Rsponse to myFreedom of information act request 23.10.2009

My email software is probably a bit more advanced than some and it is telling me that you can't receive embedded images, meaning that you will get them all as file attachments and not with in the text so I have published this onto a website where you can view the images in context.

My primary concern is for safety here and now on the site and above it, apart from the evident lack of foundations, the most pressing part of this is the evident movement at portal 11.

I find your comments that despite my concerns no inspection of the façade will be made until 2011 to be bordering on criminal negligence.

If you look at the report on the façade you see that this movement hadn't occurred when it was written.

As the survey was carried out in April of 2005 and it recommended that the repair work should be done within the next financial year, the fact that the work was done in 2008 appears to have contributed significantly both to the problems and the future costs to the taxpayer.

Now at the moment large areas where the foundations should be are exposed to the elements, the made ground there is simply washing away and the chalk, where it is directly beneath the façade is weathering and therefore crumbling away, something that will also considerably increase the costs to the taxpayer when you finally get around to addressing the problem.

As you can see the it is obvious from the vegetation growing from the cracks in the structure that the works haven't been successful, I don't know if you are a qualified structural engineer, but even if you are not, you may wish to consider the possibility that the cracks that were filled last year and are opening up again so soon, to be something to do with the absence of foundations.

I believe I should point out to you that had anyone at the council bothered to listen to me last year when the lack of foundations was exposed and I told both council officers and councillors about the problem, action could have been taken then before the council spent £1m on filling and coating the structure, money which now appears to have been largely wasted.

The ridiculous attempts to cover up some of the defects should also be investigated, please could you comment on what you perceive has happened here.

I get the impression from your response that you are not taking me seriously, I particularly noticed that the wrong CDM assessment that you sent me, had had the names and contact details so badly redacted, that I could read them on a normal computer screen without enhancement in any way. Obviously I will respect your intent and not use them but would appreciate it if you took a little more interest in my request.

Below is the informal response I sent you last week, please treat now as part of my formal request on for internal review.

Hi ***** this is an informal off the record response to allow you to change you reply, if I haven't heard from you by midday on Monday 22.12.2009 I will assume that you don't want modify it and will put it forward for review and possible legal action.

1 It is the CDM assessment for the site now that I want, people were working down there recently painting the skirting for the hoardings. The hoardings have never remained secure for more than a few days, if youths that congregate down there don't break them open the wind does.

The people that put the last set of hoardings up secured one end of 100 sq ft area of hording with three short screws, well last weeks wind has torn one end off and when the next big gust breaks the other end off is could be a significant hazard.

3 When I saw a heavy fire appliance parked next to the edge up there the other day I was utterly appalled. You are aware I assume that this part of the cliff is riddled with tunnels for HMS Fervent and the gun emplacements. That naval guns were mounted there and fired during both world wars something which added to the weakness of the cliff. You have seen the Stratascan survey of the cliff top made in 2005. You are aware of the previous history of cliff collapses here.

5 I don't know where you got this information from, when I asked *** who wrote the report last week he said it still had a short serviceable life.

6 When I inspected the foundations yesterday I took with me **** (well known local businessman, who organised a major local event for years) who watched me poke a stick under them and would be willing to confirm that the foundations do not exist is some places and in others are not constructed To the drawing specifications.

There are several new cracks with vegetation growing out of them, including a small tree, the most dangerous area appears to be where the blockwork is bulging out with a large crack down the middle of it.

As a further note for your comment concrete has been dumped recently in what looks like a very amateurish attempt to cover up some of the worst visible flaws, I am sure I don't need to explain to you the probable consequences of this sort of action.

Thank you for your communication received on 23rd October in which you requested information about the cliff facade adjacent to the Pleasurama development.

1. A copy of the pre-construction CDM assessment is attached. Your attention is drawn to the information below regarding copyright of this document.

2. There is no formal inspection and maintenance schedule for the cliff facade. The works were inspected when the defects correction period for phase 1 expired in July. Biannual inspections of the facade will commence in 2011. The upper promenade and railings are inspected twice a year as part of the coastal zone asset inspections.

3. Works have been programmed to restrict vehicular access to the upper promenade area. This will be by way of bollards and a barrier. A weight restriction will then be established and enforced (although emergency vehicles will be exempted).

4. The agreement with the developer requires that a right of entry onto a 4m wide strip of land adjacent to the cliff wall is retained by Thanet District Council. This is for the purposes of inspection and for carrying out repairs to the cliff wall. The rear elevation of the building may therefore be erected on or seaward of the 4m line.

5. The serviceable life of the facade has been significantly increased as a result of the remedial works which were undertaken in 2008/09. This therefore supersedes the comment referred to in the inspection report. The service life of the facade or any structure is largely dependant upon proper inspection and the level of investment in maintenance.

6. No evidence of any settlement or distress which would be characteristic of inadequate foundations has been observed in the structure, therefore no detailed investigation of the foundations has been undertaken at this time. Progress towards the development will require a notice to be served under the Party Wall Act, at which point and with the benefit of detailed foundation designs and relative levels, a full understanding of any implications relating to the development will be possible and addressed.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by copyright. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including for private study and non-commercial research, and for any other purpose authorised by an exception in current copyright law. Documents (except photographs) can be also used in the UK without requiring permission for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder.

Most documents supplied by Thanet District Council will have been produced within government and will be Crown Copyright. For information about re-using Crown Copyright see the Office of Public Sector Information website at www.opsi.gov.uk. The copyright in some documents may rest with a third party. For information about obtaining permission from a third party see the Intellectual Property Office's website at www.ipo.gov.uk.

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.

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

This email and any attachments are confidential and intended solely for the addressee and may also be privileged or exempt from disclosure under applicable law.

If you are not the addressee, or have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately, delete it from your system and do not copy, disclose or otherwise act upon any part of this email or its attachments.

Any views expressed in this email are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifies and with authority, states them to be the views of Thanet District Council.

Whilst all reasonable care has been taken to avoid the transmission of viruses, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that the onward transmission, opening or use of this email and any attachments will not adversely affect its systems or data.

No responsibility is accepted by Thanet District Council in this regard and the recipient should carry out such virus and other checks as it considers appropriate.

All communications sent to or from Thanet District council may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with relevant legislation.


	Thanet District Council freedom of information act requests \| home Thanet District Council freedom of information act requests \| Freedom of information request 14.10.2009 \| Second freedom of information request 14.10.2009 \| Freedom of information act request 23.10.2009 \| Rsponse to myFreedom of information act request 23.10.2009 \| Complaint 2.11.2009 \| from blog \| Council spending on this project \| My complaint response reply 16.11.2009 \| FOI request 17.11.2009 \| Complaint 17.11.2009 \| Upper Marina esplanade incline. \| Complaint 17.11.2009 response \| From Blog 17.11.2009 \| Title 16 \| Review of the decision of the Council made on 20 November 2009 \| FOI ref; 11594 logged by TDC on 16.10.2009 \| my official response to your withholding the Pleasurama development agreement Rsponse to myFreedom of information act request 23.10.2009 Hi **** this is my formal request asking you to pass on my request on for internal review. My email software is probably a bit more advanced than some and it is telling me that you can't receive embedded images, meaning that you will get them all as file attachments and not with in the text so I have published this onto a website where you can view the images in context. My primary concern is for safety here and now on the site and above it, apart from the evident lack of foundations, the most pressing part of this is the evident movement at portal 11. I find your comments that despite my concerns no inspection of the façade will be made until 2011 to be bordering on criminal negligence. If you look at the report on the façade you see that this movement hadn't occurred when it was written. As the survey was carried out in April of 2005 and it recommended that the repair work should be done within the next financial year, the fact that the work was done in 2008 appears to have contributed significantly both to the problems and the future costs to the taxpayer. Now at the moment large areas where the foundations should be are exposed to the elements, the made ground there is simply washing away and the chalk, where it is directly beneath the façade is weathering and therefore crumbling away, something that will also considerably increase the costs to the taxpayer when you finally get around to addressing the problem. As you can see the it is obvious from the vegetation growing from the cracks in the structure that the works haven't been successful, I don't know if you are a qualified structural engineer, but even if you are not, you may wish to consider the possibility that the cracks that were filled last year and are opening up again so soon, to be something to do with the absence of foundations. I believe I should point out to you that had anyone at the council bothered to listen to me last year when the lack of foundations was exposed and I told both council officers and councillors about the problem, action could have been taken then before the council spent £1m on filling and coating the structure, money which now appears to have been largely wasted. The ridiculous attempts to cover up some of the defects should also be investigated, please could you comment on what you perceive has happened here. I get the impression from your response that you are not taking me seriously, I particularly noticed that the wrong CDM assessment that you sent me, had had the names and contact details so badly redacted, that I could read them on a normal computer screen without enhancement in any way. Obviously I will respect your intent and not use them but would appreciate it if you took a little more interest in my request. I have redacted you name and any others from what I have published on the internet. Below is the informal response I sent you last week, please treat now as part of my formal request on for internal review. Hi * this is an informal off the record response to allow you to change you reply, if I haven't heard from you by midday on Monday 22.12.2009 I will assume that you don't want modify it and will put it forward for review and possible legal action. 1 It is the CDM assessment for the site now that I want, people were working down there recently painting the skirting for the hoardings. The hoardings have never remained secure for more than a few days, if youths that congregate down there don't break them open the wind does. The people that put the last set of hoardings up secured one end of 100 sq ft area of hording with three short screws, well last weeks wind has torn one end off and when the next big gust breaks the other end off is could be a significant hazard. See attached picture. 2 I inspected the cliff façade yesterday see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/11/royal-sands-development-how-dangerous.html and http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id31.htm 3 When I saw a heavy fire appliance parked next to the edge up there the other day I was utterly appalled. You are aware I assume that this part of the cliff is riddled with tunnels for HMS Fervent and the gun emplacements. That naval guns were mounted there and fired during both world wars something which added to the weakness of the cliff. You have seen the Stratascan survey of the cliff top made in 2005. You are aware of the previous history of cliff collapses here. 4 You failed to answer my question about a safe distance to build from the cliff façade. 5 I don't know where you got this information from, when I asked * who wrote the report last week he said it still had a short serviceable life. 6 When I inspected the foundations yesterday I took with me ** (well known local businessman, who organised a major local event for years) who watched me poke a stick under them and would be willing to confirm that the foundations do not exist is some places and in others are not constructed To the drawing specifications. There are several new cracks with vegetation growing out of them, including a small tree, the most dangerous area appears to be where the blockwork is bulging out with a large crack down the middle of it. As a further note for your comment concrete has been dumped recently in what looks like a very amateurish attempt to cover up some of the worst visible flaws, I am sure I don't need to explain to you the probable consequences of this sort of action. Best regards Michael Websites http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/ http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ http://www.thanetonline.com/ In a message dated 11/20/2009 16:32:02 GMT Standard Time, *@thanet.gov.uk writes: Ref No: 11833 / 1121497 Dear Mr Child Thank you for your communication received on 23rd October in which you requested information about the cliff facade adjacent to the Pleasurama development. The information you requested is as follows. 1. A copy of the pre-construction CDM assessment is attached. Your attention is drawn to the information below regarding copyright of this document. 2. There is no formal inspection and maintenance schedule for the cliff facade. The works were inspected when the defects correction period for phase 1 expired in July. Biannual inspections of the facade will commence in 2011. The upper promenade and railings are inspected twice a year as part of the coastal zone asset inspections. 3. Works have been programmed to restrict vehicular access to the upper promenade area. This will be by way of bollards and a barrier. A weight restriction will then be established and enforced (although emergency vehicles will be exempted). 4. The agreement with the developer requires that a right of entry onto a 4m wide strip of land adjacent to the cliff wall is retained by Thanet District Council. This is for the purposes of inspection and for carrying out repairs to the cliff wall. The rear elevation of the building may therefore be erected on or seaward of the 4m line. 5. The serviceable life of the facade has been significantly increased as a result of the remedial works which were undertaken in 2008/09. This therefore supersedes the comment referred to in the inspection report. The service life of the facade or any structure is largely dependant upon proper inspection and the level of investment in maintenance. 6. No evidence of any settlement or distress which would be characteristic of inadequate foundations has been observed in the structure, therefore no detailed investigation of the foundations has been undertaken at this time. Progress towards the development will require a notice to be served under the Party Wall Act, at which point and with the benefit of detailed foundation designs and relative levels, a full understanding of any implications relating to the development will be possible and addressed. The information supplied to you continues to be protected by copyright. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including for private study and non-commercial research, and for any other purpose authorised by an exception in current copyright law. Documents (except photographs) can be also used in the UK without requiring permission for the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by Thanet District Council will have been produced within government and will be Crown Copyright. For information about re-using Crown Copyright see the Office of Public Sector Information website at www.opsi.gov.uk. The copyright in some documents may rest with a third party. For information about obtaining permission from a third party see the Intellectual Property Office's website at www.ipo.gov.uk. 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 Yours sincerely, **** Building Control and Property Manager ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE CONSIDER THE ENVIRONMENT BEFORE PRINTING THIS E MAIL. This email and any attachments are confidential and intended solely for the addressee and may also be privileged or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the addressee, or have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately, delete it from your system and do not copy, disclose or otherwise act upon any part of this email or its attachments. Any views expressed in this email are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifies and with authority, states them to be the views of Thanet District Council. Whilst all reasonable care has been taken to avoid the transmission of viruses, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that the onward transmission, opening or use of this email and any attachments will not adversely affect its systems or data. No responsibility is accepted by Thanet District Council in this regard and the recipient should carry out such virus and other checks as it considers appropriate. All communications sent to or from Thanet District council may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with relevant legislation.