I have been investigating the way in which Thanet Council makes available the public record of planning applications. Before I go any further let me point out that the council has a public duty to publish and make available all planning applications. The information they publish is therefore public information.

I discovered that the council might be breaking the law. I have discovered that the council has made it very hard for the "free press" (and I include bloggers here) to address planning applications and I have found several specific instances of a clear lack of professional standard. All in all I have been in for a number of surprises while researching this issue.

The first surprise is that they are not available from the Thanet Council website. After a little exploring I as able to find the planning section on the council website. The council website claims they are "proud to work in partnership with..."

(Warning this information could make you quite angry)

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» Continue Reading: Thanet Council and The Privatised Planning Process

I stated in "Local Reactions To..." that I wanted to try to summarise the feelings of "us lot in Thanet" towards some key issues. Towards that end I have selected Westwood Cross as the first topic because I am aware that there is a reasonable body of expression on the subject already. I want to give a somewhat balanced coverage offering space to each view proportionate to the number of people, papers, surveys, polls, blogs etc (sources) expressing that view.

So while I gather the evidence of what people think and feel on the subject please take a moment to share your opinion in this poll. It will also be available in the side bar as a micro blog post.



Now you have voted perhaps you might like to articulate your thoughts in the comments section. Don't forget to leave a pointer back to your blog if you have one. To link to a post you might want to draw my attention to just post the URL and the comment formatter will do the rest.

I feel it would be a service to the wider public and to people from outside of Thanet to document the general opinion of "us lot in Thanet" on a number of key subjects. For this reason I will be looking for blog posts from notable and/or articulate bloggers as well as additional sources. Hopefully I will be able to create an overview of the "pro" and "anti" feelings in the area.

I will then create an article on the subject pointing readers to the posts I have identified and attempting to score the balance of opinion to gage favour or disfavour. Almost 50% of you will disagree with my conclusion and that's good and natural and a great reason for you to put forth a good argument as to a different conclusion on your blog or in the comments section of the post.

(I will also look at videos especially those with a textual transcript.)

I hope to be looking at the following subjects:

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» Continue Reading: Local Reaction to...

Details are still sketchy but it seems that yesterday a 43 year old copper has managed to off himself in a fairly newsworthy manor. The as-yet-unnamed officer was not on duty when he and the 9.59am train from Ramsgate to London Victoria met at the crossing between Herne Bay and Birchington. While the train was damaged in the crash no one else is thought to have been hurt.

Passengers did, however, suffer a three hour wait in the train before finally being moved to a replacement bus service. While there is no word on the state of things I imagine that trains to London Victoria were pretty badly backed up. At least three would have been stalled or diverted in that three hour period as power was cut to allow workers safe access.

There is no news on the state of trains today. It is not considered to have been foul play and everyone is, of course, "deeply shocked". Hopefully our local press (along with the more national press) will leave the poor family alone to grieve privately although all hope for that will be lost should this death lead to new calls for "enhanced safety measures".

This is a fly. One of many types of fly that you are likely to see this summer. This summer we are likely to see a lot more of our friend the common housefly as well as his better dressed brethren - the blowfly family.

Blow-flies (also frequently spelled blow flies or blowflies) are members of the family Calliphoridae of flies (Diptera). Some members of this family are known as bluebottles, clusterflies or greenbottles. Flies in this family are often metallic in appearance and between 10 to 12 mm in length.

While not as common as the house fly the more fancy looking blowfly family is making something of a comeback in the UK. This is thanks largely to the dedicated work of many local councils in creating new breading grounds for all species of flies with their special reduced refuse collection projects.

At the height of the summer season, a generation of flies (egg to adult) may be produced in 12–14 days.

One of the side effects of fortnightly collections is that once more the fly population is allowed to increase in the UK. Is this good, bad or indifferent I wondered so I investigated.

You may find some images in this report disturbing.

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» Continue Reading: Breeding Your Own Killer

I went through a long process and a lot of options trying to come up with a title for this post. To be honest I couldn't pick one that sufficiently expressed my utter contempt and disgust for the behaviour of the so called leader of the council.

It seems that Cllr Iris Johnston was invited to a shop to collect a 1,500 signature petition. Rather than let the event happen unnoticed by the media and even us bloggers Sandy Ezekiel and his side kick Cllr Roger Latchford rolled up to make sure that the issue not only made the papers but made the labour party look good too.

The two jocks, for reasons that are utterly beyond me, behaved in what can only be described as a breach of the peace (a minor criminal offense). Latchford muscled up to Cllr Johnston and tried to grab the petition from her. My reaction to reading this can not safely be reprinted but it would not have spoken well of our local BNP councilors.

Cllr Johnston quite rightly told the two naughty boys they could see the document when it had been duly filed. This pushy and aggressive attitude from our local councillors makes me ashamed to have come from the same county as they. All they are doing is blackening the already dire reputation of Thanet Council (something many have thought impossible).

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» Continue Reading: Cllr Ezikial - Just another silverback?

I have been noticing of late that Thanet appears to have a weak offering in terms of organic search driven results for real estate. If we search "real estate thanet" in the thanet finder or in Google as a whole there is not exactly a huge amount of focused competition.

Having said that I have spoken to many people involved in Thanet's real estate industry and many have expressed a desire to rank better in Google. Clearly then there is an opening for a solid service that will generate sales for real estate agencies in Thanet and provide a quality set of results for people looking to buy or sell.

I suggest that I might be well placed to create a free Thanet focused real estate portal. My instincts on this mater stronger suggest that Thanet would do well to have a central realty site. What remains for now is for me to work out the details but I'd like to hear back from both Thanet's real estate community and from people looking to buy or sell their home.

Congratulations are in order I think for us Thanetonians as a whole. It might be old news now but Thanet has achieved more blue flags than anywhere else in Britain.

It is official our beaches are fantastic and our sea water (at least) is nice and clean.

According to a copy of The Daily Express that I looked at Margate makes the top 10 best beaches in Britain.

With rising air fare costs and a the general rise in the cost of living (due in no small part to 2printing" extra money to bail out the banks) it could be that the "holiday at home" is going to be on the rise for a while. That could mean lots of people coming to Thanet in search of sun, sea and entertainment.

While we can provide the sea it may be a case that the sun and entertainment might be beyond us - what do you think?

Michael Child quite rightly has pointed out that the council chamber has a webcast TV system that is never used.

Now I have already pointed out (perhaps a little rudely) to our remaining blogging councilors that frankly the behaviour I hear reported is unacceptable and has only hurt both parties.

What is needed is public access to the records so that maybe the behaviour of the elected can approach mature and leave childish behind.

Sadly I fear that the people with the power fear that we will see them as the utter cads that many appear to be anyway. I dare the council to use the web cast system because this blogger frankly thinks you are too chicken to turn it on.

That or too inept. (So prove me wrong).

Having set myself the challenge of writing only positive posts for two weeks my output on this blog has dropped. This tells me that much of which I had to write about has been silly things the "unpaid" local "authorities" (also known as councillors or pocket people) have been saying and the dire things other money grabbers have been up to. I'm a little sad that I've not had more positive things to say.

Rather than wallow in self pity and ignorance of what we have going for us I've been trying to improve my grasp of local resources. It was in doing so that I discovered that the faceless body of work so often attributed to TDC is more likely funded and run from the shadows by KCC, businesses co-operatives and other interested parties with lots of cash. To be honest I've been hard pressed to see exactly what it is the council does at all (other than cost us money).

I have also discovered something else - a need. A need that any right thinking businessman with sufficient investment capital could easily convert into a profitable venture. Even TDC would be hard pressed to screw it up.

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» Continue Reading: Filling A Thanet Need