voting there are far more unknown votes around here than "known".

In short the swing vote could become the majority.

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» Continue Reading: Could Thanet have a directly elected mayor within a year?

Things have become somewhat happier in my corner of the world but my time for any activity is significantly reduced. I have what I hope is a big story to share. I'll get it written as soon as I can.