Thanet Observer's in print!

Thanet Observer has been published! The new 'Your Thanet' midweek newspaper has a Blogger feature, on page 17 this week, and they have given a half page over to my thoughts on the Turner Contemporary gallery and the Margate Harbour development.

They cut it down a bit from what i'd sent in, it was adapted from one of my first blog entries, the full text below :

" Art Studios, Bars and Restaurants on the Margate Harbour arm... Opening in February?!.... With the waves crashing over the top?! The patrons and their cars getting covered in seawater, salt spray and sand? Come on, get a grip on reality! But looking on the bright side, when the diners get washed over the harbour wall, they can text the proposed Harbour Wall LED Light Show to flash S.O.S and get rescued!It's reported that £35 Million pounds has already been spent in 2 years to regenerate Margate... Oh please, ..where's that amount of money gone in Margate Town? Mr Derek Harding's (the Programme Director of the Margate Renewal Partnership) says "Margate is on the verge of an economic and cultural revolution" and " Why can't Margate rival world class cities like Milan?" In readiness for this seismic shift in the town's future he plans "creating artist's studios and galleries" in the Old Town. Sorry, but Margate needs investment in REAL businesses and REAL jobs, not just subsidised arty 'New Age' trendy projects. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with art, but £35 million...that's a lot of cash spent already.

But perhaps much of that cash has been wasted on the idiotic idea of building The Turner Contemporary Gallery? Enough public money already, both Thanet's and KCC's has been thrown away, remember the prototype sail shape building to test the paint attached to the harbour that fell into the sea within a couple of days, ask anyone who lives/works on a seafront what would happen, don't spend our £millions on studies that are painfully obvious to anyone, anyone without a PHD in architecture that is.

Now it's planned to be built on shore, and the latest design looks like a cup of coffee fell across the plans for the Sydney Opera House and Dungeness B Reactor House, and they just mixed them up. The architect David Chipperfield is leading us a merry circus, and I'm guessing enjoying a continuous stream of our funds into his bank account every time he changes his mind on what the last of the 'Millennium years' white elephants should look like.

Enough whinging! What about a solution I hear you cry! Well, along with every other brand name in our Island's town centre's shopping streets, the Grosvenor Casino is heading to Westwood Cross too, which will leave the magnificent Royal Victoria Pavilion on Ramsgate sea front empty, which is already owned by Thanet District Council.
Now here's a thought... abandon the daftly expensive Turner Project in Margate NOW, and put the exhibition in the soon to be vacated historic Pavilion?

What better environment could you have for the art viewing public? Having been a casino the buildings security is bound to be top notch, it's got easy access from the town centre and all the millionaire's yachts in the harbour, bountiful parking, and it hasn't fallen into the sea in 100 years!
But best of all, the people of Thanet already own it!

Ask the Grosvenor Casino nicely and they''ll probably leave the carpets and light bulbs!"