Ezekiels View

Interesting article by Thanet council leader Sandy Ezekiel in this week's Isle Thanet Gazette, what makes it interesting well frankly, things that are missed out. In this article Mr Ezekiel refers to some of the successes that we have had in Thanet this last year, Cliftonville West, improvements in recycling domestic waste etc. Nothing too contentious so far, but I find it is what he doesn't say which is more interesting, for instance he refers to the success of Westwood Cross and vaguely the developments taking shape at Thanet reach but no mention is made of the appalling traffic conditions in the Westwood area.

I honestly would like to know whether Mr Ezekiel has a view regarding our traffic congestion, we currently have a road system which is barely coping with the traffic that already exists, in a matter of weeks we shall see the opening of a massive PC World along with Homebase and Argos, I just wonder whether he has any solution to the traffic problem, that will ensue, another perhaps even more serious detriment to traffic flow within the centre of Thanet is the prospect of the new cabbage patch housing estate, Westwood Bland (for the want of a better name) which is set to contain at least 1000 homes, in my experience that would probably lead to 1000 additional cars needing to travel through Westwood, morning and afternoon. Perhaps Sandy would have a view on the local traffic situation next time he writes.

One of my pet interests is the purchase of the old Marks and Spencer's building, finally we get a little glimpse of the cost involved, according to Mr Ezekiel £8.5 million has been secured from Seeda to invest in the Margate high-street, of this I believe something in the region of £6 million has been exclusively spent on the M & S building. Now who would have a problem with this, well I do, it has been nearly two months since I believe it was first announced that purchase have been made of this site, normally one might expect that the council would have formulated some sort of idea as to the future of this site. Assuming I haven't missed an announcement, I would imagine that no firm plans have been arrived at, as yet, I can only speculate that any day now if they haven't already done it the council will be appointing some sort of consultant to come up with a plan if they haven't already done so.

One view I take of the Marks and Spencer site, is that it has been vacant for less than a year, therefore what was the rush, if this site is viable as a commercial premises them I think, particularly as we have a Conservative administration in Thanet, this is one area where we could have allowed, a little more time for the private sector to step in.

Well it is quite a while, before the next local elections, and we have time to consider our position, and one place we might consider our vote, is that extended drive we now have either to work, shop etc and currently I thank our Conservative local council, our Conservative county council for giving me that extra 30 minutes per day to ponder the effectiveness of their planning.

Well I'm off to the shops now, see you in the queue.