625 people were interviewed onsite at Westwood Cross during July 2007 by B Market Research Services. You can read a summary of this in a free PDA document.

Some of the questions that the 625 shoppers at westwood were asked was what they liked about our town centres and what they would like to see improved. Apparently out of all 625 people no one liked anything in Margate leaving Ramsgate and Broadstairs being much more popular.

When it came to what could be improved about the area people wnated more and better shops and better parking conditions as the except shows:

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» Continue Reading: There is slow and there is TDC it seems...

Thanet's unemployed could soon be used as semi-forced labour to clean up the area if a new Green Paper makes it into law. In this article I explore the history of similar laws and the potential implications for the area. Does Thanet really need a new era of workhouses?

In British history, a workhouse, colloquially known as a 'spike', was a place where people who were unable to support themselves could go to live and work. The earliest recorded example of a workhouse dates to 1652 in Exeter although there is some written evidence that workhouses existed before this date. Records mention a workhouse in 1631 in Abingdon.

In 1697 an Act came into play that among other things required the "badging of the poor". Anyone in receipt of the so called "poor relief" (not unakin to the dole) were required to wear a red or blue cloth on their right shoulder. On this cloth would be two letters the first was the initial letter of the parish supporting the "poor person" and the second being a letter "P" (for poor). It was not until some 113 years later when, in 1810, an new Act ended this practice was ended.

This formed part of what was called the "poor law" which saw the creation of "workhouses" where "inmates" would be placed for vagrancy, illegitimate pregnancy or other side effects of poverty. This lasted over 260 years and only came to a final end in 1960's (arround 40 years ago).

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» Continue Reading: Thanet's New Slaves

In this article I will (as promised) explore the feelings of the local community towards Westwood Cross Shopping Centre. I am going to try, to the best of my ability,to keep my feelings out of this story and present only an overview of general opinion. However I do have an opinion and I may therefore be a little biased - albeit unintentionally.

Westwood Cross is technically in Broadstairs and sits on the main route from Ramsgate to Margate. It boasts a number of features (shops) and it's own ghost. Psudoanonymouse satire blogger "EastCliffe Richard" calls it "Westwood Chaos" while Cllr Green tells us that Trevor Shonk will be the UKIP candidate citing Westwood Cross as a key issue.

Opinion is very much divided on the question of "is Westwood cross a good thing". The answer to this question appears to be entirely dependant on what effects of Westwood Cross you choose to look at...

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» Continue Reading: Thanet's Reaction to Westwood Cross

A new government report has been critical of the way local councils sell our details to companies. Councils, such as Thanet District Council (TDC), sell an "edited version" of the local "electrol roll" from which you must explicitly opt-out to keep your information private. The most common purchaser of this data are direct marketing companies from which all those junk mailings arrive in the post each morning.

According to a report from the BBC the reports states that people should have a right to know who firms shared their details with and firms which deliberately broke privacy rules should face large fines.

Does anyone fancy writing a FOI (Freedom of Information) request for TDC's timetable for implementing these recommendations?

Read more from the BBC

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.