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...

A UK subsidiary of Unisys Corporation has won an outsourcing contract worth approximately £32 million to manage KCC's MAN.

No this is not some odd minder a MAN (or metropolitan area network) is a WAN that... For example JaNET is a MAN... Hmmm. let's just say that with Kent Public Service Network (KPSN) KCC locations, schools and the Internet are all being taken care of in this bundle. By taken care of we mean upgraded and made much much faster.

Formally Unisys will be tasked to "create and manage a public information network and security service" this was last until 2012.

So if KCC has 32 million quid available to upgrade it's Internet connection perhaps it also has some cash to subsidize some free parking with KCC? We'll never know unless we can motivate a councilor to go ask for the cash but I understand many are too busy getting their own way...

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.

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