Port and harbour neglect continues under the Conservatives

By Cllr Clive Hart - Labour Shadow Leader of the Council.

 

At the Thanet Council Cabinet meeting on Thursday 17th November, Conservative Cabinet member Cllr Martin Wise announced "A Ramsgate Port and Harbour draft master plan has been developed and presented to Scrutiny". 

Now I'm used to ambiguous language coming from our local Conservative party but this statement was quite simply 'a fudge too far'.

I have spoken with the Chairman of the Ramsgate Port and Harbour Scrutiny working party and he says he would dearly like to have sight of the document he has been promised for such a very long time now. He waits and waits but despite his constant requests it never comes.

For clarification - the actual facts are: at the earlier September Thanet Council Cabinet meeting the Commercial Services Manager explained that the initial draft Master plan for Ramsgate Port and Harbour was considered to need additional work and that the plan itself had not been circulated to the members as it was considered to need 'further development'. 

It was also decided that a Cabinet Advisory Group would be needed for this 'further development' and on the 6th October I met with Conservative leader Cllr Bayford to agree the make-up of the group. We agreed the cabinet advisory group would consist of three Labour members and three Conservative members. On the 12th October I informed Cllr Bayford and the council that our Labour members would be Cllr Poole, Cllr Huxley and Cllr Fenner.

Yet another month has passed in this sorry saga and my members are all still eager and waiting. As with every other step taken on this elusive master plan project, procrastination and navel gazing appear to be the order of the day and to date no meetings have been planned.

Ramsgate Port and Harbour should be our islands 'jewel in the crown'. Instead we've had eight years of Conservative rule at Thanet Council and eight years of neglect.