It is curious,that with all the comment concerning China Gateway, there has been very little comment from any of our Councillors other than Cllr Ezekiel who is an unashamed advocate of the application.
Cllr Chris Wells this week has called for the debate to be broadcast and I support him in this. There is too much distrust of Councillors around this issue, and broadcasting the meeting might help the public to understand the issues as they are put in a Planning context. I understand that the Planning Committee is already routinely recorded, so there is no excuse in not broadcasting it, even if it cannot be done live.
For myself, I genuinely have not made up my mind how to vote, and will listen carefully to what is said at the meeting.
I have prepared myself as well as I can, I've read all the documents presented, both by the developers on UK Planning (I applaud Michael Child's efforts to get the Council to include more of the statutary consultees comments so the public can see them) and the comments from statutary consultees and the public. I've been to two briefings by TDC officers, one with other Councillors, and one I asked for individualy. I've been to the site with TDC officers to look for myself. I've also been to two meetings of the protest group to hear their views. I've also read the Thanet Local Plan, both the current one and the previous version.
Finally, I've had to consider whether I feel the donation accepted by South Thanet Labour Party (of which I am a member) from a Director of the development company has influenced me in any way. I have concluded that it has not, I will declare my membership on the night, will listen to the debate, ask my outstanding questions and vote accordingly.
12 comments:
what happened to the other one?
David as you can see from you picture the parking for over 100 HGVs will be right next to our drinking water pumping station and borehole, so if there is an accidental toxic spillage it will go straight into the water supply. Whether you are for or against the development I hope you will defer the decision until the developer has come up with a solution to that problem, I don’t really think there is a solution as the developer doesn’t own enough land below the lorry park and above the borehole to put a lake to hold the runoff in an emergency. At the moment the only solution would seem to be all of the runoff going into mains sewage, which would rely on a pump, so a big storm and a power cut (lightening strikes pylon) and we have no more water. Southern Water say the aquifer is essential the EA say underground holding tanks would be too dangerous, I think the developer must come up with a viable outline solution otherwise they are asking you to approve a development that couldn’t possibly be built and we have another Pleasurama on our hands.
I would have thought a thousand lorries a day would swing your vote.
Surely its because Cllrs dont wish to say in public their opinion and be forced out of their vote, something to which you have commented on your own situation. To be honest whats the problem? When push comes to shove, the Councillors will have to make their decision so theres no need to force them to disclose their views now and possibly rule themselves out in the future.
Well said, Cllr Green. My understanding is that little groups of Councillors have been taken out by Doug Brown to viist the site and surrounds. Is this true and if so it makes me more confident about Cllrs putting themselves in the picture properly. You obviously are. Well done.
Mario
hi friend well done
contentious
Councillors surely must realise by now that if they vote in favour, they will be booted at the next election by the people of Thanet.
The point is, whatever view individual councillors take in the end, they have to have good, legal, planning reasons for their position. Nothing else will do.
I am behind you all the way with the idea that the meeting be recorded and transmitted. It will do a lot of good towards increasing understanding. I also applaud your fact finding efforts. I had feared this might be something not taken seriously.
I have one question - is Cllr Ezekiel's stance one that proves evidence for having made up his mind how to vote regardless of any presented facts? I think so and I think that public opinion may lean that way - it should be addressed I feel.
I do hope you will all ask if there is any way the drainage plan can possibly work and how the infrastructure could cope with the traffic. With the drainage issue I haven’t heard from anyone involved of any plan that could possibly work.
The problem for me is that if this development goes ahead the effects on Thanet will be enormous, with the risks involved it seems out of scale with Thanet. Too many eggs in one basket is hardly a good legal planning reason, but to go down this road with a developer and architect that just lack experience is very worrying. Particularly as it’s this same architects lack of experience that has lead to all of the problems with Pleasurama, I suspect that if they had done the groundwork properly TDC wouldn’t have had to cough up half a million for the cliff repairs.
I do think the donation made to and accepted by the Labour Party is a complicating factor - life would be simpler if it hadn't occurred - but it is out in the open. Roger Gale makes pointed and sacrcastic reference to it on his website.
Watching the BBC programme on the Gateway tonight, Mr Wills said quite clearly that Ezekiel and his Tory fellows were "hosted" by CGP during their visit to China - flatly contradicting Ezekiel and Latchford's versions of events. Will that come out into the open too at last?
It's obvious that Cllr Green is looking at all the pros and cons of the issue before making a decision, hopefully averyone concerned will do the same.
The one thing Thanet has got going for it is it's natural resources, take them away and you are left with nothing.
The danger with this project is that it could do just that.
I don't believe The China Gateway will create the local jobs needed and as we have seen throughout the last 20 years in the UK with foreign run companies, when the going gets tough they just go.
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