TDC to offload social housing burden

In a effort to reduce costs and take less responsibility for things Thanet District Council are offloading their council housing burden to an independent organization.

It's not just Thanet but also Canterbury, Dover and Shepway councils who have put forward plans to set up what they are calling an arm’s length management organisation to manage the joint housing stock. Apparently this will save all four councils about £1.5million over a two to three year period. read the story here.

I make that roughly £100,000 for each council each year. You could sack a few over paid consultants and make the same saving. Or you could get away with four less employees for the same yearly saving.

I'd bet the cost of disruption is bigger than the very small saving.

Just how much did we use up in one year buying the M&S building? (I believe it was £2million over value).

Rather than trying to save peanuts on untested new ideas how about TDC get their house in order first and save a vast fortune by not buying pointless property? Cutting costs by printing a bit less or by wasting less time on inefficient operations or expanding into yet another building would save the same money (or more).

It has been an "interesting" week with TDC getting one last kick in as the Audit Commision is axed, Thanet fishermen were given an quota increase and a Thanet College lecturer took a deliberate overdose after feeling that complaining would only loose him his job. Job loss being a huge fear all over Kent as Joblessness figures continue to climb.

The New Statsman gives Broadstairs a (not entirely fair) mention, however it's not all bad news for Broadstairs The cricket club is inches away from promotion to Division One, The worlds smallest solar cinema showing short films about Thanet (It has a maximum capacity of 8 adults or 12 children) and news that will no doubt anger drinking water protesters that Pegwell Bay's water is heavily polluted from road run off.

Closer to home, for me, news has not been great of late. Thanet is, without a doubt, in need of some good news.

Tradition has it that the party in power at TDC is the exact opposite of the one in national government. So what will the outcome be this time round?

Currently I'm set to win £5 for my £1 bet that Labour will take it. Not, might I add (Simon), because I am cheering for Labour but because it seems the most probable outcome.

Why?

Well, let's be honest the Conservative Group have right royally cheesed off just about everyone around here at the local level and the coalition have managed to do some downright unpopular things. All of which will register in a strong protest vote.

I'd suggest no-one bet on the Lib-Dem council candidates doing very well but what do I know?

According to travel site trafalgarblog.com the 9th best thing you can do in London is come visit Thanet!

Specifically St Peters Village Tour, Scotts Furniture Mart (Margate) and Quex Park in Birchington are just three of the list of Thanet attractions they list. Who knew we were in London now?

It is often joked that Supermarkets exist like vampires moving in to towns sucking out the juices and then leaving a rotting carcass behind. Sadly the story of Ramsgate seems to show this to have some truth to it - especially with the chain known as TESCO. Thanet Online carries this story.

After all Margate is already in the throws of saying no to TESCO - a gathering hosted by Arlington House Residents Association have already made a firm stand against the Margate development. They are unhappy about the TESCO redevelopment plans which will see the loss their mostly derelict car park while flat owners foot a bill of £17,000 each for the privilege. The multi-million pound scheme to build a TESCO in Margate where shops already struggle to get a foothold would also see the demolition of the shops on the controversial Arlington site (on Margate seafront).

With significant doubt being expressed at the idea that Thanet District Council might actually listen to the people the already heavily pummelled people of Thanet may find it hard to raise the fighting spirit needed. If so then we truly are as dead as Margate's town centre.

What no one seems to be asking very loudly is how on earth the roads ont he sea front will cope. Already the stretch by the clock tower is heavy with traffic and with the turner Centre due to open sooner or later one imagines that there will be more traffic. A TESCO and (if you have a lot of faith) some other big stores at the other end would surely bring grid lock. Some potential impacts might be that the golden beach becomes too smoggy when the wind is in the wrong direction, that bus journey times are lengthened meaning Westgate and Birchington suffer and those that rely on buses pay more.

As a result of this Margate town centre is unlikely to profit from the build and the old town will get harder to get to. TDC are likely to complain of dropping revenue from the multi story car park and stupidly raise the prices there again driving people to Westwood Cross and this new TESCO where they might get a shot at parking for less than the price of a small house.

Then again if the council was interested in reviving any part of Margate then they would be removing all barriers to getting traffic to the site not adding them.

But we needed fear that Thanet has somehow gone barmey wanting less TESCO stores. Activists in a number of places now oppose TESCO ont he grounds that they are now pushing into plalces they should never be.

Why are TESCO keen on new stores

TESCO are desperate for new stores. If not here then in France or anywhere they can build them. The reason - the folly of infinite growth.

TESCO like so many other big companies measure their health on financial growth and expansion. If some competitor has 0.1% more profits than they this is a "disaster". TESCO and every other firm is seeking to double it's size over a fix period the size of this period is dependant on the rate of growth but a decreased rate of growth is seen as very bad so doubling speed can get faster but never, ever slower.

TESCO has simply run out of places to put shops and yet they must squeeze twice as much money out of the population as they did seven or eight years ago. By 2017 they need to be looking at having twice the number of shops they have now.

It does not take a genius to realise that there is a point on this chart where there are more than one TESCO stores per person in the country. Sooner or later TESCO must fail and what they are trying to do is put off the time when it will happen.

It's the same for every business. And like every business before it TESCO must get more aggressive to survive. The simple rule of mathematics can not be by-passed you can not have infinite growth in a finite system! TESCO is no exception.

Has TESCO Turned Evil?

Margate Caves are set to become a block of flats if planning application F/TH/10/0546 get's the go ahead.

However were the caves not closed by TDC due to being structurally unsound? How can flats be safe on top of unsound caves?

(I'm not exactly break news with this as Michael Child covered the planning application earlier this month and it was mentioned by Claire Blackwell in the What in particular do you think TDC could do to help reinvigorate Margate? post.)

In case you never get to see the caves vortigernstudies.org.uk has this to say:

The Margate Caves are a most extraordinary curiosity. There are 20-30 showcaves in Britain, but one would hardly expect to find one in this sleepy corner of Kent, where nothing much seems changed since the 1950s. However, this town, where most visitors to and from the continent normally rush through, has not one, but two! There is Margate Caves, and its neighbour, the Shell Grotto.

and hotelara.com mentions them thusly:

Close by to the grotto are the Margate Caves another delightful mystery. The caves are man-made but, by whom and when, no one seems to know. Some argue they are over 1000 years old others that they date from Georgian times and were built as some eccentric's folly. Margate Caves consists of a steep underground tunnel that leads to a circular chamber. Beyond this is another passage leading to a rectangular chamber. Some interesting cave paintings exist drawn from the time of their discovery in the 18th century.

I would try to link you to it but all I did was cash the page last time I tried to do that.

Why must we try to build flats everywhere nice?

Conservatives are all set to win the next local election says the smart money.

According to bet's placed on BetAble.com it is the conservatives that are set to win the 2011 Thanet District Council elections. £11 of the £15 pot says that the conservatives (that's the party that gave us Sandy Ezekiel) will be winning next year.

Of course it's early days yet and if you know something the others do not then you could scoop a a few rounds worth of pocket money. Click here to see the current pot size.

Do TDC still use these guys?

I spotted an itneresting email in my inbox recently. The message was from a young man doing research and asking questions about the decline of Margate and what Thnaet District Council could and should be doing to make it better.

Hi Matt B,

I am currently doing some research for University College London on the future role of high streets given the high number of shop vacancies that are currently being recorded in many town centres.

Obviously the case of Margate is of great interest as it apparently has the highest number of shop vacancies in the country. I have just read your comments concerning Margate town centre and i am interested in some of you ideas and opinions.

What in particular do you think TDC could do to help reinvigorate/reinvent Margate. And what changes would you, as a local, like to see occur on Margate's high street in terms of retail and uses? And therefore what future role do you see the high street fulfilling?

I would be very interested to hear your opinions and it would be a great help with my research.

The best qualified people to answer this question is you the reader. I'll throw my opinion out there to kick the debate off and then leave you to give the definitive answer. Are you ready?

I think that the thing Thanet District Council did most badly wrong was to not consider the impact of an out of town shopping centre on a town centre with issues that have left them struggling with "regeneration" for parts of it for years.

The Margate "old town" has never exactly been the biggest success story and demonstrates that there is a very real danger of starving highstreet areas with very little changes. The Westwood Cross build combined with a bad economic situation has truely hurt Margate town centre.

But more than that the destruction of the town centre highlights what any decent analist could have told you - that the town centre was being propped up by the larger stores and had very little vitality in and of itself. Had it been self sufficient as Broadstairs and Ramsgate have been forced to be then the old town regeneration would have been a snap.

To breath life back in to the town centre the council needs to help it become competitive. It's being out competed by Westwood Cross so it must beat it at it's own game or focus on a different niche.

Both options are going to cost a fair amount just to make the properties attractive sites to do business from. Margate town centre lacks a compelling reason to visit without the likes of HSBC, WoolWorths and the other shops it has lost.

Yet if there was one thing that I would identify as a needed action would be - free parking. Why would people choose to pay to park at slightly inconvenient parts of Margate when they can get everything and free parking at Westwood Cross?

Well, that's my two pence worth now I'll throw it open to the readers.

Who would you bet on in the Thanet District Council elections?

So you think you know Thanet politics do you? Care to bet on that?

They say that money talks and so now is a chance to for it to speak up on local matters.

Next year we face local elections (5th May 2011). The contest is mostly between Labour and Conservative with Lib Dems nipping at the heals of the current Tory overlords. Who will be in power after is, in my opinion, anyone's guess.

But don't let that you stop you.

New social media "big splash" betable.com allows you to set up bets with your mates. I took a look and set up the chance for some lucky blogger to make a small fortune by understanding Thanet better than anyone else.

The question is who will win control of TDC after the local elections? And you can wager £1 or your life savings (please don't do that). You have 10 months to figure out where to put your pound.

As the bets pile up so the pot grows. Those that bet on the winning party get to take a share of the pot. It's that simple.

Options include Tory (probable), Labour (possible), Lib Dem (unlikely) or a hung Council (you wish).