Thanet District Council was right to allow TransEuropa to defer payment but wrong to include those funds in the budget.

Thanet District needed TransEuropa to remain operational for as long as possible. Indeed ideally Thanet could still do with her being operational. So to increase the viability of the company Thanet District Council was right to give them a deferment option. What they did wrong was fail to protect themselves against the debt exposure.

Any company worth it's salt that finds that it has one debtor worth more than 10% of the yearly budget would immediately seek to share the risk with another organisation. One option would be to leverage the debt using loans or bonds whose value or viability was entirely fixed to the debt. Banks do this all the time and this allows them to keep lending (although we all know what happened when they got silly with this).

It was right to preserve the ferry operation from Ramsgate but it was wrong to allow the council's budget to carry the risk.

When Chief Executive Sue McGonigal and her team (including Sarah Martin, Financial Services Manager) advised The Council on to defer payment Ms McGonigal was doing so from the safety of a six figure job that combined the old Chief Executive role and the Chief Financial Officer role. At that sort of money one expects the Chief Executive to know that the debt exposure was massively too high and should be refinanced or ideally packaged up and sold on.

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» Continue Reading: TransEuropa's £3.3m debt was not the mistake

Kent County Council's website is not anywhere near as bad as Thanet District Council's but for the hundreds of thousands they have piled into it over the last four years I would have expected something better.

Recently I wrote to Kent County Council (KCC) and asked them how much they spent on the website. You can read their answer here.

I applaud KCC for reducing the expenditure from just under £300,000 a year when they ordered a new CMS (Content Management System) and fresh design work but given the quality of modern Open Source CMS I have a hard time seeing why KCC needed to spend more than £12,000 a year.

I only hope that the custom CMS is the most amazing CMS ever to be invented for that sort of money. For a price tag that exceeds half a million pounds over the last four years I would want something truly amazing. If a private business had spent this much on their website I'd expect it to make me a cup of coffee while I browse.

ThanetStar.com has been sold to new owners who take control of it as of tomorrow morning.

It is with some reluctance that late Friday afternoon I agreed the sale of this website. The amount offered was quite substantial and although I am not allowed to disclose the full value it also include stock and options in the purchasing company's (Veriglobe International PLC) new project (TTC Ltd). The domain will be pressed into service as the official information hub for their new venture which they hope to have built close to the proposed China Gateway site by 2016.

The new project is a daughter company that will employ over nine hundred people world wide with at least three hundred of those being people from Thanet. One of those to be me (pending an interview later this week). This new employer will be making the most of it's Thanet connection and will be known internationally as TTC Ltd. That is Thanet's Tar Commercial Ltd - thus the need for my website address.

As part of the sale I agreed to write one last article in which I would outline the amazing new technology that they have developed (and it is quite impressive). The technology allows the creation of traditional oil by-products from organic waste and recyclables. My understanding is that the plant will focus primarily on Tar creation (mainly from waste plastics) using a far more efficient method than the Envion Oil Generator presently offers.

Now some people have said that the water used in the process goes black and this is true but there is only a small chance that the waste water would cause even a slight colour change to sea water and local sands. While I know most people are going to object to that risk I have to point out that it is purely a cosmetic change and one that I hope could make Thanet famous for it's dark sands - like a certain other beach.

I am sure you will agree that the jobs it might create will be well worth the tiny risk to our beaches (and water).

I've had a really great time locking horns with some of you. co-operating with others and generally being exposed to the local weirdness. I will be starting a new blog soon enough but not one focused on just Thanet. See you all around.

-Matt.

When products get smaller rather than go up in price it is called Stealth Inflation.

Where else have you seen this happening?

A while back I caught up with local photographer Peter Checksfield to interview him for Hundred Quid a Day



Peter has set himself up in business as a hiking and cycling tour guide. His business is called Checker's Kent Treks which takes individuals and groups of all fitness levels out into Kent for some fresh air and exercise (something I need more of).

I argue in defence of Labour's unpopular stance on Manston.

Very often I agree to at least to some extent with Tony Flaig of Big News Margate but today I am going to roundly disagree with his view on Labours Manston policy.

At the risk of loosing my Lib-Dem card I am going to try and show why Clive's Labour team made the right choice even though it may have been an expensive one. I am also going to point out the fairly obvious.

As Michael Child points out Tony (fellow Liberal Democrat) and Simon Moores (fellow verbal sparring partner and Conservative) both blame Labour for what is happening at Manston. However the fairly obvious point here is that both are members of opposing factions and almost honour-bound to attack Labour's actions.

The other fairly obvious factor is that Infratil have yet to turn a profit with any European Airport so the odds of their success here were limited from the start. In fact Infratil are also selling Prestwick airport - which can no-way be linked to Thanet's Labour even if you really want to.

When the banks stuffed up through greed they turned to the government and said give us money or it will go badly for the people as a result of our poor planning. In effect they held the economy to ransom and the government paid up. I do not believe this was the right thing to do but it was perhaps the least expensive thing to do.

Likewise Manston is up for sale as Infratil (the airport operators) have been saying to our council "let us out of our very limited flights agreement because it terns out that we don't know how to operate a profitable airport without it. Also: jobs. Oh look pink elephants!"

As Infratil's entire plan hinged on blackmailing us into letting them have whatever they wanted then they deserved to fail from the get go.

Infratil's promises of jobs while a shiny bauble that easily distracts those of us in Thanet was, according to an outside report, only so much guff. The truth is our airport is being run by a company with too little expert knowledge to actually run the airport at a profit.

The elephant in the room here is that Infratil simply are not able to deliver the jobs, infrastructure and the magic smoke needed to get Thanet on the road to recovery. Clive was simply taking the unpleasant, yet necessary step of recognising their lies. It stings in much the same way that ripping a sticky plaster from a hairy leg might but at the end of the day the old dirty bandage has to come off to stop the infection spreading.

Infratil was, in short, a false hope.

Of course doing the right thing might cost Labour some voter sympathy and give the rest of us some ammunition to attack him and his party but the truth is we needed Labour to say no to Infratil if only so the stigma of doing so was kept off of the rest of us.

This time, at least, Labour was right.

With the "big" consultation open what are the main issues and where do you stand on them?

In case you were visiting the little green men for the past few years you will know that a decision is about to be made on allowing more flights at night from Manston Airport. Thanet District Council have asked for our views on the matter and I suggest that this time we make sure they get them.

When our council "consulted" on the direct election of the council leader 100% of responses said "yes" but they concluded that the number was low enough to be ignored. Your opinion is too important to be trusted to "fate" (or the whims of those that can justify ignoring a consultation 100% in favour of something).

To quote Michael Child:

The council haven’t made this an easy one, you can’t just enter your name and postcode and tick, yes I want night flights of no I don’t want night flights. What you have to do is send them an email or write to them.

Responses must contain your full name and address (WITH YOUR POSTCODE) either email your response to consultation@thanet.gov.uk or post it to:

Thanet District Council,
PO Box 9,
Margate,
CT9 1XZ

What are the core issues of flights at night from Manston Airport?

On the face of it the question is should we allow modern fixed wing air craft aka aeroplanes to fly (mostly over Ramsgate) from our local airport during the wee small hours. I would like to suggest this is not the issue.

It is true that the application is asking for permission to fly (jet) planes at night but the decision is not so much about noise as it is about the reasonableness of the request.

If we say "yes" then we also say yes to a few houses losing value. To a few people being forced to move and a few lives disrupted. Those that this will happen to truly have my deepest sympathy. For them the "yes" will always be unjust.

But our council must balance the needs of all groups with at least some attempt at big picture fairness. So the question is one of an exchange. A trade if you will.

The big question is not are the flights a good idea - in an ideal world we would simply teleport to our destinations - rather the question is this: Is the cost of allowing these flights worth the value we will gain from it.

For the airport operators the value of a "yes" is huge and the cost is so minimal as to be negligible. For those disrupted the cost is high - very high even - and the benefit is zero.

What about the rest of us?

The independent report that the council commissioned suggests that no jobs will be created as the airport already must maintain night staff.

Think about that: no new jobs are on the balance sheet.

Also the likely use of these flights will not be to get trade into Thanet but use it as a stop over. The result being no new economic activity on the balance sheet.

We are being asked to let the airport operators out of their agreement for their personal profit in the hope that the minority that will suffer will be overlooked or ignored.

I can see that we, the people of Thanet, are being offered nothing but some of us are being asked to pay the price. For the balance to be fair none of us must suffer even slightly.

To put it another way - what's in it for us? (nothing).

I would suggest that we tell the council that unless we are offered something a bit more valuable than hot air that they say no and hold out for a significantly better offer.

What's your take on the question are you a yes, no or not sure (and why)?

Thanet Star will not be going off line due to the
humbug jobsworth society due to some Christmas goodwill and general sponsorship.

Flavour of the month is, for me, Hiltons World Wide Ltd with whom you can get a 15% discount (click here to find out how). I'd like to encourage you all to stop by the shop and say hi. That is if you can find some parking in Margate.

I am planning to write a fairly in depth look at the Eurokent Business Park and would love to get a feel for the opinions of you fine folk that read this blog. (Assuming that you are not looking at this thinking "what is Matt talking about?")

So over to you on the subject of Eurokent Business Park.

Martin Wise has demonstrated that Thanet District Council do not know how to run a press office.

That's quite an inflammatory opening line but it also happens to be true. Martin Wise wrote to Michael Child (Thanet Online) and said in justifying closing the press office to all but a few: It is not the sending out of information by E-mail to bloggers, it is the flood of requests that follow for each one that is the problem.

That right there indicates the source of Thanet District Council's problem - poor press releases. The solution, then, is not to withdraw the service of the press office but to educate the press release writers to do the job properly.

Now if you Google "how to write a press release" you will find thousands of articles and each one will say something like "it is important to include everything that a journalist needs in order to write your story with minimal effort". Something Thanet District council has utterly failed to grasp.

Take a standard press release and you will find several elements the first part usually starts with something like "for immediate release" and then gets on with the telling the story. The first sentence should summarise the content of the release sot hat one could stop reading and know what was going on. The remainder of the release expands on the first sentence and should include a quote from a relevant person.

It doesn't stop there. After the main body should be further information. For example if you quote Bob Smith you should include a paragraph that tells the journalist who Bob Smith is and why he is qualified to comment. If you announce a new report then you should include information (like a URL, for example) on where the report can be obtained. Press releases often include photographic images for use with the story, back ground details and contact information.

After all every journalist knows that a good story answers the five main questions: what, where, who, how and why.

For example who is this Councillor X mentioned in the release and what do they do as part of the council? This information should have been written up when the councillor took up the new role and can be pasted in each time a press release mentions them. It's not rocket science to write a release that explains things properly.

For example: Why should I care? Where can I read more? What is the importance of this? Why did they say or do that? Who said it and who are they? When did this happen? When did they say or do that? Where did they say it? Where is this event taking place? How can I help? How will the road be built? How long will it take?

A well written press release should enable a lazy reporter to look no further than the press release to write their own story. If the Journalist has to pick up the phone for clarification then already something is wrong with the press release. The only reason for calling should be to set up an interview and even then if the quote in the main body of the release is good enough this should be unlikely.

Most articles on writing press releases talk about the importance of getting your release published. This means giving the editor everything they need to write up the story in the shortest amount of time. Journalists, you will be told, a hard pressed for time and will often ignore a release that contains too little information or is badly written.

However when it comes to Thanet news Thanet District Council is always going to be news worthy and, it seems, has given up making an effort with her press releases. As a result the online press, who often lack the time to spend hours and hours digging up answers that are missing will simply pick up the phone and get the press office to fill in the blanks. Blanks that should not have been there.