It was their day off.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
or down the 8 bells drinking cheap beer.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Alright Colin. As you might read on my other thread, the ideal isn't to attract tourism. It had purely to do with Christian Faith. I made a mistake there when I brought tourism into the context, a strategical error, which some people really pounced upon! Nice photo. That church is in one of the areas of Dover where I have lived, near Salisbury Road and Barton Road. The only thing I find disturbing is that enormous cross with an efigee of a dead man supposed to be Jesus.
As Jesus returned at Easter, he shouldn't be refigurated as a dead man hanging on a cross!
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
Alexander, I wasn't saying that doing up that particular church was either vain or a waste of time......I simply said that Notre Dame was gloomy, that's all.
With regard to the church you're on about, I would agree that it is an eyesore that does need doing up, however the company that own it had almost completed its conversion to private apartments when the fire destroyed it. Thus it's not public property that can be done up with public money, nor is it Church property that can be done up with Church money. It's simply private property, and as you're doubtless aware there are plenty of privately owned eyesores in Dover already which the powers that be can do nothing about. Ask any member of the London Road Community Forum, privately owned dumps are their biggest bugbear. So the beautiful old church gets added to the list - sadly, a fact of Dover life.
True friends stab you in the front.
It won't end there Andy, but nice try mate.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Andy, I could cry when I read your posts, sometimes. I wish that Melissa could prove a point with those lights! I did write last Saturday, that I know full well what you just told me, but that this doesn't mean that Dover cannot decide to buy back the sold church from the company that made a mess of this church, and decide to re-instate it into its former functions as church.
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
With whose money?
True friends stab you in the front.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
With port-toll money, Andy!!!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
any money collected in that way would go directly to the government, not to dover.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Not according to my proposal, Howard. It was actually printed in the Dover Mercury, you know! And forms part of a representation sent to London in Feb and has passed the first hurdle and will be presented to the State Secretary for Transport. I received a reply from London informing me as much. In this proposal, Dover would get a part of the tolls, about forty percent for Town and Dtrict together. Kent would get thirty percent, and the State Treasury would get thirty percent.
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
Confused. Why should port toll money be used for doing up a burnt out church instead of being used for regeneration of the Western Docks with the prospect of bringing jobs to the town?
I appreciate your sentiments, Alexander, I really do, but I think you have no hope on this one. On the other hand, if people of the same belief as yourself were to start a trust fund for the restoration of the church, with a properly formed committee and constitution, you could start fund raising activities and approach bodies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund with a view to funding for what would be an eminently worthwhile project. Go for it!
True friends stab you in the front.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
No! I don't believe in lottery funds for churches! Also, a port toll would bring in a very lot of money, could finance the building of another berth in Western Docks in one or two years, and at the same time many other projects, INCLUDING church restoration, Andy! And this alone with Dover's Councils share of the tolls!
And could finance at the same time many other projects, such as building a tunnel beneath Townwall and Snargate Streets to get that traffic out of our sight, so that it passes below!
I've already worked it out. Adding to the existing port-revenues, a toll of 50 pounds on each heavy goods vehicle and five pounds on each car, and something for busses, would be appropriate, not at all too much, but would bring in enough funds to make government budget grants do DDC look like a pittence!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
sounds a great idea alexander from our point of view, doubt if hauliers would go along with it.
50 quid a truck seems rather a lot, would that not force a lot more goods traffic onto rail?
good for the envrironmental viewpoint, not good for dover though.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Howard, at long last! Thank you for at least taking it into consideration!
I'll be back later. Hold on, it will be interesting!
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Well hello! Look, Howard, at the following consideration. British transport firms pay a lot of money every year to transit on European motorways and to transit through Alpine tunnels, as do British tourists going by car (or bus, forthat matter, as busses also pay tolls, which effect ticket prices). I would say that the sum that British people pay on tolls to travel in Europe by road amounts to billions a year! Obviously, all vehicles of whatever nationality pay these tolls, so the sums which these tolls bring in every year to various European countries amounts to tens of billions a year.
I'll just take a break for you to digest the consideration, which I hope you will, as only I have been mentioning it on the Forum for some time now, trying to convince people in Dover of the necessity to ask for port-tolls for British commercial ports.
After a short while, I'll return to continue the calculation.
Please feel free to comment on what thus-far I have written.
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
Alexander
So, let me get this right then: because YOU want a church restored to its former glory, every truck coming through the port has to pay a tax of £50 and every private motor vehicle has to pay £5.00 tax, all because YOU don't approve of lottery funding? Have you stopped to consider that YOUR beliefs are costing everybody else a lot of money, that British hauliers are being driven out of business on an almost daily basis because of the scandalous rates of tax and duty on fuel in this country without you adding to their problems by adding on an extra £50 each time they pass through the port? That all passengers already pay a fee to the DHB included in the price of the ticket? That 10 miles up the road the ferries have severe competition for the cross-channel business?
Ultimately it's the belief that all these considerations should be binned because you want a church done up that I find horribly selfish, that you wouldn't entertain lottery funding for what I assume are religious reasons. Please remember, at the end of the day, it's no longer a church and also that your religion shouldn't be at the expense of evryone else who may not share your beliefs. BTW, these comments come from a committed Christian who simply fails to see your argument as anything other than fundamentally flawed, contra to the interests of the town which has many priorities before restoring an old church, and - above all else - incredibly self-centred.
True friends stab you in the front.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Andy, this time you signed up to your sinister trait, but please, I'll continue explaining to Howard the point of my proposal. However, let me explain, that in my published letter on the Dover Mercury, and in my representation to the Secretary of State for Transport of February, to which I received a nice reply from the Gov. office, I did not mention anything about restoring churches, so you have charged you cavalry too soon, Andy, and you ought to know that without infantry support, cavalry doesn't stand much chance against concentrated fire.
Anyway, Howard. The continuation of the idea is as follows. A lorry pays on a few hundred miles of motorway in Europe a lot, lot more than fifty pounds. Also a car pays much more than five pounds. Also, a lorry transitting through an Alpine tunnel pays much more than fifty pounds, and a car so much more than five pounds. You can check out on internet if you wish, as to what tolls cost, or I might do it myself one day and let you know. So, the idea of imposing 50 pounds and 5 pounds is in no way out of the blue or too much.
It would correspond only partly to European toll-reality.
That 5 pounds will not send any car owner bankrupt I believe we all agree on. That 50 pounds will not send a haullier bankrupt is also no over-statement, as the transport firm can add 50 pounds to the invoice which the importer must pay to the transport firm, and importers of factory equipment or of fruit and veg can definitely afford to pay the extra 50 pounds, so it won't be ultimately at the expense of the haullier.
So, as a heavy goods vehicle carries on average, I do say on average, as the weight does vary, 20.000 kilogrammes of freight, this fifty pounds per truck would add up to quarter of a pence per kilogramme of product, a figure too fractional to even effect the retail price of the transported product, hence it would not damage in any way the economy.
I'll let you consider this, after which I'll return before long with the final phase of the consideration. Please let me know if you believe I am wrong so far, and if so, why the Europeans impose tolls, without being wrong, but at a much higher rate that I am proposing for port-service tolls.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Once the tolls came in, Howard, the money would be shared, as I have already explained, between the two Dover Councils (40 percent), the County Council (30 percent) and the State Treasury(30 percent). This would apply to all British commercial ports.
As the sum going to Dover's Town and District Councils would by far exceed the government support grants to cover the Council budgets, the Councils of Dover (DDC, DTC) wouldn't need to apply for these grants to cover the annual budget, AND would still have a lot more money to spare. So the State would benefit twice, once for receiving a share in the tolls, twice for not having to pay gov. support grants to Dover's Councils, nor to the Councils of any town or city or district in Britain that runs a large commercial port. So, as you can see, Howard, that what people would pay on tolls, would bring about a great saving to the State Treasury, or at least a saving, great or no, and would finance the local budget of port towns and cities. It would be fare, it has naught to do with high-way robbery or the like.
Adding to this, the extra money that Dover's Town and District Councils would have, could be used to build a new berth at Western Docks, carry out other works at Western Docks and along the promenade, build a tunnel beneath Townwall and Snargate Streets to have the traffic under the ground, and so, so much more in Dover and District. Large and small projects! And this would create work, too, Howard, meaning that the State would pay less unemployment and housing benefit, and that more people could have more to spend. The idea of repairing or rebuilding a church was just my personal proposal, and this would have only taken up a very small amount of a port-toll budget.
Howard, if you agree or don't, please spare the kind of hysteria that Andy unleashed with his left-handed approach, as I too am only limited, and only want to do good to Dover!
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
Alexander
Your ramblings are usually difficult to fathom, but you have done me with a doosra this time, and no mistake. If, as you state in post #58, you made no mention of doing up churches, what exactly does "....but that this doesn't mean that Dover cannot decide to buy back the sold church from the company that made a mess of this church, and decide to re-instate it into its former functions as church..." (post #47) mean then?
Sorry to obtuse and all that. Hysteria? How exactly? I'm just trying to point out to you that your ideas are flawed, that's all.
True friends stab you in the front.
