Thanet District Council consider Compulsory Purchase Order

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

From the newspage...

THANET council is to consider plans to purchase part of the Dreamland site in Margate compulsorily, to ensure it reopens as a heritage amusement park.

The costs of pursuing a compulsory purchase order (CPO), an expensive legal purchase allowing councils to take over land or properties, will be discussed on Thursday.

The £12 million project for a heritage theme park on the Margate seafront site was bailed out by the council in April after the site's owner Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company (MTCRC) said it could not pay its £4 million share of the costs.

Thanet council agreed to pay the shortfall and as part of the deal will buy the site for a peppercorn cost of £1, and hand it over to the Dreamland Trust.

A July date for the land transfer passed without negotiations reaching a conclusion and Thanet council is keen to try and keep to the scheduled opening date of 2012.

Other areas for discussion include what sort of compensation the council might receive if they go ahead with the CPO and the value of the land.

There is still the opportunity for the land to be transferred without a compulsory purchase.

Toby Hunter, MTCRC's project coordinator, said: "We are still working towards a transfer of the land but the date is less certain. There has been a slippage but nothing has been derailed."

Mr Hunter added that the company planned to submit a planning application for houses, shops and a hotel on part of the site in spring.

The Dreamland Trust is shortly to make a decision about which rides will be restored first.

Source, http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/news/Amusem ... ticle.html

[porf]

TDC previously threatened/discussed the CPO option back in April of this year (http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/ ... atest.aspx)

Whilst I'm aware it's a case of the Dreamland Trust working in co-operation with a group of willing partners including TDC and MTCRC I can't help feel that it doesn't always seem that way. From a personal viewpoint and taking in to account that we are now around 4 months past the original suggested transfer date and with no current expected transfer date it almost looks as if one or more of the partners aren't as willing or as happy with the transfer as originally indicated.

I'm equally aware that a CPO is certainly not a quick/easy/cheap fix and that a lot of people are doing a lot of work to try and make the heritage park come to fruition.

It's got to the stage though where I'm starting to think "I'll believe it when it happens" in relation to the park operating any time soon, that said I'd be happy to be proved wrong!

I can only hope that if TDC do decide to consider action that it comes with a set of defined process and dates, the previous "we may CPO if it's not transferred by the end of July" style really didn't seem to achieve much in terms of pushing forward the transfer of the site within a reasonable timescale.

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

Whilst I'm aware it's a case of the Dreamland Trust working in co-operation with a group of willing partners including TDC and MTCRC I can't help feel that it doesn't always seem that way. From a personal viewpoint and taking in to account that we are now around 4 months past the original suggested transfer date and with no current expected transfer date it almost looks as if one or more of the partners aren't as willing or as happy with the transfer as originally indicated.

If only I knew how to be diplomatic, I wouldn't have caused the moderators half as much trouble over the years!

[dave771]

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

Well, I'm not saying anything because every time I do, someone says "Don't upset Mr ****** because if you do he will take his ball back then if Dreamland doesn't re-open it will all be your fault"

[porf]

Vince:-I must show your comment to my colleagues, me being described as diplomatic will certainly give them a chuckle.

Anyway while on the subject of the April discussions regarding a CPO I came across the fairly detailed (32 page) PDF of info from the council relating to that meeting. I don't think this has been linked to on here previously so thought I'd put it up.

One part relates to the need to access the Sea Change funding by a set date, something that I've been concerned about in the past as well as an estimate of the likely delay if a CPO was enforced

The transfer of the land is the single biggest risk to the project and delays could jeopardise the Sea Change and HLF funding. This has been covered, in part, above. If an agreement cannot be reached by the end of July, the Council should commence CPO procedures. It is likely that this would delay the project by 12 – 18 months. In these circumstances, we would need to re-negotiate the conditions of the Sea Change funding which needs to be spent or committed by March 2011. The Sea Change team is aware of this option and will be kept informed of progress.

Other parts have info on concerns over the density of any housing and the possibility of delaying tactics from the developers :

There is also a potential tension between the density of housing development on the enabling land that may be acceptable to the Council as local planning authority and the density required by the developer to fund the financial contributions to the project and any necessary on and off site infrastructure works - and still make a profit. Indeed, it is to address the possibility that the Company might try to improve its prospects of obtaining planning permission for a higher density development by delaying the voluntary transfer of the Cinema site and Heritage Park footprint land, that authority is sought for the making of a compulsory purchase order.

There's a lot more in there as well and to my mind shows a lot of thought and effort going in from TDC.

The PDF's here : http://www.thanet.gov.uk/pdf/Dreamland%20report%20April%202010.pdf

and the individual parts that went to form that document appear to be duplicated here and available as html as well as PDF :
http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?AIId=5436

Worth looking out for the similar info from tonight's meeting.


EDIT : Looks like a) tonight's meeting may have been postponed and that b) the agenda item relating to Dreamland was withdrawn:
http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/mgCalendarMonthView.aspx?GL=1&bcr=1
http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=151&MId=2134

[porf]

The rescheduled meeting is now on the 10th (Friday) but the Dreamland item remains withdrawn.

http://tdc-mg-dmz.thanet.gov.uk/ieListD ... 1&MId=2203

So if they are considering it they're not doing so this week.

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

I expect there are far more important things for Thanet District Council to talk about

[Jim Douglas Jr.]

The future of the area seems important enough.

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

Yes, my post was made with a degree of irony