“Seeing this beautiful building finally brought back into use is perhaps one of the biggest achievements of our Empty Property Strategy to date. It’s a stunning property that’s well known to many local people and it’s excellent to see it now being used to house people again. Our programme of bringing empty properties back into use has achieved some considerable successes in the last few months, with 77 Eastern Esplanade further along the seafront in Cliftonville also being returned to use for shared ownership flats. It just goes to show the achievements that can be made when pressure is put on owners to bring their properties back into use, with 170 properties brought back into use with the help of the council over the last two years.”
However, as we've posted here, it would be a further 18 months when we paid a visit to the building in December 2009 and we posted photographs of the rear facade with no secure windows, no utilities in place, and there was clear evidence of water ingress. And most importantly the building was uninhabited and looking derelict again. It then took until around June 2010 for there to be people living in the end building of 14 and 15, whereas 12 and 13 remain empty.
We have recently learned through recent Freedom of Information requests that:
- No funds were actually allocated to the developers or the owners from the KCC No Use Empty Scheme.
- That the building currently has not got a building control completion certificate.
Yet 14 and 15 have people living in there.
So what's going on?
We also see from the Land Registry records no evidence of a property having sold on the whole of Cliff Terrace, Margate since 2006.
How much of a success and a flagship project is this site? It is standing half empty and really, seeing as it has no completion certificate should this have been removed from the threat of CPO and triumphed as a success?
Google's useful caching facility reveals the TDC press release from November 14th 2008 that for some reason is no longer active on their website. (Why do they do this messing around with URLs?)
Work completed on eyesore property
An eyesore property in Cliftonville that was threatened with compulsory purchase action by Thanet District Council, has been brought back into use.
Work has now been completed on the group of buildings at 12 – 15 Cliff Terrace, opposite the Lido, which had been empty for almost a decade. Cabinet Members agreed in July 2006 to take compulsory purchase action using funding from the “No Use Empty” campaign, which brings together Thanet, Dover, Shepway and Swale District Councils with Kent County Council. This brings extra resources to tackle the problem of long-term empty properties and enhances the Empty Property Strategy already in place in Thanet.
The owner was then informed of the council’s decision and told that the required work could be either be carried out immediately by him or the building could be sold to a developer with an agreed programme of work, but if neither happened, the property would be compulsorily purchased.
The owner chose to sell the property to a developer, with a planning application submitted in July 2007 to convert the former shop units on the ground floor and the accommodation above into 13 flats. Wards Renovation and Construction Ltd. have now completed the work.
Cllr. Zita Wiltshire, Cabinet Member for Housing, said: “Seeing this beautiful building finally brought back into use is perhaps one of the biggest achievements of our Empty Property Strategy to date. It’s a stunning property that’s well known to many local people and it’s excellent to see it now being used to house people again. Our programme of bringing empty properties back into use has achieved some considerable successes in the last few months, with 77 Eastern Esplanade further along the seafront in Cliftonville also being returned to use for shared ownership flats. It just goes to show the achievements that can be made when pressure is put on owners to bring their properties back into use, with 170 properties brought back into use with the help of the council over the last two years.”
Dave Goulding, Property Development Manager, from Wards Renovation and Construction Ltd. said: “We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved with this property. It’s been a very difficult project with a number of complications and the building was in a worse state of repair than had been first envisaged. This presented us with a number of challenges as work got underway, but the result has been excellent. We’ve been determined to keep as many features as we possibly could and to retain the exterior look of the property and we feel that we’ve been successful in achieving that.”
Publication date: 11 November, 2008
ENDS
Its like the fiasco of the planning permission for the old Endcliffe Hotel now a mecca for Thanet's under 30 dosser brigade.
ReplyDeleteThe planning permission was a total farce and the situation continues yet anyone householder who has built their conservatory 6 ins beyond original boundary would be FORCED to pull it down.
Money talks!!