Clive Harts Irresponsible SkatePark Scandal
I was appalled by the article in today's Thanet Gazette in which the Council's Labour Leader, Clive Hart, described the Little Oasis skaters as an " irresponsible minority of people" . Unlike Clive Hart I met many of the skaters after the park had been trashed by the Council last week and not one of them appeared to me to be "irresponsible". On the contrary the people I met had freely devoted many hours of their own time to building the park. Some had invested their money in buying materials and equipment for the park and others had been volunteering at the park to teach beginners s how to skate. To describe these people as "irresponsible" is arrogant and offensive and Hart should apologise. The only irresponsible person I know of is Hart who, according to the Gazette, sent an e-mail to his Labour councillor colleagues ordering them to keep the dawn raid on the skatepark top secret.
I for one, find it hard to believe his claims in the paper and on twitter, that the decision to trash the skatepark was made Council officers and he had nothing to do with it! Clive Hart is the Leader of Thanet Council. That makes him the most powerful politician in Thanet. The Little Oasis SkatePark is in Councillor Hart's constituency. Its inconceivable that Hart was not consulted and involved in discussions about a secret dawn raid on a Skatepark in his own patch! His explanation fails to convince me. My freedom of information request might throw some light on what really happened here and just how truthful he is being.
Furthermore I am not convinced that trashing the park was the right answer. The Council should have temporarily closed the park, met with the skaters to discuss the safety problems and agreed a plan of works to put any problems right. Instead Hart and the officers arranged a clandestine SAS style raid to vandalise and destroy a massively popular facility for local youth, designed, built and paid for by local youth.
Since becoming a Thanet Councillor I have been told time after time by Hart and senior managers that the ethos of Thanet Council is to promote community development, encourage dialogue, engagement and consultation with the people, increase volunteering, get the different nationalities to integrate, get fit and healthy. Well in my book Little Oasis Skatepark ticked all these boxes many times over. But despite this, Hart and top Council bosses hypocritically destroyed something which was delivering Council polices in shovel fulls. Shame on Hart. Shame of Thanet Council!
Last but not least old people like me are always whinging about why young people don't get involved in politics and why young people don't vote. Is it any wonder why they are contemptuous of politics when you see how harshly Thanet Council and its Leader Hart have treated them. I think even more of Thanet's young voters will be staying away from the polling stations next yearn precisely because of Hart's irresponsible criticisms of young people and the aggressive, bullying way in which the Skatepark was trashed. I would of course strongly advice you not to turn your back on politics. Use your votes to throw Hart and his colleagues out of office and join and vote for parties and independent candidates who fight for young people.
See you on Sunday
I think the way the skate park was removed was disgusting, but temporarily closing the area with fences would not have had any effect. As you show on your photo, people have little regard for fences, with signs saying keep out, sign behind your left shoulder. I also see on Facebook several people are planning to meet there on Sunday, I guess again ignoring the fence and signs.
ReplyDeleteAnon the council had many options to prevent the park from being used whilst the problems were dealt with which did not have to include fencing it off. Discussion, mutual respect and trust would have been my first option. However, following the dawn raid by the Council trust has been destroyed. Personally I don't think there is anything wrong in peacefully occupying the site as part of a legitimate protest against Council Leader Hart and his bully boy enforcers.
ReplyDeleteAnon - on the 'disregard for fences' issue, I have seen a number of elderly dog walkers going into the other part of the site so I do take the point. But as a health and safety issue, they have actually left the site in a worse state now! I think it would be easier to hurt myself on the site now then it was before!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what the problem was with the skatepark, but I can point TDC in the direction of a council which has a large unsupervised outdoor skatepark on their patch. If it's possible for them it's possible for us and TDC should commit to immediately replacing the skatepark. By immediately, I mean it should be up and running by the Summer. Where there's a will, there's a way and, whilst Clive Hart might protest that it wasn't his fault the old one got destroyed, he CAN move heaven and earth to replace it (if he wants to).
ReplyDeleteIf you visit Thanet's 2 main skate parks, Ramsgate and Westgate. You will notice that the ramps lines of use are parallel. The one that was smashed down by TDC all the use lines crossed. I guess this is why TDC insurers would not be willing to cover. But the way it was done was destroyed in an early morning raid was disgusting.
DeleteAt least the council could of talked to the people building it there to tell them to sort it out in a reasonable time. Or it would be removed