View from the Med(way)

[DaveD]

This is probably not a hugely popular view but I think we should offer Bob some respect for at least taking the time to contribute to this website & offer some opinions, however detrimental; general barracking is not really going to encourage a healthy debate….!

My point Bob is this, I do think the council is very insular in it's research, particulary when considering visitors travelling to the area. Medway is at the core of non-Thanet tourism and people have consistently travelled to and from the area for many years. It's very sad indeed that locals have very little say or general voice as to the future of one of it's most frequented coastal areas.

The key is that through the years there have been significant improvements to other coastal towns and Margate as a whole has fallen behind - the point was raised at Thursday's meeting that the town has fallen some way behind Ramsgate and Broadstairs which no-one would dispute but Whitstable has seen a major influx of capital with significant and sympathetic regeneration. Herne Bay has had major development work carried out to its seafront which has preserved and restored key areas which have proved so popular to visitors in the past. Both have seen significant improvement in visitors to the area.

We are organising a petition not as a strongarm campaign but for the council to take into consideration the fact that so many people locally care a great deal about the future of the site. The sad fact of the matter being is that many people now make the very lengthy and cumbersome journey to Southend-on-Sea, purely because it has a very successful, clean and well-kept seafront Theme Park. As a necessary statement of fact - the British Isles is surrounded by water and hence we have many, many alternatives. Margate was so successful for such a long period of time because Dreamland offered visitors something different from other coastal resorts.

Now, not only has the mass of visitors spreadeagled themselves over other areas, Margate has become a national laughing stock - do you remember the tabloids when Ronnie Biggs said he wanted to have one last drink on Margate seafront? He would have found a downtrodden and decrepid Theme Park, hoardes of boarded up local businesses which have largely gone under because of exodus of tourists, key buildings destroyed by fire and the most nauseating, overpowering, run-down slum of a Block of Flats that not only dominates the skyline, it is the first thing people see when they arrive into the area either by car or train, hanging over the town like the Grim Reaper. How many people see that and then keep driving onto Broadstairs or Ramsgate?

I visited the Council meeting in person last Thursday and, although I was very pleased with the overall level of support behind the necessary retention of Dreamland, I was disappointed by comments such as "Margate has the finest sand in the country and better than some continental countries". I'm sure it has but the majority of modern-day visitors want more off-beach entertainment - the council mentioned many times about how we "don't want to go back to knotted hankies and kiss me quick hats" - absolutely right - the days of Donkey Derbys and nodding off in a string vest on a deckchair have long gone, which is why Southend On Sea is doing so very well with it’s seafront theme park. The retention of Dreamland as an amusement park is Margate's very last throw of the dice. If it fails, we will see it fall from the public and national eye altogether and end up just like Sheerness which has seen their tourist industry flatline & the overall fortunes of the area spiral downwards at a rate that not even the most optimistic of people could imagine. Can anybody tell me what is on the site of their Seafront Fun Fair? That's right Ladies and Gentleman, Tescos.



David Dunmall

[Hairy Vince]

I think Dave is absolutely spot on with alot of what he has said (I have to say that...he knows where I live)

A lot of Save Dreamland campaigners are not actually based in the Thanet Area, but in the wider Kent area.

Margate has a long history (cemented by that Chas and Dave Song) it is up to us now, regardless of location, to continue that history,

[Hairy Vince]

Forgot to mention...in the land of Medway they are talking about "Dickens World" which I think is going to have some kind of fairground type area. It will be part of the new Dockside area which is still being developed. Not sure if that will be a success or not?

[ricardobugsy]

Well said DaveD.

The way that Bob rants on about the so-called 'terminal decline' of visitors to seaside resorts leads me to believe that HE thinks that there is no market for a tourist attraction in Margate.

Well if this is the view shared by the Development Company then that is very worrying as without tourism Margate will surely die.

Margate needs a unique attraction to pull in visitors and revive its economy. A well-run amusement park could easily pull in at least 1 million plus people a year. By maximising tourist numbers, surrounding shops and businesses will be able to thrive. Name another use for Dreamland that could attract larger numbers than an amusement park?

[Neil]

Forgot to mention...in the land of Medway they are talking about "Dickens World" which I think is going to have some kind of fairground type area. It will be part of the new Dockside area which is still being developed. Not sure if that will be a success or not?

Well it won't unless it progresses beyond talks which judging from past experiences is unlikely. It wasn't that long ago that in that area of the country everyone was getting excited about the Canterbury Tales theme park, which eventually never came to fruitation. There seems to be a trend at the moment for planning fairly specificly theme parks that flop while they are still on the drawing board. That's not to say I'm not willing to be proven wrong but it hardly sounds like a recipe for business success.

At the end of the day Charles Dickens and theme park are hardly the most promising co-partners. Don't tell me. The restraunts sell gruel and you can't have more and if you ask for more everyone starts singing at you.

[Scotchie]

Dickens WOrld looks pretty progressed from their webcam view

http://www.dickensworld.co.uk/webcam.php

[Neil]

OK-I've been proven wrong, so I'll just shut up now. Does anyone know who is funding the project as £62 million is a lot to spend? It sounds promising although I'm not entirely sure what it will encompass other than shops.

[DaveD]

Another example is Allhallows on the Isle Of Grain which used to be hugely popular with tourists in the 1950's through to the late 1980's when the last of the Funfair rides were taken away, which also saw it's tourist industry flatline & just become a very small & largely insignificant caravan park. Mind you, they still have Bradley Bear, the camp mascot who's image remains in various amusing signs dotted around i.e. "Bradley Bear says come to the Arcade!" "Bradley Bear says buy some Sandwiches!".

I'm not saying that a Theme Park/Fair automatically guarantees bountiful tourism but if you have three or four resorts in relatively close proximity (as I said, we live on an island and are geographically spoilt for choice) and only one has a fun fair, chances are that people are going to head there. Look at other resorts close to Southend since the renovation of their Seafront - it's exactly the same principle as Margate - no theme park, people are likely to try other areas in the vicinity. It really is as simple as that.

The biggest disappointment for me personally since being involved in this campaign is that the research carried out by the Council appears to have been little better than amateurish. Don't get me wrong, to really gain a true standpoint of exactly how losing a town's main tourist attraction affects local people and visitors to the area would take an immense amount of detail, time and research beyond the average Job Description of any local Councilor but surely it is worth making the effort to try to give Margate any sort of future? Sheerness and Allhallows are two excellent examples of how two popular resorts can pale into insignificance amongst the mass of English Seaside Towns.

[vince69619]

I just want to backup Dave and point out to anyone who's new on here that all the council have to do is say no to any planning applications that are not in sympathy with an amusement park.

No expenditure on the part of the council, no impact to the council tax. The only impact is to the profit margin of the developers who see the site as a gold mine. (If they don't have to keep running an amusement park).

Vince

[Hairy Vince]

This is probably not a hugely popular view but I think we should offer Bob some respect for at least taking the time to contribute to this website & offer some opinions, however detrimental; general barracking is not really going to encourage a healthy debate….!

Hmmmmm?!?!