Laura Sandys: Are you serious about splitting Margate in half?

From Michelle Fenner and Alan Poole.

At the Boundary Review Commission meeting in Maidstone last week we were astonished to hear the MP for South Thanet speak enthusiastically about the strong links between Little Stour and Ashstone and Ramsgate and that it would be perfectly acceptable to exclude Salmestone from the new Margate and Ramsgate constituency, and not to include either Garlinge or Westbrook!

Can you imagine the new Margate Constituency without the QEQM? Without Margate train station? Without Margate Football Club? Without Margate Cricket Club? Without Hartsdown Technology College? Even without the Margate cemetery and Thanet crematorium?

No doubt Ms. Sandys was being very selective about what she calls ‘community links’.

What is shocking is that our current MP for South Thanet does not seem to want to represent the whole community of Margate and yet is prepared to get rid of significant areas of it in favour of Sandwich, Little Stour and Ashstone.

The Margate community is closely-knit and must not be split. We strongly urge residents to write to:

The Boundary Commission:

35 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BQTelephone: 020 7276 1102
Email address for representations: reviews@bcommengland.x.gsi.gov.uk

supporting the inclusion of the Margate Wards of Westbrook and Garlinge and keeping Salmestone in the proposed new constituency of Margate & Ramsgate as they form an integral part of Margate and Thanet.

Youth unemployment petition

Will Scobie, Luke Edwards and Linda Aldred

The Thanet Labour team were in Margate high street this morning asking people to sign the Labour petition on youth unemployment. The petition stated:



'Youth unemployment has hit almost one million and the Tory-led Government’s policies risk creating another lost generation like in the 1980s. Sign up to Labour’s campaign to call for the Government to repeat last year’s bonus tax and use the money raised to help create 100,000 more jobs for young people. Getting people off the dole and into work is the best way to get the deficit down – and stop Britain’s talent going to waste.'

Steve Alexandrou

In just one morning the team were able to get over 400 signatures, and it is clear that this is an issue that many people feel very strongly on. Young people are our future and we need to make sure that we give them the training, skills, and experience necessary for their lives ahead of them. The Tory-led Government is trying to save money in the short term, but in the long term this is only going to cost more through social problems and schemes to get people back to work.


The Labour team will be visiting Ramsgate next to get more signatures on Wednesday 16th November. They will be on Ramsgate high street at lunch time, so come along and talk to your local Labour team.

Jodi Hibbert, Louise Drelaud, Will Scobie, Jenny Matterface, Clive Hart, and James Watkins.

Manston - proposed night-time flying policy

by Cllr. Clive Hart - Labour Group Leader
 
"The proposed night-time flying policy for Manston International Airport has now been published by Infratil.

Over the coming weeks and months members of the Labour group will scrutinise the proposed night-flying document carefully and thoroughly. Our District councillors will then make their individual views known at the appropriate points in the process, having taken account of all the information available".

 

Note: The proposed night-time flying policy may well become the subject of a planning application and therefore it would be inappropriate for any councillor to comment further at this time.

Tory led Government failing the South East

Labour’s Shadow Minister for Further Education, Skills and Regional Growth, Gordon Marsden MP spoke this week at the Kent on Sunday Business Week Live in Dover. He was scathing of the Tories record on support for business and growth in the South East:

“The Tory-led Government’s much-touted Regional Growth Fund has helped precisely no businesses in the South East. Meanwhile latest figures show a 27% year on year increase in business failures in the South East. Unemployment in the region is soaring, which is a real worry because it’s one of the key regions where, if the Tory-led Government had been right in its argument, the private sector would have soaked up public sector job losses.

“Unfortunately, the Government has been wrong at almost every turn, and its decision to cut too far and too fast is hurting business and growth in the South East.”

Local employment problems come as no surprise

By Councillor Mary Dwyer


The job figures in last weeks edition of the Isle of Thanet Gazette come as no surprise at all to me. I myself have struggled to find full time employment and it took me nearly two and a half years to find my current part time work. I am currently registered disabled and this has further reduced my chances of getting full time work because I need time off work occasionally due to to health problems.

In Thanet we currently have 6000 unemployed which works out at 9.7% - way about the national average. Of these 6000 people 30.4% are aged between the age of 18 and 24. In addition to this we have a lower weekly pay that any of the neighbouring areas, high levels of social deprivation, and some of the biggest cuts to Local Council grants in the entire country.

There was also recently a survey of UK Further Education Colleges which said that between 5% and 15% of young people said that they are not attending a course as a direct result of the abolition of the EMA. Last academic year 85% of students at Thanet College were in receipt of EMA, and this shows the extent to which the Coalition Government's policies are hurting young people.

One of my colleagues Councillor Will Scobie is currently running a campaign calling on the Government to provide more training and jobs for young people. The Labour Party will have a stall in Margate on the 5th November from 10am till 2pm - please come down and show your support by signing our petition.

Arlington House application referred to Full Council

by Councillor Rick Everitt

Wednesday, October 19^th, was a good day for democracy in Thanet.

It ended with the Tesco application for Arlington House and Square referred to full council for decision on grounds of “transparency and accountability”.

Members of the planning committee had been asked to consider whether the recently upgraded listing of the neighbouring scenic railway from Grade II to Grade II* would have changed their decision “to grant permission for redevelopment of the site, subject to a legal agreement and safeguarding conditions”, back in June.

But members had not granted permission. As the minutes showed, they had simply referred the matter to the secretary of state – as they were required to do by legislation – with a recommendation for approval.

Even that had only been decided on the casting vote of the independent chair, Cllr Jack Cohen.

The June minutes were completely silent on what happened if, as was the case, the secretary of state sent the application back to TDC for determination. It was my view that meant it could and should come back to members and not be finalised by officers under delegated powers.

The attempt to deal with the scenic railway issue in isolation threatened to create the farcical scenario of Tory members attending the committee as substitutes deciding whether their absent colleagues would have reached a different decision without ever themselves hearing the application in full.

Labour members, who had all voted against the recommendation in the first place, were being invited to reconsider their decision on the basis of the upgraded listing, when they had already been in a minority and a change in their vote could only reaffirm the position the committee had already taken.

No wonder that officers gathered in an extended huddle when I moved that given the confusion the entire application should be referred to full council for decision instead.

Eventually, the proposition was deemed acceptable for debate and was passed 8-6, with all Labour members in support.

The application has proven controversial from the beginning, after Labour deputy leader Cllr Alan Poole was not allowed by the chair to move a restriction on night-time deliveries on the basis that Tesco had said they couldn’t operate like that.

Concerns have been raised about traffic and parking issues, and the effect on the traditional Margate shopping area, as well as the impact on residents of the existing development and on Dreamland. It’s a big decision and one the council has to get right.

Everyone wants to see this site regenerated and recognises that the money to do it has to come from somewhere. Now, hopefully, the issues will be fully aired and debated by the whole council and residents affected may have a little more confidence in the democratic process in Thanet.

That’s an outcome we should all celebrate.

Tory leadership pays lip service to fight to ban live animal exports from Ramsgate Port

The Labour Group won an important vote at Full Council on 13^th October. The motion, presented by Cllr. Ian Driver, calls on TDC to encourage residents to sign the e-petition placed on its front page, regarding the limit to 8 hours as a maximum time for the transport of live animals.

In spite of Cllr. Bob Bayford’s previous comments that the British Government should take a firmer stance on this issue, regardless of the outcome of the review being undertaken by the European Commission, he was prepared to water down the Labour motion by merely informing residents that the e-petition has been placed on TDC’s website.

Cllr. Ian Driver expressed his dismay that the Tory Leader of the Council appeared scared to take a firm stance on this emotive issue.

Cllr. Michelle Fenner had read a message from Peter Skinner Labour MEP for South East Region to the protesters who had assembled outside the TDC buildings in which he reiterated his support for the campaign to win a total ban of live exports:


“I want to be totally clear: I condemn those involved in this barbaric business. Long distance transport causes unnecessary suffering: exhaustion, dehydration, stress and even death. Like you I want to see a complete ban on live exports from Ramsgate or anywhere else.


I will be working with campaigners from Ramsgate and right across Europe to secure that ban. We must work together at the local, national and international level to put an end to the cross border trade in animals.


Cllr. Michelle Fenner has since sent a question to Laura Sandys MP (Conservative) to ask her if she will lobby the British Government to enable TDC to produce a new by-law to stop the trade in live animal export from Ramsgate Port or to impose a rest break for the animals and use of port facilities by the transport company.


Cllr Michelle Fenner: ”TDC’s Leadership are paying lip-service to this issue. Fine words are no longer sufficient, action is needed by the Leadership of TDC and the local MP to ban these barbaric practices.”