Monday 12 July 2010

Windy council

Surely Vattenfall the owners of the £780M windfarm, now the world’s largest, just offshore of the Blue Flag beaches of Thanet can help the area.

Surely there needs to be a review of the tiny £175,000 planning payment agreed by Brian White at Thanet Council and the need for a 2nd office block and warehouse at the semi-derelict and disused Port.

Any competent council would provide a proper funding plan, a 6 month consultation for future expansion including line-of-sight demonstrations, free electricity for every home, a review of wind and wave technology, a solar panel for every home given this is one of the sunniest and not windiest parts of Britain – and the electricity can be recharged back to the National Grid and funding the Maritime Museum. Along with Port air and noise and water monitoring.

And why are offices being built in a Port given the empty offices around Thanet and derelict reactor at Richboro? Vattenfall itself claims only c.20 jobs to be provided in future.

How much has the publc land and facilites at the Port been sold for? We seem to have council officials that when they're not fiddling their 0% pay rises are agreeing flaky projects and feeble amounts of funding that then disappears into the general TDC salary pot for pay rises for failure. nd can only be approved by witholding the details from the public or hustling decisions through at the last minute.

And our councillors sit there and watch it happening.

Why hasn't the development and contracts at the Port been called in for scrutiny?

Vattenfall seem an excellent company - but as with Infratil’s “some village hall chairs and a DVD for cancer” – the community benefit doesn’t really cover the cost of using the public’s land entrusted to the council. Nor why repairs to the Port and Vattenfall land are currently being funded by the local taxpayer.

There’s nothing wrong with providing electricity to London and the rest of Kent and helping stop the planet burning from Climate Change but shouldn’t we share in our natural assets with Vattenfall?

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