CPO (to be) Served on Dreamland's Owners

[aweber1us]

Although i see the CPO as being very postive to the future of Dreamland and something that needed to happen. I cant help thinking that MTCRC are rubbing their hands together as they said they would hand over the HAP land.

After reading all the items on the CPO I am still very unsure what land is covered by the CPO. Does any one have any real idea? If the CPO is just for the HAP land i would the council will not grant a change of use on the rest of the site now.

[porf]

That's all the only publicly available information on how much of the site is being CPO'd I believe. TDC will undoubtedly know more but as they have chosen to keep some information out of the public eye I doubt they are going to provide any further information for a while. I also doubt there will be any comment from the Dreamland Trust until everything is completed.

But, the Annex maps in those documents plus several other references in the documents all point to TDC only ever having plans to CPO the entire Dreamland site if it was to be required. The following is taken from the document Vince highlighted earlier in the thread. If you look at Annex 2 in that document it is a map of the entire Dreamland site.

1. Introduction
1.1 On 29 April 2010 Cabinet authorised the making of a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO)
pursuant to Section 226 of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 in respect of the whole of
the Dreamland Site in the event that the principal site owners, the Margate Town Centre
Regeneration Company Limited, were unwilling or unable to transfer to the Council for a
peppercorn, their freehold interest in the Dreamland Cinema and the part of the Site required
for the provision of a Heritage Amusement Park (‘the HAP Site’). The whole of the Dreamland
site was identified in the Cabinet report as the land edged by a thick black line on the Plan
attached as Annex 1. For ease of reference that plan is attached hereto as Annex 1.
2.0 Current Position
2.1 Since then the Council, through its Officers and external advisors, has continued to negotiate
with the site owners but to date has not been able to agree terms that would result in the
transfer of the site on terms acceptable to the Council. In particular it has not been possible to
agree a number of key commercial issues relating to the terms of a transfer and the
development of the wider Dreamland Site to meet the objectives of Local Plan policy T8.
2.2 In the meantime, as part of the normal due diligence process, the Council’s external advisors
have obtained title details from HM Land Registry and identified a number of minor
discrepancies between the plan at Annex 1 and the extent of the site required for the purposes
of making a CPO in respect of the whole site. In particular, the original plan omitted a strip of
frontage land separating the Dreamland Cinema and Amusement Arcade from the adopted
public footway on Marine Terrace and a strip of access land connecting the southern half of the
Enabling Land to Belgrave Road. The remaining changes represent very minor adjustments
along the boundary of the site with the southern boundary of Hall by the Sea Road to ensure
that the two are contiguous. Consequently, a revised plan showing the extent of the site to be
Agenda Item 10
Page 35
compulsorily acquired, (should this be necessary), shaded pink and edged in red is now
attached as Annex 2.

If this is the case I highly doubt MTCRC are rubbing there hands in glee. They paid for the site at a high point in the property market.
They planned to develop the whole site.
They have since had to drop back to a plan of giving away half the site to TDC to gain development permission and only developing half the site.
With a failure to agree a suitable accommodation density on the half they would have retained they now face a CPO.
The CPO will purchase the entire site off them leaving no land for them to develop.
The valuation will probably be at today's lower property value.
MTCRC are unlikely to get more for the land now than they originally paid, leaving them with a loss.

Just my view of course. But I don't think we'll see any concrete info until it's a completed deal.

[Sy]

Which could take somtime I fear

[reggie]

Lets hope that the CPO happens as fast as possible as it is very sad to see that no work has yet been done to put the scenic railway back into working order.

[Jim Douglas Jr.]

...and it needs more than a tune-up.

[vann98]

The scenic is in a serious state. It's not only the fact that a quarter of the ride is missing along with its precious trains and station. The remaining corner sections of the railway which are still standing are in a state of disrepair with parts of the supports coming off and the main track wood probably rotting after so many years without repair work carried out on it.
I have to have faith that the ride will be restored back to its original working order in the next few years (along with a brand new paint job I hope). I just hope this CPO does not take too long as we can't afford to delay it much longer after 2013.

[EAS]

As the site owners have objected to the CPO (not a surprise) by law there has to be a pubic inquiry.

This will be in January.

More delays but I can't see that MTCRC has much of a case to be honest.
Everyone has tried to work with them, and the regeneration of Margate needs Dreamland. There is a great deal of public cash waiting to be spent, some of which has already been spent on basic repair work to cinema.

Pity MTCRC can't see that it's just delaying the inevitable, making the council waste cash on the inquiry, and of course MTCRC will have to pay many thousands of pounds too.