MTCRC to buy Arlington House ?

[porf]

Wouldn't be a huge surprise if this is correct as it fits with both the large amount of land they currently own on its borders and Mr Godden's acquisition of some flats within Arlington House (IF sources I spoke to last year are correct).

Quoted from ickent.co.uk :

Dreamland owners in talks to buy Arlington site

Feb 12 2007 - By Alex McNally

THE owners of Margate's Dreamland are in talks to buy the Arlington arcade and tower block, the Gazette can exclusively reveal.

Toby Hunter, chairman of the Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company, said the site was a key part of redevelopment of the fun park.

Speaking at the Margate Winter Gardens as part of a two day public consultation on the future of Margate and Dreamland Mr Hunter said his company, a one-third stakeholder in Dreamland with businessmen Jimmy Godden and David Schriber, was in talks with Arlington owners Freshwater but would not say if the tower block could be pulled down.

He said: "We have been in deep discussion about buying the site from Freshwater and if we did not believe that we could agree a sensible price there are compulsory purchase powers that could be brought into play."

Dreamland bosses have brought in town planners to help shape the future of the ailing Margate attraction, which closed last year.

What interests me is that MTCRC believe they have enough council support for their scheme to be able to rely on a compulsory purchase order in their favour.

[EAS]

Compulsory purchase?

I think that the council needs to start coming clean about any agreements it may have stitched up with this lot!

What if Freshwater is quite happy to continue in ownership?

And who are the 'town planners'?

'Ailing'? Its all a PR con isn't it...

[Neil]

So when it says it closed last year, is this Arlington House or Dreamland it's refering to? The whole thing is rather strange. I think I'm right in saying that they haven't formally revealed their plans for the site, so to start looking at compulsary purchase is premature to say the least. It sounds like some dodgy dealin' has been going on.

[EAS]

I would be interested to see any formal agreement the council has with this lot... because without it being officially appointed as the partner with the council for any regeneration/redevelopment (alongside I would suggest government agencies etc) any talk of compulsory purchase is frankly scaremongering - or simply bonkers.

[Chris H]

I have been waiting for this to happen for months.

By doing this Waterbridge are really shooting themselves in the foot.

Hopefully it will now become even clearer to the public than ever before what they simply what to do.

Demolish Arlington complex

Demolish dreamland

= one large housing estate, fill it full of illegal immigrants

and Margate will be ruined forever.
Simply stuffing every one who lives in a 3 mile radius.

Worse of all they will probably get away with it

[EAS]

Well, it's business innit? Money is what counts to these folks.

Today, for resaons which are barmy, EH and the DCMS have told me they are not going to list several remaining structures of historic interest at Pleasureland. (Yes I have protested...)

Soon, our seasides will be simply clones of everywhere else.