60% saved

[dreamland]

with 60% of the park now saved i think we should try to save the other 40% of the park to make dreamland a whole with 100% saved then the new dreamland park in 2011 will be filled with rides like when it was bembom brothers

[Chris H]

I agree 100%.

Anyone know if this is possible or if we are trying?

[porf]

The plan has the new heritage amusement park occupying a minimum of 51% of the site.

The rest is for MTCRC to pretty much do what they wish with.

Short of buying it off them or them suddenly developing a very philanthropic streak it is likely that it will mostly be used for houses - have a look on the news page and follow the Radio Kent link for Toby Hunter talking about their plans for the rest of the site.

Whilst chuffed at the funding coming it at last I'm slightly uneasy as to how many people think the whole site is being saved or could be saved, I think some of the news coverage glosses over this a bit.

[Peet]

Are there any plans to leave any land spare for future acquisitions? It has occurred to me that there are still historic rides at other parks in the UK and elsewhere which may one day need saving. If there is no space to install them at Dreamland then there would be little point in saving them...

[vince69619]

It was noted at some point that space for additional rides was allowed for in the plan. If I understand correctly the other space on the plot was likely to be for some sort of public facility like an arena, not just housing.

Vince.

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

If the park is managed well and is financially successful, it may become an attractive proposition for more of the land to become used as a theme park.

It is certainly highly unlikely that there will be any development for several years at the very least. Property values are down by around 20% since 2007, and although they have risen over the Summer, this was simply the "Bull Trap" phase of the economic cycle and they will resume their downward trend over the Winter and throughout next year.

During recessions, theme parks thrive as people stay closer to home and replace foreign holidays with short breaks in the UK. The world is a different place now that the wheels have fallen off of the Ponzi scheme madness and it is likely that we will not see another artificially created boom in our lifetimes.

I think it is quite possible that more of the land will become available, but let's not let this detract from the huge victory which the SaveDreamland campaign has achieved this week.

[Chris H]

I thought that the old dreamland arcade/toilet building that sits in the middle of the proposed house development is listed.

Can anyone confirm this?

[aweber1us]

I think the arcade is attached to the Scenics listing at the moment. I think this is one of the nicest buildings that is on the Dreamland site.

[Cheryl]

If houses are built on the rest of the site, you can see whats coming. The complaints about noise from the park will be endless. Even though the park was there first and they elected to buy a house there.

In Birmingham, one of our classic pubs The Rainbow, which has been there for donkeys years with local bands playing, is on the brink of closure because people in the newly built apartments near to it are complaining. This is something to be mindful of.

[barcrest]

If houses are built on the rest of the site, you can see whats coming. The complaints about noise from the park will be endless. Even though the park was there first and they elected to buy a house there.

In Birmingham, one of our classic pubs The Rainbow, which has been there for donkeys years with local bands playing, is on the brink of closure because people in the newly built apartments near to it are complaining. This is something to be mindful of.

Ah not just the Rainbow, The Fiddle and Bone suffered the same fate when they built appartments next to it and it has sat un-used ever since.

If they do build houses next to a theme park then they are crazy. Sadly you are right though i feel it could impact on the park quite badly.

[dreamland]

we need to set up a campaign to get the rest of the site as a theme park and say no to any houses being built on the site , if we have saved 60% of the park im sure we can save the remaining 40%

[dreamland]

we need dreamland as a whole so there is rides on 100% of the site , in the future there could be more rides that may need saving , we would be very dissopointed if we did not have the chance to save more because houses are going to be built , im not saying it will happen but we dont want the worry of people complaining about the noise of the rides ect , if houses are to be built on the remaining 40% of the site people that want to buy a house must be warned that there could be noises and if they dicide to buy a house there is nothing that can be done about the noise as you knew it before you dicided to buy

[Cheryl]

Yes of course, I forgot about the Fiddle and Bone. It just goes to show what can happen when new people move into an area.

The cynic in me thinks that the land owners would prefer a full housing estate, so are probably hopeful of many complaints to the theme park.

Hope I'm wrong.

[porf]

MTCRC own the site and Toby Hunter spoke on behalf of MTCRC in the link I gave earlier, it may take a while to download but it is worth a listen : http://www.joylandbooks.com/scenicrailway/documents/Audio/bbcradiokent1.wmv

A brief transcript of the bit from Toby Hunter :

The site there is about 17 acres, the heritage amusement park is a little over half of that and the other half will go to predominantly residential with some pepperpotting of shops like cornershops that you'd expect in any streetscape. So we've downtuned the retail and are looking at predominantly residential which we think will go very nicely alongside the heritage amusement park.

So the company that owns the entire site plans to build "predominantly housing" on what I believe to be 49% of the site. This is not surprising really as they need to recoup the millions they paid for the site - I'd expect fairly dense and high rise housing will be needed to realise this sort of gain.

The campaign has no control over this, and whilst I'd love to see the whole site back in operation as a theme park it just isn't currently going to happen.

In common with Cheryl I suspect the park may find itself subject to increasingly tighter and tighter conditions on how it's run over the years "to protect the residents".

Vince69619 - I think the arena/venue space may be within the Cinema building which is in turn I believe considered part of the 51% that forms the heritage park.

[dreamland]

maybe once the park has been operating for a good few years and has been a sucess we can then convince the owners to have dreamland 100% on the site , people from all over the world will be comming to margate to go to the park as it will be the only place in the world to go on classic rides , what would it look like being pulled up on the scenic lift hill and looking to your right to see a housing estate? dreamland will look very small , we need to get our act together on this