Reginald Barrington wrote:
'On the far right' indeed. Cheeky sod!
Apparently complaints have been made to DDC about Paul W and Frost making light of the 'Reopen the Regent group on social media! Where could this possibly have happened? Anyone care? First word rhymes with duck, second word is off - IMHO. You may quote me - I NEVER say anything on social media I won't say in real life. Next .....
The outcome(s) from my brief notes was that scrutiny called for:-
1) Investigation if owners have been paying 'correct' business rates as allegedly using Regent for office use (unfortunately IF accepted payment for use as office DDC would have 'allowed' property to be used outside restrictions of sale so would have difficulty in future holding owners to said restrictions. Own goal. Doh!)
2) Ask owners to give access to public so they can build up business plan to make case for compulsory purchase (No powers to force owners to do this. Same happened with pub at Ash where interested parties were refused access)
3) Find out financial position of owners (No more power to do this than DDC has to access my bank account for example)
5) Ask owners to genuinely engage with interested parties at a meeting (No power to get anyone to appear anywhere. You can't even force someone to appear before a H of C Select Committee never mind about a meeting organised by DDC! See NHS not turning up for Tuesday's scruitiny.)
6) Look into possible action for compulsory purchase. Cost, feasibility + likelihood of sucess (I've personally talked to Soliictor to Council about this course of action. Cost over £100,000, can take years - see DTIZ - and in his view little chance of success since NO mention of Deal providing places of entertainment in Local Plan + normally only granted when overwhelmingly in public interest e.g. HS2 diverted through Deal)
7) Free unicorns for all (I made this up but it's much more likely than 1 - 6 above)
8) To add to the madness T Bond asked for council staff (paid by you) to immediately begin looking for parties who might like to take over Regent after CPO and investigate 'business plan'! This is BEFORE councillors get reality check (see 6 above). Perhaps he might like to pay for this fools errand out of his recent 15% pay rise?
All passed. Manion + Frost voting against 8.
Interesting evening enlivened by non specific allegations from the floor of Masonic influence (I jest not!) and back-handers.
Mystic Meg's views vindicated 100% (see #42 above)
"The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it".
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
