Ok , no problem ,
It really is getting a bit bizarre and hysterical, with so many emotive words and mis-directions that it is becoming farcical.
Here's a thought: let's get all the facts and look at them. Then we can make an informed choice.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Bern, if you follow Lorraine's posts, you will see that exactly that what you ask for is happening:
we are getting all the facts through. As a result, we have the possibility to view the topic from all sides.
I would also add the following:
Unless I misunderstood, and I'm sure someone will correct me here if this be the case, China Gateway International (CGI) depend on a loan from the Bank of Israel, or from an Israeli bank at any rate, in order to purchase property on Western Heights and at Farthingloe, and to then build houses.
If this is so, then CGI will try to get as much money back as possible from potential house-buyers in order to repay the loan with the interest to Israel, as well as to make their own speculative gain.
This is the main cause of land property being snapped up cheap, and then flogged off with new houses on it for a much higher cost.
In such cases where developers receive a loan, they tend to go for the highest possible profit in order to repay the loan and make their own profits.
The result is as we know: life-time mortgages for the house-buyers, and often failure to pay the monthly rate.
Now to imagine that CGI would find the many millions to invest in maintaining Napoleonic defences is hard to imagine.
I think Paul Scotchie might find this whole scheme is unworkable, and that it would, if it went ahead, lead to many tears being shed: by future home-buyers purchasing at rip-off prices, by people wishing to enjoy the Heights only to find them cemented up, by people who believed in promises to maintain the W.H. military structures, only to find that these promises were impossible to keep.
But then it would be too late!
Also, the idea that all this would bring in massive cash revenues to local shops is a fallacy.
It would just take one new shop, such as Londis (medium size supermarket) to open somewhere near Farthingloe, and the whole advantage would be gone.
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
I now know how naive you are Alexander regarding business if you thought that CGI would not be borrowing from a bank. That is how all business works by borrowing and passing the costs onto the customer be it a multi national company or a corner shop.
A shop like Londis employ staff who would spend some of their wages in the town as does my daughter who works in Morrisons.
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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 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Sometime I feel Alexander you just can't get a grip of what people explain to you, and I won't go into it again as no-one else has a problem with how the Heights ideas COULD fit into the grand scheme of things with the rest of the towns regenerations, how lottery match finding works, how much work is involved, etc, etc. Perhaps you don't want to understand??
As Jan says you will find that the vast majority of building projects are from borrowed money and I can't see why you think CGI are any different ??
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 685- Registered: 5 May 2009
- Posts: 85
Alexander's understanding of my postings is spot on and I totally endorse what he has to say above (#483)
Lorraine
Great - I understand that he supports what you say (I think), or you believe that he does. However, that does not imply that you are simply relaying facts, as he suggests. The emotive tones used do not help the sifting of information and the gathering of actual facts, in order to make a real judgement about proposals. It also doesn't mean that Alex understands all the practical financial and negotiating issues that would underpin ANY proposals and projects.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Bern, I run my own business.
Knowledge on how finances work, even for self-employment, is in itself the basis for knowledge on how big-time business works.
Oh, getting a loan! Now let me explain, Jan, and Bern.
I have no personal debt, have a good history of paying my rent, have a good history of full-time employment since my business opened.
Have future contracts for the coming months.
But something tells me that, if I asked for a decent 9 APR loan (9 annual percentage rate), repayable over 3-5 years, someone would look down their nose at me, as these UK cash institutions are known to sit on their cash and only lend to people who have a whopping income, or a house as collateral.
I also know how private firms operating expensive vehicles and employed workers do their finances. Any such firms working on Western Heights to repair old military installations would ask for a small fortune, and probably increase their bill as the work went along.
(They often do this: increase the bill as work goes on, so that it is even double than the original estimation).
It may in fact cost more to repair delicate walls and masonry such as is on WH, than to build the whole lot anew. Yes, it is often cheaper to build a new building than to repair an old one in need of particular attentions.
Of-course CGI would never be able to keep any promise they might give to Paul and DDC on finding firms who would require millions of pounds (15million, 20 million?), to carry out that which Paul hopes for.
If they did, they would have to build 1,000 villas and sell them for £500,000 each, and each villa would need have a large garden too.
I know more about these kinds of finances, promises, and broken promises, than you might like to believe. And once a developer declares insolvency after reaping in a profit, you can sing to the birds for whatever contract they might have previously signed, because by then the Law exonerates them from any further obligations.
If you wished, Jan, and Bern, I could write a book on finances, with many examples of real facts, and you'd be amazed.
Just take one example: whenever the Government makes an arms contract with a British firm, they (we the tax-payers) just about always end up spending double the original agreed price.
The two aircraft carriers presently commissioned by the Government for the Navy already cost about double than what BAE originally promised. One has not even been started, the other is supposed to be mothballed as soon as it enters service.
Unfortunately the Government was advised that to stop the contract would have cost even more money on "compensation" to the constructors, because the contract was signed.
Because the Treasury cannot go into insolvency.
So IF Paul and DDC end up signing a contract to developers, and then discover that it was not as rosy as they had thought, by then it may be too late to undo the damage.
The houses would HAVE to be built, with gardens etc., because DDC cannot go into insolvency, being a Council.
But IF CGI then went into insolvency, they would have no problem being exempt from any further commitments, such as doing up all these miles of facilities on the Heights.
Or they would just do a slap-dash job that could have been done for £500,000 by a brick-layer.
I'm not sure Paul knows what he's getting himself into here with these financial projects.
Guest 703- Registered: 30 Jul 2010
- Posts: 2,096
I think it was at least a couple of weeks ago I stopped posting on this thread, then I saw the notice re the initial planning application in the Express this week but it's not online yet as far as I know, so I just popped in to have a look at what was going on -
Groundhog Day!!!
Guest 685- Registered: 5 May 2009
- Posts: 85
Emotive TONES, Bernie, an interesting statement ... used to try to decry a persons view that it differs from the person who makes the statement. In my teaching days, I would hear students making such remarks about other students, and would have responded by asking them to explain precisely what character of sound is emotive in what has been, in this case, written.
Paul, I regularly have my local history articles published in the Dover Mercury over which I do receive a good deal of positive feedback. Tonight, I have received an e-mail congratulating me on my latest article - Norwegian Navy in Dover WWII. I say this, as I am still bemused as to why you brought up the once proposed war memorial project on Western Heights - that is not part of the CGI proposals?
Finally, Bernie, I am very interested in the details of the practical financial and negotiating issues appertaining to CGI and their proposals, that you refer to in your posting - can you please explain.
Lorraine
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Lorraine - I brought the memorial up as I am interested in views from people, it isn't CGI but it is still related to the general proposals for the Heights.
Alexander - I have worked in the financial world for 20 years or so and dealt with budgets of many many millions !!!!! You ?? We can all quote what we know from the news that is in the public domain !!
As I have said many times before......
-NOTHING will happen without detailed financial and business plans in place which on the part of CGI will be visible once they submit their application
-NOTHING will happen without CGI providing up front money to pay for the infrastructure requirements etc (section 106 money)
-CGI WON'T be managing the restoration of the Heritage - this will be up to the body that will take the CGI money and source the work. This will be a charitable body that can source funding and employe people and probably apprentices
-CGI WON'T fund the whole restoration project. It will be down to the charitable group to seek additional match funding and to build their business case for future running costs, to build a long term sustainable project that will protect the heritage for decades to come.
For some reason you think that DDC (and other landholders) will just sign a contract with CGI and run away rubbing their hands together as they will get a bit more council tax!!!
It is a long term project where a lot of groundwork will need to be carried out, probably over several years before the first sod is turned.
I will repeat myself no more - feel free Alexander to mis-quote what I have said like you do so well
I'll sit back now and await the CGI Planning Application as once it is out there, I will probably have heck of a lot of work to do..... !!!
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Usually, Paul, the bank making the loan will also want to see the plans for which the loan is requested. Will the Israeli bank also be sending a representative to the talks?
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
Nothing you write would ever amaze me Alexander.
Lorraine, who is Bernie?
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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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Groundhog day indeed.
Guest 685- Registered: 5 May 2009
- Posts: 85
First, full apologies for putting the 'ie' on the end of Bern, albeit, I had hoped by this morning at least a plagiarised version from the various CGI company reports and PR statements giving some details of 'the practical financial and negotiating issues' that you implied you knew about in yesterday's posting (#487).
After all you Bern, and others, have been quick to take pot shots at the empirical evidence that both Lara and I have presented to the Forum:
Gleaned from the said in the CGI company reports,
Questions asked of CGI representatives and DDC Planning Office,
Dover District Council's Local Development Framework (LDF)
and other sources - all of which are in the public domain.
Paul, on the other hand, has made an argument - be that it amounts to 'wait and see'. The reality, of the 'wait and see' philosophy is that when the final application goes in it will be too late for discussion, compromise etc. etc. - the point I made yesterday over democracy/autocracy...
In Dover, we are blighted by a quasi-autocracy that cares little for the town and even less for its residents (except, of course, cronies and sycophants). Therefore, Paul, how can one honestly have faith in a set of councillors who endorsed, to quote from one e-mail that I received this morning:
"The fiasco that is the DTIZ and the cheap and nasty Motel (with accompanying LED billboard signage) that have been granted approval leaves little hope. I did object to this new scare that has been passed and pointed out the bright yellow scare of Astor College/School/Academy that was built and still offends the eye from the Castle view (another planning error) but to no avail."
Lorraine
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
#492 - yes of course Alexander, just the same as I took the Natwest bank manager out for a drive in my car when he approved my loan
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
What must be clear, is that once DDC sign away Western Heights and Farthingloe, it is too late!
Ross already pointed out on the Forum last year that it is too late to stop the Whitfield development planning, because compensation would need be paid to the developers, as DDC have signed everything away.
DDC public consultation on Whitfield was to say: 6,000 houses or 6,000 houses, not one brick less. Personally I think that they did not abide to standing regulations on this matter, and among other things, DDC ignored my representation, which was made at the time within the legal time limit required by the Law.
Paul W.s justification for the Whitfield planning decision was that DDC are elected, and so already have public approval to plan whatever they want, when they want.
We must realise that if we do not protest now against development on Western Heights and Farthingloe, they will sign it away, and then there will be nothing we can do about it.
As already mentioned, the vast majority of people in Dover are unaware of these development plans, and do not realise what possibilities the Law allows us to prevent them coming into effect, providing we act in time.
Again, as Lorraine has mentioned previously, these areas are of national interest too, being a National Heritage, and so we have the possibility to gather support from all over the Country to block these development plans before it is too late.
Paul: a bank giving a loan does want to know how the money is to be spent, and I believe that anyone informing the Israeli bank, which also has an office in London, to put their case over and explain the facts to them, has a good chance of preventing the urbanisation of Western Heights and Farthingloe.
The bank's name is somewhere on this thread, I believe.
When the Whitfield project was still in the consultation phase, I had written to a local UKIP chairman to propose contacting the developers, but he ignored it, and waffled something...
I hope Lorraine and Lara realise that we are still in time to do many things to influence any decision by developers, and banks giving loans, to urbanise protected areas.
And we would be wrong to just shy away from doing it.
The more people send their opinion in to developers and banks giving loans for urbanisation of green areas, the more likely it is to make these institutions think carefully about what they are doing. Because they become unnerved. But it is essential that as many people as possible send in their opinions.
I have already written to the Israeli bank, but one person is only one person.
By remaining silent and waiting, we are handing over everything which is ours to enjoy, to developers.
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Excuse me whilst I pick myself off the floor after laughing myself off of the chair..... do you not think that CGI had to do a fair bit of work to secure funding ????
Been nice knowing you :)
Guest 750- Registered: 12 Apr 2012
- Posts: 72
New plans imminent - can't wait - on a slightly different note, was handed a bible yesterday that was used by The Garrison Church and signed by someone in the 1940's if anyone would like a look or suggest where it should be kept.
No-one has emailed me to join in with the meeting on the 7th, Alexander you are welcome to attend as is anyone else.
Guest 651- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 5,673
Sorry Lara - just trying to see if anyone is available for 7th, we have a very busy weekend ahead with the Tattoo and and associated preparations !!
Phil is our WW2 man so he would probably be interested
Been nice knowing you :)
