Paul Turner-Mitchell's Margate Portas Pilot FOI Request to Thanet District Council

Below is the original FOI Request made by Paul Turner-Mitchell to Thanet District Council on January 7th 2012.  The FOI was the subject of two articles in the Independent newspaper yesterday and today, was covered on BBC Newsnight as well as last night's BBC South East Today and BBC Radio Kent's breakfast show. The topic being Thanet District Council's none reply to the FOI request. Thanet District Council's response finally published their response yesterday afternoon. When I learned the figures and content I was dumbfounded. However, it contains a degree of creative embellishment that is out of the remit of FOIs and certainly out of the jurisdiction of Thanet Council. They take it upon themselves to issue more of a press release than factual response and enter into discussion about the make up and history of the Margate Portas Pilot bid team, who are and independent community group.  I was a member of Margate's bid team and as Chair of Margate Independent Traders was not contacted by Thanet District Council prior to the release of this information.  Thanet District Council have delayed replying to my own FOI requests and I've had to log a complaint with the Information Commissioner. This is a lengthy, time consuming process. It's unlikely that I will get a resolution before the Optomen TV show goes out in March. Thanet Council have instead released information to a journalist under duress. If they had done so, I could have corrected their creative invention on the composition of the original bid team and how it certainly was not formed of two groups. Margate Independent Traders organise public meetings throughout the year that are free for anyone to come to. We invite guest speakers and it is a social event. We then have a mailing list that sends out information relevant to independent businesses across the Margate, Cliftonville and Westbrook area. The group had come together to fulfill the need for more access for small businesses to information. We've done all the work we have over the last 2 years with no funds.  The Town Team as it stood in August 2012 did not fail to see eye to eye or work together. The Margate Town Team Committee was undermined in by conflicting loyalties and informal meetings arranged with TDC and Mary Portas without the knowledge of the Margate Town Team committee. Thanet Council are well aware of the events surrounding a day of filming on August 20th. To date,  there have been no meetings of the newly reformed  Margate Town Team accessible to the public. The promise of a public AGM at 6 months was quashed. And as we see from yesterday's FOI release, only £111.47 of the available spend of £100,000 has been spent. Thanet District Council have acted outside of their remit to publish information in this manner. It is serving to prop up Margate Town team as it now stands, which is in the control of people who did not raise issues within the many minuted meetings. The real losers in this mess are the residents and traders of Margate High Street who have been treated with disdain and disregard. From: Paul Turner-Mitchell [mailto:XXXX@XXXX] Sent: 07 January 2013 12:07 To: 'foi@thanet.gov.uk' Subject: Freedom of Information Request On 26th May 2012, Margate was named as one of The 12 new Portas Pilots’ to enable the town team bring their high street back to life. In order to achieve this, a share of £1.2 million was awarded to put their winning plans into action. This money was paid through s31 unringfenced revenue grant, paid directly to the local authority.  Each partnership needed to identify an Accountable Body (local authority) to receive the grant, if they were not, themselves, a local authority.  It was expected that local authorities in receipt of grant to work constructively with their communities, through their Town Team, in using funding. The following request is, therefore, made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000:- ·         The exact amount of government funding applied for and received for the Portas Pilot initiative ·         The exact amount of that funding that has physically been spent as a 31st December 2012 ·         Please provide a breakdown and summary of how that funding has been physically spent including date of payment, amount of payment and what exactly the payment was for. ·         Please provide details and evidence as to how the Local Authority is benchmarking the success of the Pilot. ·         Please provide details of the criteria and terms of reference for the monitoring and benchmarking as to the success of the Pilot. ·         Has the success or otherwise of the Pilot been assessed by the Local Authority to date? If so, please provide a copy of the relevant report and/or summary. Thank you. Paul Turner-Mitchell Director "FOI response to Mr Turner-Mitchell The Margate Independent Traders together with the Margate Town Partnership submitted a bid to the Ports Pilot Town Team scheme. The bid was successful and Thanet District Council agreed to act as the accountable body.  The initial bid, and subsequent award of funds, was for £100,000. Following a difficult time for the two groups who submitted the bid to form a cohesive management committee, this has now been established and meeting consistently for several months.  This has delayed the development of detailed project proposals and subsequent spend of project monies.  In addition, the in-kind support to the team has been far greater than originally expected. By 31st December 2012 the Team had made the following payments; 18-Dec-12    Stationery                                                                    £21.47 19-Dec-13    T Painter for Land Registry searches                         £90.00 Given the early stage of implementation of the project it is too early to assess the success of the Pilot scheme. However, one of the projects that has been sponsored by the Pilot has been a 'Pop-up shop' on the High Street.  This was part of the implementation plan for the Team but so far has been entirely funded by in kind support and revenue from renting space in this shop (consequently it has not required any of the Portas Pilot funding to support it).  The Pop-up shop has supported over 14 individuals to experience high street trading and test their business ideas, 12 of these are still trading. If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and should be addressed to: Information Request Assessor, Thanet District Council, P O Box 9 Cecil Street, Margate Kent CT9 1XZ, or send an email to foi@thanet.gov.uk. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications. If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF"

Thanet District Council's FOI Response in Margate Portas Pilot Budget Expenditure

Sick joke of a situation for Margate.

Not only untrurths re the formation of the bid team. Not only the untruths in the reason for my resignation along with colleagues. Not only the untruths re the current 'town team' and it's 'cohesiveness'. 

What relevance is this anyway to Thanet when responding to an FOI on budget and funds? 

Why we, the people of Margate had to find out this information from watching BBC News?

Why is it acceptable that only £111 has been spent and that first in line for the pay out is ex-Town Team Chairman, Terry Painter?

"FOI response to Mr Turner-Mitchell

The Margate Independent Traders together with the Margate Town Partnership submitted a bid to the Ports Pilot Town Team scheme. The bid was successful and Thanet District Council agreed to act as the accountable body.  The initial bid, and subsequent award of funds, was for £100,000.

Following a difficult time for the two groups who submitted the bid to form a cohesive management committee, this has now been established and meeting consistently for several months.  This has delayed the development of detailed project proposals and subsequent spend of project monies.  In addition, the in-kind support to the team has been far greater than originally expected.

By 31st December 2012 the Team had made the following payments;

18-Dec-12    Stationery                                                                    £21.47

19-Dec-13    T Painter for Land Registry searches                         £90.00

Given the early stage of implementation of the project it is too early to assess the success of the Pilot scheme.

However, one of the projects that has been sponsored by the Pilot has been a 'Pop-up shop' on the High Street.  This was part of the implementation plan for the Team but so far has been entirely funded by in kind support and revenue from renting space in this shop (consequently it has not required any of the Portas Pilot funding to support it).  The Pop-up shop has supported over 14 individuals to experience high street trading and test their business ideas, 12 of these are still trading.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and should be addressed to: Information Request Assessor, Thanet District Council, P O Box 9 Cecil Street, Margate Kent CT9 1XZ, or send an email to foi@thanet.gov.uk.

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF"

Has Margate's Cultural Strategy been scrapped?

Yesterday, I noticed that the Council funded website www.thisismargate.co.uk has been taken down and now redirects automatically to the Thanet Regeneration Board.

'This is Margate' was a site developed after lengthy public consultation exercises and sought to pitch Margate as a center for creative and cultural regeneration that had underpinned much of the funding in town over the last decade.

Design work was undertaken by Studio Baum, who previously had done some really great work for the Margate Rocks festival. 'This is Margate' was was designed around the theme of seaside postcards and classic cliched slogans.

A colour palette was developed. The site was a central point where you could find key cultural strategy policy documents and held newsletters and minutes from the board meetings of the Margate Renewal Partnership, the agency tasked with taking forward, Margate's ambitious regeneration plans of which the building of Turner Contemporary was key. If you wanted to know what was going on and where things were headed, this was the site you went to.

Margate Renewal Partnership was wound up in 2011. Margate's website however, funded to publicise the creative regeneration aspect of Margate continued.

Further work on developing a Margate brand identity was undertaken in 2010-2011. A creative brief was issued by Thanet Council and interviews commenced with various agencies pitching their concept for Margate to panels of stakeholders. London based brand agency, Underscore were chosen to create the Margate brand. A series of evening workshops were held as social events with the community invited to participate. These events were dubbed the 'Margate Conversation'.

Margate's views were taken on board, ideas shared over many hours and weeks. I covered it here on the blog. Underscore's solution built on the legacy of the work undertaken previously on This is Margate. Colour coded sections were created for topic areas such as Live Margate (which actually being used on the www.livemargate.co.uk site for the £21m housing renewal stuff up in Cliftonville).

Underscore's slogan 'Margate. The Original Seaside' was developed. Hoardings were printed, litter bins re-sprayed hot pink, Council literature was produced in line with the new brand guidance toolkit document.

So, how do we arrive at the situation where, after all the care, time and public expense has been taken to consult and develop a Margate brand, that anyone tapping Margate Renewal Partnership or www.thisismargate.co.uk into their browser is brought to the dry as a bone clip-art-tastic, badly designed website for the Thanet Regeneration Board? After all the efforts to run democratic groups so people can be actively involved do we find out about this by accident.

But before getting to grips with what the TRB actually is and how we in Margate can input into it:

Why did the This is Margate website have to be removed in the first place to be replaced by an unknown Thanet committee page?

Where did they get those fonts from and that palette?

I think Thanet Council should put www.thisismargate.co.uk back up. It belonged to Margate and we the people of Margate worked hard to input into it. Bring back This is Margate!

Has there been a change in strategy? Are we now to cease having a Margate cultural strategy and come under the new era of a the Thanet Regeneration Board? 

BBC Radio Kent's Clare McDonnell is axed

Have just heard that BBC Radio Kent Breakfast Show presenter, Clare McDonnell is about to become a victim of the BBC cuts. Clare is co-host of the station's popular show with John Warnett. I'm told that Clare is the only person to lose their job at BBC Kent.

This seems a real shame. Take a look at the gender imbalance of the station. On air across a week on BBC Radio Kent you'll hear 25 male presenters and 3 female, Clare, Jules and Laura who's on with Pat Marsh

How many women hold managerial positions at the station?

Kent is now the 5th most listened to BBC local radio in station in the country and here they are sacking one of their key presenters on the breakfast show.

Twitter: @bbcradiokent
https://www.facebook.com/BBCRadioKentOfficial
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014dcbg

Pleasurama Drama Continues in the news

The unacceptable situation over at the Ramsgate seafront Pleasurama site have been hitting the headlines all week. There was a public meeting on Wednesday with over 80 local people present.

The meeting even made the BBC News.

Yesterday's BBC Radio Kent breakfast show dedicated quite a bit of air time to the issue, interviewing, Thanet District Councillor Ian Driver, Deputy Leader of the Council, Councillor Alan Poole and Broadstairs Estate Agent and developer SFP's agent, Terence Painter. Mr Painter has previously also held positions as Chairman of Ramsgate Town Partnership, Margate Town Partnership and Margate Town Team.

Here are a series of Audioboo files of the BBC Radio Kent Feature. I do love Audioboo.

Part 1: Introduction and background on location in Ramsgate. 
Part 2: With Councillor Ian Driver interviewed.

Part 3: With Councillor Ian Driver continued.

Part 4: Interview with Councillor Alan Poole, Deputy Leader of Thanet District Council.

Interview Transcript...Scroll down to end for best bit...

BBC: If I can just start with you, Alan Poole. Why don't you just take the leasehold back if they are in breach of contract? Why can't you do that?

Poole: As far as I'm concerned they're not in breach of the contract.

BBC: SO there was no time limit set on how quickly they had to build these flats?

Poole: The long stop date is 2017, so we're nowhere near that yet.

BBC: OK. What is the sticking point as far as you can see?

Poole: Well, the sticking point is the developer finding £20m.

BBC: Right. Er, why do they need £20m?

Poole: Well, they need £20m to put up the building.

BBC: So, it's as simple as that is it?

Poole: We're in a very difficult financial climate at the moment. We're in the middle of a triple dip recession. And it's difficult for people to raise the necessary finance to get the work done.

BBC: And I don't suppose there are other developers waiting to come in are there? Or perhaps there are?

Poole: I'm not aware of any developers queuing up to take on this development.

BBC: OK. I think they would say, and we'll speak to their representative in a moment. They would say that one of the problems that they've got in raising the capital is that they don't own the freehold. And they would like it. And why can't you give it them?

Poole: They've got a 199 year lease. And the freehold was going to be transferred when the building was completed. We're currently in negotiations with the developers to transfer the freehold upfront but they will have to pay us upfront. 

BBC: Yes. Could you not just have a sort document that says we will give you the freehold when you build the flats. 

Poole: Well, we've already got that document.

BBC: So they will have the freehold, but you just want them to build the flats first.

Poole: We would prefer it that way, yes. But they're telling us they need the freehold to get access to the funding.

BBC: Ian Driver who we spoke to earlier says this company has no history of developing this sort of site. Is that true?

Poole: Ian Driver is a publicity seeking opportunist.

BBC: So he's wrong is he?

Poole: Yes, he's wrong, yes.

BBC: So, where else have they built stuff then?

Poole: He's implying that all offshore companies are cowboys and crooks, which is patently not true. 

BBC: BUt have you seen any of their other developments?

Poole: Well, this is probably a one development company. It's a vehicle that many many companies use.

BBC: So they haven't got any history of developing a place like this?

Poole: I'm not aware of any history.

BBC: So, he's right? Ian Driver?

Poole: Well…yes.

Part 5: Interview with Terence Painter, agent for SFP.
He does go into that the developer doesn't need the freehold, but that it would be nice.

Part 6: Interview with Councillor Alan Poole.

There's a Facebook Group for Friends of Ramsgate Seafront. They're currently aiming to get 1000 signatures on a petition to TDC by Monday. As ever, Michael Child is excellently on the case over on Thanet Online. 

Email from Sir Roger Gale MP - URGENT PRESS RELEASE

Quite uncanny to find myself having written something very similar to Roger by way of example the other day.  Ah, well, it's the issue that counts. Just wish that Roger would agree with me and many of his constituents regarding the issue that up for debate; that of Equal Marriage.

Here's Roger's Press Release of today:

Same Sex Marriage – Local Press "Report"

North Thanet`s MP, Sir Roger Gale, has this (Friday) morning issued the following statement:

"I do not read or, with good reason, write for, The Isle of Thanet Gazette.

My attention has, however been drawn, by a local newsagent, to articles purporting to offer my view, and comment upon, same-sex marriage.

At the risk of spoiling "a good story" but in the interest of fact the basis of the report, which I was not invited to comment upon, suggesting that "Sir Roger Gale suggested that same-sex marriage would pave the way for incest" is what is known in journalism as "a lie".

During the Commons debate, which I have to assume the author of the Gazette report has clearly not studied, I made the proposal that Civil marriages and the Civil Partnership should both be abolished to be replaced with a "Civil Union" open to all who did not want to enter into a faith marriage in church.  This Union would, in addition to heterosexual and gay couples, certainly also include siblings (brothers and sisters for the benefit of the IOTG Editor) who are at present not afforded the protection in law and in property rights from Civil Partnership because the last Labour Government specifically excluded this small group of people from the provisions of the Act.  This is called "equality". It means that people who have lived together as, for example, spinster sisters for very many years would no longer face the fear of having to sell the roof from over their heads in order to pay inheritance tax when one "partner" dies.  I appreciate that certain sections of the Press find this disappointing but it has nothing whatsoever to do with sex, or incest, at all.

My proposal for the separation of State and Church in the matter of civil union and what is generally understood as marriage as between one man and one woman would, I believe, remove government from an arena in which it ought not to seek to interfere while at the same time creating genuine equality as between all of those whose partnerships need to be properly registered and recorded in law.

A former Labour Minister, a member of the Civil Partnerships Bill Committee that I chaired, has sought to misrepresent my constructive proposals as "comparing gay marriage to incest".  The irony is that it was that Member of Parliament and his colleagues who denied the very equality to siblings that I am seeking, fairly to achieve – a fact that is slowly dawning upon those who have chosen to leap to incorrect conclusions while finding much favour with those whose lives have been blighted by exclusion from the Civil Partnershps Act and who got the message immediately."

Equal Marriage - The Ayes Have It - But what was Sir Roger Gale MP really saying?

I was interested to see what my MP, Sir Roger Gale  had actually said on Monday in the debate on equal marriage. Twitter was full of him having said something about incest. On checking Hansard I see he didn't say that. Actually, he mentioned a type of legal union that I was advocating a few days ago.
Roger is against this. 

I think that in the future, a legal union, a dividing of the legal affairs of individuals who aren't necessarily lovers; perhaps life long companions would be a good thing. Many people now choose to live together, to share friendship who become life long partners.

There was the case in 2008 of two elderly sisters who had lived together their whole lives and who were fighting to be seen as a unit for inheritance tax reasons. Siblings cannot marry or form a Civil Partnership. Initimacy has nothing to do with it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/apr/30/inheritancetax.tax

Prior to civil partnerships being offered to same sex couples, the fate of a surviving partner of same sex couples was a major problem. This is no less a problem for people who are life long companions who for reasons of family relationship cannot marry or join in a civil partnership. 

I strongly disagree with Roger's stance. But the brother sister union he defined in his speech in the Commons on Monday it didn't seem to be incest he was referring to?

"It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin), with whose speech I concur.

I had the privilege of chairing Committee proceedings on the Civil Partnership Bill. As has been said, very clear undertakings were given by the then Government and Opposition that that Bill was not the thin end of the wedge nor a paving Bill for same-sex marriage, but an end in itself to right considerable wrongs in the law. That it did, as the European Court of Human Rights has determined. In those respects, civil partnerships are indistinguishable from what we know as marriage.

When I put that point to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities, she said that no Government could bind another. Of course, she is correct. That kicks the bottom out of every undertaking that she has given. It is abundantly plain to most Conservative Members that the product of this Bill will end up before the courts and before the European Court of Human Rights, and that people of faith will find that faith trampled upon. That, to us, is intolerable.

I understand—I will give way to my right hon. Friend if she wishes to correct me—that the Cabinet paper on this matter was entitled “Redefining Marriage”. It is not possible to redefine marriage. Marriage is the union between a man and a woman. It has been that historically and it remains so. It is Alice in Wonderland territory—Orwellian almost—for any Government of any political persuasion to try to rewrite the lexicon. It will not do.

A way forward has been suggested, but it has been ignored. I do not subscribe to it myself, but I recognise the merit in the argument. The argument is that if the Government are serious about this measure, they should withdraw the Bill, abolish the Civil Partnership Act 2004, abolish civil marriage and create a civil union Bill that applies to all people, irrespective of their sexuality or relationship. That means that brothers and brothers, sisters and sisters and brothers and sisters would be included as well. That would be a way forward. This is not...

The argument is not mine, but that of an eminent lawyer in this House. Its merit is that it would create what I think the hon. Gentleman wants, which is equality. It would create a level playing field and it would leave marriage and faith to those who understand that marriage means faith and that marriage means the union between a man and a woman and nothing else."

Edited to add I see over at Thanet Life they've added a clarification from Sir Roger himself:

"Sir, 

At the risk of spoiling a good story, your reporter, Michael Deacon's idiotic report that I have put forward a suggestion that "would apply not only to gay people but incestuous relationships" demonstrates, yet again, the infinite capacity of the press to misconstrue a fact. 

Anyone who is conversant with the provisions of the Civil Partnerships Act - and Mr Deacon clearly is not - is aware that that law specifically excludes heterosexuals and siblings ( i.e. and the important distinction of an unmarried or widowed brother and sister, - or two brothers or two sisters - , caring for each other) from the protections in law and property rights afforded to same-sex couples. 

It is in that context that I have proposed the abolition of civil marriage (registry office weddings) and civil partnerships and their replacement with a Civil Union that would be all-embracing, that has nothing to do with incest or sex but would most certainly include siblings and other heterosexual partnerships. This would leave marriage, in its' understood form as between one man and one woman, to faith organisations and would separate state involvement from religious marriage and afford to all the "equality" that I understood to be the order of the day. 

The response that I have received from those disadvantaged by the current exclusion from civil partnerships indicates that this is a proposal that is worthy of serious consideration. 

SIR ROGER GALE MP"

I'm certainly not defending or agreeing with Sir Roger's view on equal marriage. However, I think the seizing on the incest claim is unhelpful. Civil rights for people who live together I think is a worthy cause. Sex doesn't come into it.