Pleasurama minor update and a minor ramble from the bookshop

The Pleasurama fiasco’s minor update is that the ownership of SFP Ventures UK Limited, the UK offshoot of the Virgin Islands company SFP has changed ownership.

This, the UK company is the one TDC have been negotiating with over the Pleasurama fiasco here in Ramsgate for about the last ten years, since it was formed, I would guess partly to overcome UK money laundering legislation. As far as I can work out TDC doesn’t have any method of checking moneys received form non UK companies and relies on UK banks having done the money laundering checks.

When questions were asked about whether the £1m security paid into the a bank account that TDC had access to by SFP as insurance in case anything went wrong was legitimately sourced, TDC’s assurances were that the money had come from the UK bank account of a UK company and that this satisfied them that the money was legitimately sourced.

All that said I guess we don’t want the council wasting too much money checking on money sources and I guess this is an economic way of producing a reasonably reliable result.

Here is the link to the change of ownership details http://companycheck.co.uk/company/05666803/SFP-VENTURES-UK-LIMITED/directors-secretaries I have also put a screenshot in the post in case the link won’t work for some.

Michael Stannard is the managing director of The Cardy Group http://www.cardygroup.co.uk/ who have been the building contractors (the company responsible for constructing the development) to SFP since 2009.

The good aspect of all this is that they are a local company with a very good reputation who employ local people.

At the moment the bad side of this is that the original developer didn’t do a proper survey of the site to establish what the civil engineering constraints relating to building between the sea and an unsupported chalk cliff were before commissioning the plans. These plans then were granted planning consent which TDC says stands in perpetuity. Initially back in 2003 the intention was to build in front of the cliff without any repairs being done to the cliff façade and although the council have spent about £1m on repairs it is self evident that the repairs haven’t been entirely satisfactory.

Of the plans themselves and disregarding the civil engineering problems but considering the building we may eventually get, the best one can say is they are dated and due to the gull winged roof having been remove due to the architect’s error over the height, rather ugly.

At the moment there is an investigation going on about the condition of the cliff façade which see.

From: *****

Sent: 15 September 2014 08:49

To: 'michaelchild@aol.com '

Subject: FW: Ramsgate - Cliff

Dear Mr Child,

I have been sent your details by Cardy Construction Ltd who inform me you have some concerns relating the area.

As part of our routine maintenance regime, we are due a full structural inspection of the area and have instructed a survey.  Additionally, we have notified the HSE that we are about to undertake the inspection and will of course share all the information we have on this matter.

I trust this gives you some assurance, however, if you have further comments please send them direct to myself.

Regards

****

**** MRICS

Head of Economic Development and Asset Management

Thanet District Council

PO Box 9, Cecil Street

Margate

Kent   CT9 1XZ

Tel:  01843 577***

Mob:  ****  

   As I haven’t heard anything about progress on the issue recently I sent the following off to the council.

From: michaelchild
To: customer.services ; casework
Sent: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 11:37
Subject: customer feedback request

 I am writing to you for an update on the Pleasurama site, mainly as there is a certain amount of rumour circulating on the internet.

There are four main areas of interest relating to the civil engineering infrastructure of the project and updates on any of them would be useful at this time.

1 The cliff façade condition survey; is there any progress on this? And if there are any reports that are in the public domain can you please send them to me by email?

2 The flood risk and structural integrity of the sea defence, has any investigation been made into this? The latest information I have on this that the EA strongly recommended a flood risk assessment. Mike Humber emailed me telling me that the sea defence dated from 1860 and the council while being responsible for the maintenance of the sea defence hold no plans or maintenance record for it. This is particularly important now the construction method has been changed from bored piles to pad foundations sitting on sand held in place by the sea defence.

3 Cliff maintenance access, has any assessment been made to ascertain if there is enough space between the proposed development and the cliff façade to maintain the cliff façade for the life of the development? Important as the various surveys of the façade describe it as having a short serviceable life.

4 Road access, has any investigation been made into the psv and hgv access for the development? Mostly this relates to the Marina Road inclined viaduct, which as far as I can see from the plans is to be used for psv and hgv access for the development, once the development is built, despite KCC signing it as unsuitable for construction hgvs.     

Enough about Pleasurama and on to the ramble.

On the bookshop front I did open my bookshop today albeit a little late and considering the wet and windy weather it is proving to be a normal trading day although I will probably close early, mainly because we have more friends and family coming today and have another turkey in the oven.

The main news item today is part of the rebuilt Dreamland scenic railway blew down in the night, see http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Dreamland-s-Scenic-Railway-blown/story-25771766-detail/story.html this isn’t something to worry about as this type of structure can be fairly weak in places until it is fully completed and with my engineering hat on I would say a very minor setback. My only concern looking at the photos is that the quality of the wood looks pretty awful and much worse than would have been sourced when it was originally constructed. Heavily knotted deal rather than quality pitch pine doesn’t make the best framework for a roller coaster.   

I will ramble on here, have just come across this one http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Ramsgate-Town-Councillor-Trevor-Shonk-immigrants/story-25771851-detail/story.html and as one of the shopkeepers who talks to Trevor I am a bit gob smacked.  

So the immigrant situation here in Ramsgate, ongoing wise we have a small indigenous population which extends back to my great granny was born in Ramsgate, this is less than a lot of places as the most of the population was evacuated during both world wars.

I am a bit vague as to if there are any families here of ancient Briton origin or even if any of the families here have been here since William the Conqueror’s time, I guess as Ramsgate started out around 1550 with a few of the fishermen from St Lawrence putting up something like charcoal burner’s huts to service the local fishing industry we are probably looking at something around then.

I would guess with the fishing industry being a mobile business and Ramsgate doing considerable business with the Baltic countries the Polish community dates back to then.

I think the Jewish community here dates back to around 1700 and probably once again started from our seafaring connections.

We have the usual mix of Asians running small grocery shops Italians, Chinese, etc running restaurants and a few mostly upwardly mobile Europeans Polish Hungarians and so on who seem to be working pretty hard on the whole.

On the book front quite a few of my customers have immigrated to the UK including Jocelyn McCarthy chairman of the Ramsgate Society, this doesn’t seem to prevent them from buying books.        

Yes we have had some influxes of problem people moved into social housing here by various sorts of manipulation by various levels of government, social engineering if you like, but the vast majority appear to have been UK residents.

Then there is that foreign company that says it wants to build an airfreight hub at Manston, I did ask him at some length if he was supporting the UK company that wants to provide 4,000 jobs there.  

Then there is the business of the foreigners and the hospital beds, I had a minor op at QEQM a couple of years ago, the surgeon was Polish.