Killing Ramsgate’s café culture

As you will have noticed from the papers this week TDC have said that they intend to go ahead with the Pleasurama development without a flood risk assessment, against the advice of the environment agency.

This means that the building work will start soon and that heavy construction lorries will be bringing in the building materials through the heart of or café culture. Building dust on you cappuccino and all over your dinner.

I suggested that the building materials be brought in down the old mainline railway tunnel, which would mean that none of the heavy construction materials came into the town at all, I don’t believe that they bothered to look at the idea seriously.

That means that there are only two routes to the building site right through the café culture that is thriving and expanding, and appears to be what is stopping the towns economy collapsing in the way Margate’s has, or down the arched slope and along Marina Esplanade.

I had previously been lead to believe that the arches were not strong enough to take the weight of the lorries, however when I pointed out that the main sands car park had been removed for a roundabout for busses to turn and that busses were also heavy, I was assured by TDC that the slope was able to take 40 tones.

So they can’t have it both ways and although it may be a little unpleasant for the people in the few remaining buildings left on Marina Esplanade, when the alternative is damaging the whole towns economy it is obvious that the building material should come in that way provided it’s safe.

The pictures were taken last summer and I find it difficult to see how construction vehicles would fit in.