Just 6 months after opening to the public news that the
operators of Margate’s Dreamland
Heritage Amusement Park are applying for a Company Voluntary Administration
(CVA) agreement to manage debts of £3million is very worrying. This development
has potentially disastrous implications
for Thanet’s already fragile economy and raises extremely serious questions
about how this project was led and managed by TDC senior officers and the
Labour Party administration who were running the council and responsible for the supervision of this project almost up to its opening.
The re-opening of Dreamland was TDC’s flagship project. It
was heralded as a once in a generation game-changer
for Margate and Thanet . Whilst I was a TDC councillor, Labour Leaders Clive
Hart and Iris Johnston made speech after speech about how the re-opening of
Dreamland was critical to the regeneration of the district and how it would promote major investment in the area, create hundreds
of new jobs and attract thousands of
extra visitors. But even then there were warning signs that all was not as it
should be.
First, plans to allow the not-for profit Dreamland Charitable Trust to operate the amusement park were shelved in favour of
bringing in a commercial operator instead. This change, it was argued, was necessary to
comply with forthcoming EU competition regulations. It was also said that
commercial operators would have much more business experience and commercial
savvy than well intentioned amateurs from a charitable trust, and that this
experience and savvy would almost certainly generate more profit and investment
than a non-commercial operator like the Dreamland Trust could ever do.
But despite their confidence in the commercial sector, TDCs Initial efforts to find a business savvy operator were a complete disaster. My understanding is that after
advertising the opportunity far and wide, including overseas, at great expense
only 2 or 3 completed expressions of interests were submitted to TDC. The council therefore decided to have another go at advertising the business
opportunity. This time, to make the proposition more attractive, the Council
re-wrote its operating agreement making it much more lucrative for wannabe amusement park managers. The operating lease for the park was massively extended to what
was rumoured to be close on a 100 years. Something almost unprecedented in
local government leasing arrangements, apart perhaps from the Wetherspoons mega-pub deal for the
Ramsgate Victoria Pavilion which is
alleged to be close to the century figure.
The annual rent for the park was also said to be extremely low; so low that I heard it described by other councillors as a peppercorn or give-away lease. Today we heard on BBC Radio Kent that TDC had
also offered a seven year no-rent deal
to Dreamland’s operators which could be extended indefinitely if sufficient
profit was not being made.
I guess it might be fair to say therefore that such was the
lack of interest from credible commercial operators in managing the Dreamland Amusement Park that TDC had,
in an act of utter desperation, been forced to offer to unload the troublesome
asset for up to 100 years rent free to anyone willing to take it off their hands! And so it was, because my sources tell me that
the second time expressions of interest to operate the park were invited, on
the much better lease terms, there was only one applicant – Sands Heritage.
Which brings me to my next points - business planning and due diligence.
Surely the overwhelming lack of interest in applying to
manage Dreamland should have rang alarm bells at TDC.? The piss-poor response, especially from experienced
amusement park operators from the UK and abroad, could only have meant one thing.
That these business savvy organisations
recognised that, even allowing for the
alleged 100 year rent free giveaway, TDC’s
business plan for Dreamland totally failed to generate sufficient profit to take the risk of
running it! But instead of going back to
the drawing board and revising the business
plan for the park, senior TDC managers
and Labour’s political bosses ignored this extremely serious warning sign and pushed on with the project.
Possibly motivated by pride, arrogance, fear of the political and career
costs of failure, or the simple desire to cover their arses, this wasted
opportunity meant that TDC had no choice but to jump into bed with
Sands Heritage – an arrangement I am sure that both parties are now beginning
to bitterly regret.
Shortly after the deal was done I recall attending a
top-secret Councillors briefing meeting on Dreamland. At this meeting several Conservative
councillors, and myself, expressed our concerns about the difficulty is securing a
park operator and the decision to appoint Sands Heritage. Whilst Labour
councillors remained silent and uncritically nodding like donkeys to everything Iris Johnston said,
we
asked what previous experience did Sands Heritage and it’s team have of
running successful amusement parks? What
checks were being made into the financial standing of Sands Heritage and its directors?
Does Sands Heritage have access to
sufficient capital to cover operating problems such as unexpected reductions in
income? Will the park be ready to open on time (then said to be April) and will all the rides be operational?
Many of these questions received insultingly non-committal replies
from some of the senior officers present at the meeting. All of the questions about TDCs due diligence
checks of Sands Heritage went totally unanswered. The
then Labour Council Leader Iris Johnston, backed up by senior officers, dismissively
said that these questions would not be answered because they were commercially confidential. Surely any reasonable person
would have expected that the questions
of democratically elected Thanet
Councillors about one of the most prestigious and high profile projects ever carried
out by TDC, should have been fully and properly
answered by officers or political leaders. They were not. Had they been answered, then it might well be
that Dreamland would not be in the catastrophic
mess it finds itself in today.
But the problems with Dreamland didn’t end there. At the secret councillors
briefing meeting we were told that the legal agreement with Sands Heritage to
operate the park, would be signed in a matter days. It was not. In fact it is
my understanding the agreement was not signed until several months later.
Indeed, Sands Heritage actually took possession of the Dreamland site, so I
have been informed, without a signed legal agreement being in place – a very
risky thing for the council to have done. I tried to find out, on several
occasions, why the signing of the legal agreement
had been delayed. Every time I asked I was stonewalled and politely told where
to go. I now assume that this lengthy
delay in signing the agreement was probably because Sands Heritage knew it had
TDC by the bollox and wanted to screw every last concession it could out of the
council before singing on the dotted line. Perhaps this is when the 7 year rent
free period extendable indefinitely if
profit wasn’t good was agreed. Mind you with no other takers for Dreamland in
sight, with TDC and its Labour bosses dirtying their underwear in fear of
fucking-up its flagship deal wouldn’t you have tried to shaft Thanet Council? –
after all business is business.
Legal agreements aside, on selecting Sands Heritage as the
Dreamland operator TDC then declared that the park would open in April 2015
with all the rides in place. As everyone knows the opening was delayed by 8
weeks until mid-June 2015 and even then work to the park was not complete and
the scenic railway was not ready to operate until 25 October – 16 weeks later.
It is now reported that TDC has been
forced to pay the Dreamland operator, Sands Heritage, about £1million in compensation for failing
to provide them with an amusement park fit for purpose and for the loss income
that might have been made had the main attraction – the scenic railway – been
working from the opening day.
It also transpires that some of the Heritage Lottery Fund
(HLF) grant money spent restoring the
scenic railway had been ring-fenced for spending on other rides and works at
the park and that TDC has now got find another £1 million from it’s reserves to
make good its incompetent
misunderstanding of the HLF grant
terms and conditions. And last but not least, I believe that
compensation to the former owners of the Dreamland site, following its Compulsory
Purchase by the council in 2013, has not
yet been finally settled. The delays, cock-ups and
almost-but-not-quite-liquidation of the Dreamland operator will, in my opinion,
give the former owners of the park a strong argument in court that the original
CPO and the plans upon which it was based
have been demonstrated to have been unsound. Such an argument might be
enough to convince a judge to award multi-£million compensation to the former
owners. I also reckon that, although Sands Heritage has already been paid close
on £1 million compensation by Thanet Council, they may yet have to pay the
struggling operator even more as the consequences of TDCs incompetence
becomes clearer. Who will pay – you and
I of course.
So where does this leave us? Well Sands Heritage must reach
an agreement to pay back £2.9million to its creditors over the next 5 years. Will they be able to do it? Personally I don’t think
so? Why? The next 6 months will be an extremely quiet time for Dreamland and there will be precious little income
coming in to pay the day to costs of the park, let alone the money they owe to
their creditors. Also the size of the park, the number of rides and the
underlying concept of a heritage amusement park are, I believe, insufficient to generate the visitor numbers required to make the park
sustainable and allow it to clear its debt. This is probably why none the of big amusement park operators in
the UK or abroad applied to become Dreamland
operators. They spotted the massive risks and pitfalls and stayed well clear of this financially
toxic white knuckle ride.
What does this teach us?
Well this is the latest in a
series of major cock-ups at Thanet Council which have cost tax payers £millions. We had the secret TransEuropa ferries fee deferral deal which
cost taxpayers £3.4 million. We have the Live Animal Exports compensation
payments which have so far cost taxpayers £3.5 million with more to come. We
have ongoing and serious problems with the Ramsgate Pleasurama Project which
will use up a major chunk of the sale price agreed with site developers Cardy’s
and may lead to further delays in building work beginning – if it ever does. We
have an ongoing multi-£million health and safety claim which is likely to end
up in the courts. And now we have the distinct
possibility of Dreamland, which has cost
taxpayer at least £6million, becoming
insolvent. Having served as a Thanet
Councillor for 4 years and having seen how it operates – up close and more
personal than I would I have liked - it is my opinion that the organisation is led
by some incredibly incompetent senior
officers. Thankfully many of them have gone but others remain. I also
believe that the Labour Party’s leadership of the Council between 2011-15 has
been utterly appalling. One way or another it was the council’s Labour Leadership
which allowed the events I described
above to have happened. They have direct responsibility for this terrible mess.
And finally the secrecy, lies and bullying which
are firmly entrenched in TDCs culture also allowed the serial criminality and
incompetence to flourish. In my opinion Thanet Council should be shut down. It should be replaced by a new more democratic organisation with a higher calibre of managers and politicians. Its impossible to continue to make excuse after excuse to justify the existence of this
shamefully inadequate excuse for a local authority.
Although this post has been a bit of a rant I would like to
say that, amazing as it sounds, I have always
been a supporter of the Dreamland project. My only criticism is that it has been
managed incredibly badly. It could have been a much larger more inspirational
project, perhaps linking in the with the restoration of the Cliftonville Lido
and the building of a state of the art 21 century skate park to replace Little
Oasis community skate park trashed on the orders Labour Party political bosses. A bigger more
imaginative project led more capable people could have succeeded in attracting the investment, jobs and
visitors that Hart and Johnston claimed they were bringing about. I also want to make it cleat that my criticisms
of senior council mangers do not mean that all council managers and council
staff are incompetent. The overwhelming majority of staff are highly capable dedicated and hard working and if we
were ever to meet in the pub I am sure
that we would quickly agree who the remaining incompetent wankers and shouty bullies are.
Former Thanet Green
Party councillor and 2015 Parliamentary Candidate for South Thanet, Ian Driver, has accused UKIP and
councillor Chris Wells the Leader of
the only UKIP controlled council
in the country (Thanet District Council) of being
“deceitful and dishonest about whether the party operates a political whipping system.” In its 2015 Manifesto UKIP states that its councillors
“have the freedom to vote how they choose. We believe the community is their
boss and they will not be whipped to
bloc vote like councillors in other political parties”(1). 
