Celebrate the Steps - Margate seafront Saturday May 18th, 3pm

It started with a tweet last Saturday. Then came a hashtag #celebratethesteps. Then it spread to Facebook. And in the space of a week, it grew to what resulted in a sunny afternoon event with over a 100 people. (I think?).

Here's the story:

GBPIzzaCo did a lovely thing...100 reasons to be cheerful, Margate

The Grocer on Mary Portas', Margate and what the FOIs reveal - The high-street circus continues

Fresh in from the Grocer Magazine:

"The Mary Portas road show continues: this week the Queen of the High Street’s Channel 4 show touched down in Margate, featuring yet more cockneys, market traders and claims of TV trickery. 
After last week’s episode in the Roman Road, which was not even a Portas Pilot, at least Mary was in the right place - although the jury is well and truly out about whether her presence has had the desired impact.
Within hours of broadcast, members of the original Margate town team – who walked out in protest last year, accusing Portas of being more interested in TV than in saving their shops – had announced they would be complaining to Ofcom about the show ‘fabricating’ events.
This came hours after Portas went on Radio Five to explain how she felt she had been misadvised in her handling of the ‘Tsar’ role and had inadvertently ended up as public enemy number one. You couldn’t really make it up if you were to sit down and write a guide of how not to run a government programme to save the High Street.
The sad fact is all the good ideas Portas and her review had in 2011are in danger of being drowned out by this side show, while so little has actually been done on the ground.
In the case of Margate, a freedom of information (FOI) request seen by The Grocer shows just £2,156.21 of the £100,000 of taxpayers’ money given to the town had been spent as of the end of March.
This isn’t even the biggest tragedy. The solution to the High Street isn’t a quick fix, solved by throwing money around. It needs strategic thinking at government level, adapted by well co-ordinated local initiatives. Instead, information in FOIs seen by The Grocer is painful to behold. It reveals the incredible extent to which the government – and especially former local government minister Grant Shapps and his team – allowed its policy on the high street to be dictated by Portas and her TV crew.
In one email from Portas’ team to the minister’s cronies, the plight of Liskeard, next week’s chosen subject for the show, is highlighted. The scene, we discover, is perfect. Local councillors and residents are at each other’s throats, not least over plans for an out-of-town supermarket. “In TV terms the fight between the bureaucrats and the passionate citizens could be great,” says the email.
This is an email to the government department supposed to be helping rescue the High Street. It’s beyond belief almost that this sort of nonsense was the way the department was being run.
It gets even worse: in other correspondence between the two camps, the government team was asked to advise the Queen of Shops on a small problem. She had been contacted by the Welsh Assembly for help in tackling ailing shops. “Pls could you ask Grant for his advice on engaging or not,” says the Portas team. “We haven’t really got the time but would like your help with how to deal with this.”
The government’s advice: “It really is up to you. But if you are too busy, I would suggest you just say that Mary is very busy at the moment - and not currently engaged by Her Majesty's Government - but is keeping in touch with Department of Local Government (DCLG) officials as we implement our response to her report.” So not just one government but two have been drawn into this circus, with the DCLG acting virtually as her new political adviser to fend off the Welsh. It would all be funny – a bit like some of the scenes from the TV show – if it weren’t so tragic."
Ian Quinn

Press Release - Former Margate Town Team Members response to Mary Queen of the High Street, May 14th 2013

Press Release
Wednesday May 15th 2013

Last night's screening of Mary Portas' Mary Queen of the High Street produced by Optomen Television (May 14th 2013, Channel 4) told a story which is contradicted by the records we hold as former members of Margate Town Team.

We will be publishing full details of our concerns with the programme today and taking forward an official complaint to OFCOM. In particular, we will be making a complaint under Section 7 of the Broadcasting Code, about fairness.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/fairness/

As we were concerned prior to transmission with the direction of the programme, we have asked Optomen Television for a right of reply. This was refused on April 30th:

"we do not feel that this is required as we make no allegations or criticisms of you in the Programme."

Far from being an accurate record of events surrounding Margate Town Team, Optomen has created, and Channel4, broadcast a fabricated a storyline against early members of the Town Team which runs contrary to what actually happened.

There are several key differences between the programme that aired last night and what actually happened. We believe that the facts show that Optomen Television's behaviour was a key influence in the story playing out in the way that it did.

The Portas Pilots were meant to bring communities together. The activities of the programme makers have brought conflict to a struggling community, leaving the original bid team that secured Government funding for their town disappointed and undermined. 

Optomen Television were uninterested in filming the Town Team's many efforts to bring their winning bid to the people of Margate, yet have presented a programme that seeks to show how Margate Town Team were unwelcoming and hostile to Mary Portas and Optomen Television. Margate Town Team were not invited to meet or speak with Mary Portas before they filmed the staged conflict scene on the steps of Woolworths on June 12th.

Robin Vaughan-Lyons (Former Chairman, Margate Town Team)
Roxana Tesla (Former Vice-Chairman, Margate Town Team)
Louise Oldfield (Former Secretary & Press Officer, Margate Town Team)

Contact: 

louise.oldfield@gmail.com
07932 713292

Mary Portas show lobbied government officials

The Guardian's Randeep Ramesh has published an article showing what we in the original bid team had suspected all along; That there was a closeness between Mary Portas' TV production company and the government at the highest level. This explains so much of what has happened to me and my colleagues over the last 12 months. I need to let this sink in. But obviously when we went to the government for help in dealing with Optomen TV, well, it was a hotline to the TV company.

The PR machine for Channel 4 and Optomen TV has already started with the trailers running for the show. The series starts tomorrow with Roman Road, Margate on the 14th and Lisekard on the 21st.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/may/05/portas-show-lobbied-government-officials

TV company put forward suggestions for towns to be selected as pilots

Film-makers working with the celebrity shopping guru Mary Portas on her reality TV show lobbied government officials to direct taxpayer funds to high streets because they would be popular with television audiences, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The funding for the so-called "Portas pilots" was part of a high-profile government policy to renew town centres. Portas produced a 28-point plan on how to revive moribund town centres for David Cameron in December 2011. Less than six months later, from almost 400 entries, more than two dozen towns – the Portas pilots – were picked to receive £100,000 of state support and advice each. On Tuesday Portas fronts the first of three hour-long programmes in a series on Channel 4, Mary: Queen of the High Street, focusing on three winning bids.

The Guardian has established that the production company hired by Channel 4 and Portas's staff suggested some locations for winning bids. In one example, the production crew advocated taxpayers' cash for a deprived part of London because "social history is currently really popular on television".

The government's high-profile policy was handed to the local government minister, Grant Shapps, early last year. In February he wrote to the retail expert saying there would have to be "clear blue water between the selection of the pilots and the television show. This will be best achieved by me selecting the pilots, with [Portas's] Yellow Door and [TV production company] Optomen having no involvement."

The Portas team proposed a list of favoured choices. Government emails, released under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that on 13 April last year a Portas agency director emailed Shapps's private secretary to say: "We already have our proposed 12 [Portas pilots]." Four days later, the same director emailed David Morris, the civil servant in charge of the pilots, to say: "We have now done some early reviewing of the entries with Mary and have come to an early shortlist from our end", adding a list of 13 towns.

Morris responded 24 hours later to warn the Portas agency that "we need to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest between pilot selection and the TV show – which are separate projects". When the first list of 12 Portas pilots was announced by the government from 371 entries on May 24 last year, it included three of Yellow Door's favoured high streets: Croydon, Market Rasen and Stockport.

A spokesperson for Portas denied that Portas had sought to influence the government's selection process. Channel 4 and Optomen also strongly deny any attempt to influence the process.

One of the high streets selected for filming, Roman Road in East London, did not make the initial top dozen pilots. In an email, Optomen explained to Morris that Channel 4 "loved" the idea of renovating an East End market: "Social history is currently really popular on television and Roman Road would be the perfect road to bring back to its former glory." The second tranche of pilots offered another opportunity for it to receive funding. On May 28 London mayor Boris Johnson announced a £300,000 fund for three more pilots.

Forty-eight hours later, Optomen wrote to Morris to ask: "Do you know when Boris is planning to announce his towns and whether there will be another call for submissions? Will this be going through your office or his? Roman Rd is on top of our list and we're still hopeful that all our towns are part of the government selected towns, hence the question."

Morris replied a week later after a meeting with the Greater London Authority, who he said "are aiming to work to the same timetable as us – but they will be making the selections. I have told them you are interested in Roman Road! … Are Ch4 interested in any of the others?" There is no suggestion that the mayor was influenced by Portas or the TV project.

Two months later, the government announced that among the threesuccessful Portas pilots "selected by the mayor" and receiving "funding from the Greater London Authority" was one in Tower Hamlets that included Roman Road. The first Portas hour-long reality show centres on the renewal of the east London market. When contacted, the mayor's office said it was only "part-funding" the Tower Hamlets pilot with local council cash used to update Roman Road.There were also an impression within government that TV pilots were getting more attention than those high streets not featured by Channel 4. In early June civil servants emailed to ask if Portas' agency "could clarify … what additional support those who agree to filming will get". One government official told Yellow Door: "I am aware of two pilot areas where they have been told – one by your office and one by Optomen that they would only get Mary's time if they signed up for the TV series."

In Margate, which features in the second episode of the Channel 4 series, the original bid-winning team resigned and the town split over the pilots, with some claiming Portas had threatened to withdraw cash unless the cameras were let in. A spokesperson for Mary Portas said this was "well documented".

A month later, on the eve of the announcement of the second round of 15 Portas pilots, the celebrity told the government she would not be "personally involved" in supporting the winners – in effect withdrawing from the scheme.Half the second round pilots have yet to spend any of the £1.5m allocated to them.

Labour claims the emails show the government was more interested in "publicity than public policy". Roberta Blackman-Woods, the shadow local government minister, said: "The government promised their Portas pilots scheme would lead the way for proper regeneration on the high street. Now it appears the real intention of this competition was to mask the government's abject failure to support businesses at the heart of our communities."

A spokesperson for Mary Portas said: "Any suggestion that Mary was involved in influencing the government's selection of Portas pilot towns is categorically untrue.

"Early correspondence between Yellow Door and the government simply reflected a former employee's enthusiastic response to the hundreds of inspirational video pilot applications. The government clarified protocol and there was no influence by Yellowdoor on the selection of the Portas pilot towns whatsoever.

"Mary's work preparing the Portas review for the government, and her subsequent and ongoing advice, is unpaid. In July last year Mary let the government know that she was stepping back from personal involvement in the second round of Portas pilot towns. This in no way diminishes from her commitment to the high street campaign."

Channel 4 said: "The final decision on selecting Portas pilot towns always rested with the government and at no point did Channel 4 make any attempt to influence that decision or government policy. We strongly dispute that anything was constructed. We are aware of a number of complaints – many of which are in the public domain – and the programme fairly and accurately portrays events as they happened during filming."

A spokesperson for Optomen said: "[We] had no influence over or involvement in the selection of the Portas pilot towns, which was solely a decision for the government. The programme tells the story of what occurred when Mary went to work with three towns that applied to be Portas pilots. More of Mary's time would inevitably be spent in the towns featured in the series. No sweeteners or financial inducements were offered or made by Optomen to the towns to encourage their participation in the programme. Great care has been taken to ensure that the programme is a fair and honest representation of Mary's work in these towns."

A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "We have always been completely clear that the 27 Portas pilots were selected for the leadership, commitment and innovation shown in their application, that Mary Portas had absolutely no role in choosing the towns, and that their status as Portas pilots was in no way dependent on their participation in any show."

Friday night events in Margate - dogs in snorkels and art in the Grotto

You'll probably have heard by now that I decided to stand as an independent candidate in the upcoming District Council byelection for Cliftonville East seat. More info on TDC's website. I'll be launching a new website this weekend, where I'll publish everything to do with the election. It's been a mad couple of days, as is the nature of getting a candidacy together for a byelection at the last minute. And doubly so as an independent. 

I'll leave you this fine Friday evening (looks outside at the weather...well, perhaps not so fine...) with news of two very lovely events going on tonight.

If there's a thing I like, it's dogs. And dogs in hats and snorkels, even better. So tonight's opening of renowned urban artist Teddy Baden's Atopy and the Raindog show at Margate Gallery is set to be a real treat. It starts tonight 6-8pm. More info on their website. There's a do to do with it all on at the Great British Pizza Co. too I think.

And a mere 5 min walk away over at The Shell Grotto is an opening of a 

diverse show in mixed media from Mandy Quy-Verlander, Sue Rumsey, Karen Richards and Elisia Hogben, Fine art students from UCA in Canterbury. And if dogs in snorkels isn't enough, a great show in one of the world's finest, bijou mystery attractions? More info on their website, too.

Karen Richards

Mandy Quy-Verlander

A peacock riding a toboggan

Image courtesy of @retrodan16

Today's Thanet Gazette has a feature on the latest departure of a key player from Margate Town Team. Wanda Rogers was Margate Town Team's Team Leader from September last year and took on the task of getting the flagship High Street multi-trader space of Poportunity up and running. 

Wanda states: 

"I am relieved to be out of the team. The essence of Portas Pilots has been lost. There's no project or action plan going forward. At least I had one for Poportunity. It was supposed to work with other elements of the bid like education, marketing and wi-fi but they haven't happened for one reason or another. "I feel let down for the people in there who are working hard."

Poportunity launched on October 20th as part of Mary Portas' 'Margate Relaunch' event for the Optomen Television produced upcoming series: Mary Queen of Shops. 

As far as we know, none of Margate's Portas Pilot funding has so far been spent on Poportunity. This was later clarified by retail expert, Paul Turner-Mitchell's series of FOI requests to the 27 winning Portas Pilot towns, where Margate was confirmed as having spent only £111.47 out of their £100,000 bid money. 

Richard Ash (centre)

Yet, Margate Town Team's Chairman, Richard Ash is quoted in today's article in the Gazette as saying: 

"I would like to thank Wanda publicly for all she has done in very difficult circumstances. The numbers have to add up. The graph plotting Poportunity's progress has been going downhill like a toboggan since October. The aim of Poportunity was always for start-up businesses to test ideas out but it cannot be treated like a bucket with holes in, with the town team endlessly filling it with money."

What an odd thing for Richard to say. Afterall, Richard has also been Chairman of Margate Town Team since last October, a full six months ago.

Back in November I blogged about an interview Richard had given to BBC Radio Kent, where he was keen to say how much of a success Poportunity was. Listen to the following section from 2:31 in:
http://audioboo.fm/boos/1081363-pt3-bbc-radio-kent-margate-town-team-27-11-2012#t=0m9s
In the same interview, Richard stated the only Portas Pilot funds spent so far was £800 on the annual checks of the High Street Christmas lights. The ones that in the end weren't working for Christmas. This was later clarified by TDC as being a Margate Town Partnership responsibility and the bill was covered by TDC not Margate Town Team. 

Then, in March Richard was quoted in the Sunday Times he was 'proud as a peacock' for the Town Team's progress so far in not spending any money. http://margatearchitecture.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/sunday-times-queen-of-shops-all-pomp.html
 
So there we have it: The endearing image of a peacock, riding a toboggan down a dying High Street with £100k of winnings stashed in the bank at TDC.