Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Thanks to the people so far on the poll
The question is would you "consider" allowing any developments
I am a "consider it" person as I want to see all options and then make an informed decision (as I say I could possibily fighting for OR against any parties involved when I get the full details), I am not on the well and truely don't allow anything side.
Hopefully that is a reasonable explanation of my straw-poll.
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Re #236
Alexander - you need to understand the construction of the Heights which isn't obvious 'from the ground'
Taking the Drop Redoubt for example, the fort isn't a solid lump of chalk with walls around it.
They dug the moats and took the excavated materials and built up the ground level inside the fort, therefore natural (and solid chalk) ground level is within the fort with the walls holding back huge amounts of compacted spoil so the brickwork is vital to the structural integrity of the moats (which is why the foundations of the Pharos are so deep inside)
This pattern is repeated all around Folkestone Road side of the sites as there is hardly a natural ground level anywhere, in fact when they likely lopped off the top of the hill to create the flat plateau they probably took the village of Braddon with it and it now forms the remparts above Clarendon
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Paul, you mentioned a cost for repairs on the Western Heights sites of £20 million pounds.
You implied this does not include the cost of a mega war-memorial on the same Heights and of a massive car park "somewhere outside Dover".
You do not state how long it would take before the next £20 million is needed again for more repairs, after 10 years or so.
If we followed your advice, we would become bankrupt town No1 in Britain.
In North Camp, where I lived, the Army didn't go about repairing old houses, they just knocked them down and built new ones.
Western Heights is full of disused military installations. These cannot be repaired other than at great cost.
In terms of costs, what you want to do would be the equivalent, in the olden days, to building a town wall around a major town. These are ex-military defences, Paul, they are too costly to maintain, and any developer would require enormous returns by way of building-rights for doing even superficial work on them.
Our Country is bust, we're being damned to financial deprivation, and when people here in Dover talk of regeneration, they hardly mean miles of old military underground moats and tunnels.
We already have the DTIZ area to regenerate, we have maintenance works at the Castle when required, there is the question of T2, Eastern Docks needs maintaining every so often... WHERE IS ALL THE MONEY???
Our unemployment rate here in East Kent is on the rampage!
Many people can't keep up with the rent or the mortgage, and are on payday loans.
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,707
Ah there you go again conflating a number of disparate issues into a single homogeneous post that uses many words but actually conveys little that is genuinely constructive
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
In short you want it all to fall down! As I said thanks for your views
Been nice knowing you :)
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,895
What is the saying that goes something like this.
There are those that do and those that talk.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 750- Registered: 12 Apr 2012
- Posts: 72
Catching up on the thread - first of all no pang of guilt for starting this thread - though slightly perturbed by comments thrashing about between individuals.
The reason for my original letter comes from a deep seated love of the Heights as a whole, this is the Redoubt area, Military Hill area, the back of the Citadel, pretending to be a princess in the Knights Templar Church and that during a possibly misspent youth crawling through tunnels and the odd snog in a bunker and helped me to develop my own personal love of history and archaeology.
I am sure that I would even say to Paul aka Scotchie that we share the same passion for the historical importance of the Heights, almost two sides of the same coin but with differing outcomes.
Yes the Heights should be preserved but as they are once this area has started to be built upon it will end up just another area of Dover that will need supporting. It will loose the mystiscm that it eludes too.
My view is not NIMBYism as I no longer live up there, and I believe that there could be better investments made, my view is simply to preserve an area of Dover that is in danger of becoming lost forever to those that appreciate the beauty of green and pleasant pastures and are able to see albeit briefly into a past that just tickles the imagination, something my dad fought for and I will too.
I will happily do more for this than just post comments and replies, I will help and assist the WHPS in any capacity, I will speak to any interested party as I did recently at Dover Society, I am indeed saving my energy for the possibility of the major fight ahead, but for me, I need to reiterate that there is more to the Western Heights, The Village of Braddon, than the Redoubt and Grand Shaft area.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Paul, you have been given on this thread my point of view, that funding be applied for that would enable a contract on the part of a preservation-related organisation to employ workers for preserving the Western Heights ex-military structural deposits.
I noted that, if a worker received £25,000 a year, 40 workers would cost £1 million.
If a general repairs mission were to last 2 years, that would be £2 million.
Add a few hundred thousand pounds for materials such as scaffolding and transport.
Once the general repairs are done, a few workers could still be employed full time for grass-cutting etc.
As you reject this, you then conclude that my proposal is to let it all fall down.
Anyone reading my previous comments on this thread will see you have proven yourself wrong on this conclusion.
Paul, if someone has different views to yours, does this give you the capacity to sum their views up in a totally opposite manner?
You have already proven yourself wrong in your judgments a few times on this thread, by simple giving a wrong interpretation of someone else's views and proposals.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Ross, it was in fact Paul Scotchie who conflated a number of disparate issues, making reference to developing Western Heights with housing and a mega war-memorial, plus a hotel, in order to bring money into Dover's shops and hotels and to create some sort of tourist attraction link for the whole of Dover.
See post 90 as a reference.
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
Alexander D, having worked in construction I would dearly love to know where you are going to get experienced stonemasons and heritage workers capable of doing the work for only 25k a year. On materials you would be lucky to get scaffolding for a year, sufficient to do the job, for a 'few hundred thousand' let alone the cost of materials and the transporting of them to a site devoid of roads capable of taking heavy goods vehicles. I am sure the reason your figures were ignored was simply because they do not add up to anything like 2012 costs.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Ok Alexander - I give in and bow to your expert knowledge, I am talking utter rubbish and everything you say is right
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
When dealing with an area as vast as the Western Heights that is so tied in with Dover as a whole it is difficult to treat any one part as separate from the whole. Planning regulations require a certain amount of money from developers for 'community' projects. As Paul rightly says, the WHPS is in a good position to be able to access this for the benefit of the heights. A large project such as the proposed National War Memorial (on a site once home to many of the fallen) would employ skilled stone masons etc. who could in turn offer apprenticeships giving work to local youth and giving them skills that can carry them on. More money coming into the town would mean more businesses surviving and through them more money to spend on local infrastructure (such as road improvements).
At one time the Home Office and the MoD have demolished, filled in and built on various parts of the heights with no consultation whatsoever. The current proposals are going through a lot of consultation. Before we get too carried away let us not forget that there are already houses built over old tunnels in the citadel area, I hope nobody is suggesting they be demolished.
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Paul, I have not made that proposal as "expert knowledge", the only expertise mentioned by me on this thread was that it is simple to paint metal, such as doors, and quite straight forward when coming to cutting grass or unwanted bushes.
I do agree here that cutting grass or bushes that grow up a steep wall is not so simple, but surely the proposal of a £25,000 a year wage per person to have that done professionally is not an out-of-the world remark.
The same applies to masons repairing walls.
As for expert knowledge, I have already advised you to seek this, from one or more independent experts who are not set to gain financially on works carried out on Western Heights, rather than to seek the advice of developers.
I have NOT suggested being such an expert from whom to seek advice on your proposals to regenerate Dover (bringing in money to shops, restaurants, hotels etc.).
You evidently are on a mission to regenerate Dover by bringing in enormous wealth to local retailers and catering businesses. As said, this needs expert advice. I am NOT the person from whom to seek it.
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
I don't think I really need to state my thoughts as they are straight forward and don't contradict themselves endlessly !!
I am not saying the ideas currently previously laid out are perfect in fact (personal views not WHPS):
- I have never been a major fan of the memorial (or memorials in general, as you can see i haven't bigged it up at all in my posts) especially the original design in the Redoubt, but I am quickly coming round to it (sorry John
)
- I detest the glass elevator idea and would seriously fight it !!
- I don't like the cable cars that DDC/EH like, but I favour the concept of an integrated transports system around the various 'attractions'
- I really don't like the current CGI house design and layout but it is improving and I would want it to improve life for the residents and I am sure it can be done right
- I don't want to see the Heights scalped of trees as it isn't designed that way but there is a balance of nature/heritage protection
It may surprise you Alexander but I agree with your back of fag packet number (ish).... as I have said before the aim would be to employ skilled labourers, local people, apprentices and landscapers for an initial project period and for ongoing maintenance of the sites with people to run the attractions. Long term employment for the people of Dover.
What you fail to give when asked is how do you achieve such funding as 'just asking' isn't going to happen as no-one or body is going to give it without any major benefits to show (just look how difficult any 'small' lottery grant is to achieve) . The current proposals COULD be the key to opening up these funding routes.
Over to you......
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Chris, comparing posts 250 and 252. you write here and there that £25,000 a year is not enough for an experienced stone mason, and at the same time that apprenticeships would need be included in the proposed development scheme.
Do you think an apprentice would receive anything near £25,000 a year?
More like £6 an hour mate!
However, an apprentice can also be offered something under £3 an hour, if they are young enough. I assume this is what you are trying to tell us all, that we should leave it to the developers, and that I am messing up their little business plans to rake in an enormous profit somewhere.
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Alexander - just to add to your reply I am not taking any advice from anyone or certainly listening to 'advice' from developers and I don't know why you think I am.
I have a background in finance, I take a interest in major heritage projects and I work in a local authority so know how they 'work'
I have a brain and when it comes to the stage of needing expert guidance (and there will be a time) it will be taken......
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Paul, if you need local signatures to ask for a funding that avoids developers, mine is ready and waiting. Who to ask is a good question, perhaps KCC might have an idea.
There may be some Government offices that can give advice, ideally DDC could be able to give some ideas on this.
I really do not know who would provide the funding, but perhaps the idea of local job-creation to get the former military sites - which it seems might come under heritage - in a state of preservation, could be an important link in obtaining a fund.
If you can prove that there is work for X people for X number of months/years, then you may have a card in your hands. When making the request, I would advise (but this is my personal advice) not mentioning local retailers etc. in Dover, or making any links to other attraction sites, as this could deflect from the original request.
A big-time war memorial would hardly bring in an economic return, so I'd avoid mentioning that too, and this would also avoid the question arising about increased traffic passing through Dover to get there and the expense of a mega car park somewhere.
Just keep to the essential, mention it is some sort of heritage, and that to bring it up to scratch would create local employment.
And if you put in a good word for trees that are not encroaching on the battlements, this might earn you the support of the green-minded preservationists too.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
I don't like the cable cars for several reasons.
- they won't work properly in high winds
- they are unsightly things
- they will bypass the town centre
- they are a very expensive solution.
I prefer a system of glassed escalators similar to the one at Ocean Park in Hongkong. They can link the town centre with the castle and western heights far more cheaply than the cable car system.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Sorry I don't really need financial advice thanks, I am quite capable of that and have done plenty of applications in the past
You still fail to realise how grant funding works - it is a multi-million pound project to get something of the scale of the Western Heights off of the ground. 'We' would need to provide a huge amount of match funding (can vary 15-25% of the grant) to get any chance of getting such a grant so we could need to find in the region of £500k-£1m for starters and prove that you can create a future funding stream to safeguard the heritage on an ongoing basis.
And the money comes from.... ???
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 675- Registered: 30 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,610
Alex D. Post 250 talks about restoration work, post 252 talks about the proposed National War Memorial (two different projects).
A National War Memorial would attract visitors, visitors inevitably spend money, Dover needs money. An average used by the tourism industry is that visitors spend on average £50 a time (I know I have never taken my children anywhere and got away with less).
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.
Richard Armour