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Saturday 31 January 2015

"Parkway Prats" Support Station They Once Opposed

Green Party Councillor and Thanet South General Election Candidate Ian Driver has denounced TDCs Labour Cabinet as “Parkway Prats”. His comment follows their recent decision to support Kent County Council’s plans for a £14million Parkway Station at rural Cliffsend after having strongly opposed the idea during the last Council elections in 2011.
Said Driver “I am flabbergasted by the jaw-dropping scale of Thanet Labour’s hypocrisy. In 2011 they sought election on a manifesto commitment to “support moves to reduce the travel time to London but not at the expense and environmental damage of a new Parkway Station”.
In an article on Thanet Labour Party’s blog site dated 24 April 2011, Richard Nicholson the current Deputy Leader of the Council said “are we expected to believe that this (Parkway Station) is a good use of public money?... this (Parkway Station) will create an enormous parking need on green land and more traffic snarl ups especially at peak times….This Parkway is not justified nor needed”.  On 20th January 2015 the same Richard Nicholson agreed “to note the current position with regard to progress on the Thanet Parkway Station and confirmed support for the project”.  I wonder why he has changed his mind?
Writing on the Thanet Labour Blog site on 3 May 2011, just 2 days before the council election Councillor Clive Hart, said “we’ve outlined our continued support for shortening travel times to London. However, Thanet Labour is always mindful of our local environment as a Parkway station with a huge car park, just doesn’t make economic sense”
But on becoming Leader of the Council just one year later Hart, who also assumed responsibility for economic development, quickly changed his mind about the Parkway Station. He engaged in secretive discussions with Kent County Council, Dover and Canterbury Councils and the Kent and Medway Local Economic Partnership which resulted in the publication, in early 2013,  of Unlocking the Potential: Going for Growth – Kent and Medway’s Growth Plan, which supported the development of a Ramsgate Parkway Station. I wonder why Hart, like Nicholson also changed his mind? Hart was later replaced as Leader by Iris Johnston who  enthusiastically supports, the Parkway Station plan. I wonder why she has changed her mind?
I am amazed that Thanet  Labour  has never had the honesty and decency to tell the voters that they have changed their mind about a key manifesto pledge? It’s astonishing that a modern political party which claims to listen to the people, should make false promises to the voters of Thanet and when safely elected and in charge deceitfully go back on their word.  But there again, as I explained in a previous post, this is not the first time Thanet Labour have lied to and duped the voters.  They did exactly the same  thing when they recently allowed the building of houses on the EKO  site at New Haine Road, after having said in their 2011 manifesto they would oppose developments  on green field sites. Labour-led Thanet Council has now demonstrated on at least 2 occasions that when it comes to promises to the voters they are liars and hypocrites. Saying one thing and doing totally the opposite. This is especially worrying because the promises they have broken were all about protecting Thanet’s environment which, has the draft local plan shows, is under serious threat of overdevelopment. A party as dishonest and deceitful as  this is surely not fit for public office!  Ranting aside, I share many of the  reservations about the environmental impact of a
Thanet Parkway station which were raised by the Labour Party in 2011. I am also extremely worried that the development of a Ramsgate Parkway station will be a magnet for developers to  embark upon massive housebuilding programmes around rural Cliffsend which,  until we have a local plan in place in 2017, will be legally irresistible.Finally in 2011 Richard Nicholson warned that the development of the Parkway station might threaten the continued existence Ramsgate station.  It’s interesting to note that Labour Parliamentary hopeful Will Scobie also thinks that Ramsgate station’s future is questionable. Just over a year ago the Thanet Gazette reported that
“COUNTY Councillor Will Scobie has questioned the need to refurbish Ramsgate rail station when there is the possibility of a new station being built on the isle Cllr Scobie, who is also the Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for South Thanet, said: "I am fully supportive of these plans as long as Ramsgate station continues to be used. The lack of consultation about the proposed new Thanet Parkway station concerns me. If that goes ahead do we need to spend £400,000 improving a station that will decline in use?”
Surely if Ramsgate station, which saw the arrival and departure of more than one million passengers” last year,  is to be protected then the Parkway station must be opposed. No ifs, buts or maybes.
Sadly the Parkway Prats who make up the Council’s Cabinet and aspire to represent the town in Parliament  don’t’ see it this way!
I will be posting soon of the environmental implications of the Parkway Station  
Here's something to do with Parks and Prats




9 comments:

  1. So Labour wants Parkway Station and no Airport.
    But public wants Parkway Station only if there is an Airport.

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  2. This does not suprise me. These two faced powers that be, have been trying to make this happen for decades. From the harrasment of Haine rd homeowners and the toppling of haine hospital. They want a MaSsIvE estate from wwx to sandwich nature reserve. The building of the industrial estate. The thousands of homes to be built with no jobs 12, 000 homes with say two people in each...24, 000 people and the so called empty promise of 5000 jobs still leaves 19, 000 more out of work. The airport run so it didnt earn by the same people who own it now just under a different name. This station is to allow for this huge estate they plan to have happen. Now with the influx of homes to be built for commuters all over our green/brown fields with no care of the lack of water we are already suffering with or killing off of the wildlife or the lack of farming. I have no idea how to get these two faced long term planners out. But im glad we have you to show us all exactly what we need to know. X

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  3. Well said Ian and 19:09 and even Michael's blog is biased towards incompetent Thanet Labour.

    The idiots wanted night flights then changed their minds and now want a Parkway rail station without the airport it was intended for.

    We can do without Thanet Labour.

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  4. Is Richard Nicholson standing again? He doesn't seem to be? And why has Everitt not resigned after the Port and Pavillion fiasco?

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  5. 19:09 is right except nobody wanted the airport or a Parkway. We want our trains stations as they are and a Parkway is complete waste of tax. Are we really paying KCC civil servants to build a Parkway without an airport and with 3 main train stations nearby? And wasn't it more than £14M in tax provided by DofT? Have KCc creamed off some of the £20M for themsleves?

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  6. Will candidates be standing as doublehatters for TDC etc? If so they should be avoided or at least refuse one of the salaries...

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  7. Imagine what £14M could be spent on instead of a white elephant Parkway. It looks like KCC have got the grant and are looking just to spend it even though the airport is closed. Do Private Eye know about this?

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  8. Regarding 09:31 and the "waste of tax" we see it all over Thanet by KCC in their never ending road building programme at vast expense, covering quality farmland, ruining the once tranquil and scenic views, and all for what? Where we once had a handful of narrow but straight and direct main roads we now have massively wide structures snaking around up and down and around like the plans were done by some drunkard, or the contractor rubbing his hands together with glee at the millions he would be paid for the acres of tarmac. We are even paying to make the old Roman straight routes like from Lord of the Manor to the Prospect, and the road past Pegwell Bay less attractive to stop people using them such is the "success" of the new roads. The Poor Hole Lane widening works costing millions were said to help create up to 5000 jobs, it is utter nonsense. I suspect a self perpetuating concreting machine is running out of control which consists of well-connected contractors pushing for more and more lucrative public sector work on the one hand, and "procurement" managers and Highway planners in KCC justifying their salaries by always having new schemes to work up, consult on, and oversee. Between the two of them they will spend all the public's money and build on all the land they can, because that is how they earn a living. Regrettably around Thanet there seem to very few Councillors with the wit and the will to put a stop to it. They are guilty of both sins, the destruction of the environment and the enormous waste of public money. Then the leaders of KCC stand up saying they're short of cash and need to make savings. Doesn't the left hand know what the right hand is doing?

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  9. What's happening with your TDC secrecy gagging order and court costs Ian? And are the Wetherspoon Pavillion contracts public yet they seem to have been signed in secret?

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