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.

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).

Thanet does spectacularly badly when it comes to Internet access. The average price for a "good connection" is still more than £20 a month and the quality is something out of the stone age. Offers such as £7.50 p/month for 8 Mbps from O2/Be are not available in this area.

The reason is that there are only 15 to 20 actual network operators in the UK - all other ISPs are resellers (even BT Yahoo!, which has well in excess of 1 million customers) often of BT Wholesale products (the one's with the high price). (read more here)

Almost all Internet access in Thanet runs through BT Wholesale one way or another which is why as one of the UK poorest areas we have the highest priced Internet charges. What can we do? How can we change this? (can we change this?)

Read on to find out.

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» Continue Reading: Getting Cheap and Fast Internet Access in Thanet

Two weeks of positive cotent - day three

Thanet's local music scene is something that does not get anywhere near enough praise by us local pundits. So today's post aims to make up a little for this.

You can catch up with a number of local musical types at Live In Thanet which is just one of the many locations that they hide away.

But out local music tallent do more than entertain us in pubs and make nice sounds for our ears in he better type of club. They also rasie a lot of money for charity too.

Take for example next year's Bands on the Sands - a massive concert on Margate beach which will raise money for breast cancer research (on a side note why is it always that particular cancer that gets all the cash?)

As blog writers we have the power to make a difference to the level of exposure local bands get. We can be an influence for good (or bad). Even so much as to increase the profitibility of running gigs by simply helping to get the word out. I'm not saying we should shout about them allt he time but there is no harm in addopting a group or two as mascots.

It might not be for everyone but it is open to anyone.