Joyland Books

The news page has been updated with news that our application for £4m of funding from the DCMS's Sea Change programme has been submitted. You can download the two key application documents. More will be made available for download shortly.

This follows the application for approximately £3m of funding from Heritage Lottery Fund made by The Dreamland Trust in March.

http://www.joylandbooks.com/scenicrailway/news.htm

I am sure we'll all be looking forward to the outcome of this one with great interest. Let's hope we achieve a successful bid.

Martin

PS I'm aiming to attend Southend-on-Sea's first ever Film Festival over this weekend. It looks like they're putting on a good series of events to further attract visitors this Summer season. I'll have a good excuse to take in Adventure Island whilst I'm there and try out their revamped "Over the Hill" dark ride hopefully.

See www.visitsouthend.co.uk for Film Festival info

Fingers and all else crossed!

I am sure it all stands an excellent chance of success, but until all in the bag...

porterm wrote:
PS I'm aiming to attend Southend-on-Sea's first ever Film Festival over this weekend. It looks like they're putting on a good series of events to further attract visitors this Summer season. I'll have a good excuse to take in Adventure Island whilst I'm there and try out their revamped "Over the Hill" dark ride hopefully.

We're doing Adventure Island next weekend, second trip of the year. Although it is comparatively small, it's an excellent and thriving theme park and a reminder of what Dreamland could so easily be like had TDC not decided that the Lower Orders with their whelks and their kiss-me-quick hats and their money were no longer welcome in Margate.

The flagship ride at Adventure Island is "Rage" which has a vertical lift hill and a more-than-vertical drop... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWfAZIWYD4

We have updated the news page with a link to all the supporting documents that went in with the bid. So, if you have a spare 36 hours, enjoy!

http://www.joylandbooks.com/scenicrailway/news.htm

Vince, Charlie and Sam wrote:

porterm wrote:

We're doing Adventure Island next weekend, second trip of the year. Although it is comparatively small, it's an excellent and thriving theme park and a reminder of what Dreamland could so easily be like had TDC not decided that the Lower Orders with their whelks and their kiss-me-quick hats and their money were no longer welcome in Margate.

The flagship ride at Adventure Island is "Rage" which has a vertical lift hill and a more-than-vertical drop... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IWfAZIWYD4

I live in Surrey and have to admit that its not worth it for me to visit Margate any more, but I always preferred it to Southend - the rides were as good if not better, and the beach was a million times better.

My seaside trips now are either Brighton, Southend or Hastings. Cannot wait for Margate to go back to the top of my list again.

Dorking wrote:[ live in Surrey and have to admit that its not worth it for me to visit Margate any more,

I live in Margate and it's not worth me visiting Margate any more....still, never mind, we'll have the Turner Centre soon!

Dorking wrote:My seaside trips now are either Brighton, Southend or Hastings. Cannot wait for Margate to go back to the top of my list again.

Great Yarmouth is well worth a visit, got a very good wooden roller coaster, not much younger than Dreamland's, and less conflagrationally challenged.

Southend Council are applying for money to aid in the restoration of the Pier Head, I beleve from the local rag artoce they are asking for £4million with the council match funding the ammount.

Sounds as though it's needed:

On 9th October 2005, another major fire caused considerable damage to the recently refurbished Southend Pier completely destroying a pub, toilets, shops, the head railway station, as well as approximately 130ft (39.4m) of the pier deck. At this time the pier has re-opened to the public with some temporary facilities remaining in place whilst repairs to fire damaged areas continue.

http://www.theheritagetrail.co.uk/piers ... 20pier.htm

20 Mar 2009
Council persists with Southend Pier
BY Tom Walker



Southend Borough Council has not given up on plans to rejuvenate the fire-damaged Southend Pier in Essex.

Hopes to secure a private-sector investor to help pay for the reparations have waned during the current economic climate, forcing the council to bid for funding from the government’s Sea Change Grant programme.

If successful, according to the Essex Echo, the council proposes to match the investment with money from its own pocket.

A blaze in 2005 destroyed a pub, gift shop and takeaway on the historic pier.

http://attractionsjobs.com/newsdetail1. ... N=99484714

The plans are not for a major in your face development such as the old roller coaster proposal but a much more modest development, cafe, bandstand dance room possibly get it licenced for weddings, it will be a maritime envioment theme.

A competition has been launched:

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sec ... el=426&c=1

It seems that every seaside town now wants a gallery, to 'compete' with St Ives!


Soon there will be more galleries and performance spaces than people to visit...

The article is a little misleading as the new gallery is going to be built at the shore end of the pier, where the cliffs collapsed just along from the cliff lift which is now undergong restoration.

The proposed cliff gallery will also house the Southend Museum and the Saxon king treasures there were found close to Priory Park

I simply cannot believe that anyone can imagine even in their wildest dreams that the Turner Centre is going to generate an income for Margate. I calculated that it would need 1,100 visitors a day to cover the interest payments on the construction alone before even beginning to cover the operating costs. Are that many people interested in an art gallery? Nearly half a million a year?

As I understand it, it won't even have any genuine Turner paintings in it, as the local air is too salt-laden.

Why on earth can TDC not understand that Dreamland did and could drag London money into Thanet in far larger amounts?

Correction, the pier head burned down in 1975, and the incompetent council have taken 34 years to get to this stage, turning its cultural nose up at a fantastic scheme from a developer last year.

Vince, Charlie and Sam wrote:I simply cannot believe that anyone can imagine even in their wildest dreams that the Turner Centre is going to generate an income for Margate. I calculated that it would need 1,100 visitors a day to cover the interest payments on the construction alone before even beginning to cover the operating costs. Are that many people interested in an art gallery? Nearly half a million a year?


Why on earth can TDC not understand that Dreamland did and could drag London money into Thanet in far larger amounts?

I agree. why cant many of these officials realise that art centres are a money pit? I'm not dissing art by any means but i lived in margate for 23 special years of my life and i now live in walsall. They opened a new art centre in West Bromwich just after i moved to this area and it hasnt taken a penny since it was opened. The building and running costs for the first year were 2 million, does that not just seem like an absolute waste of money? what makes tdc think that the turner centre is going to be any different? I still have loads of friends and family that live in the area and they all think the same as me. I definaltely think that the money they are going to plough in to the turner centre could be used more effectively elsewhere - like dreamland