Ramsgate Matters Spring 2020
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Ramsgate Matters The Bi-Annual Journal of The Ramsgate Society Spring 2020 Contents P2 Across the Chairman’s Desk P3 A Crisis of Affordability P4 Glass to the Rescue P5 Who am I ? by Terry Prue P6 Iconic Rock Gardens P8 Manston P9 Conservation Across the P10 Spectacular Tiles Chairman’s Desk P12 Talks P14 Radford House CITiZAN P15 The Granville P16 Splendour in St George’s P17 Who I am P18 Diary Notes At the start of 2020, climate catastrophe, drought, deluge, P19 New Members, In Memoriam food, fames and extremes dominated the news. Ramsgate Credits, Committee, Subscriptions Matters set out to offer some reasons to be cheerful. Last autumn we looked at the value of Allotments. The series continues with Chairman John Walker writing on current Land and Property values. His views closely match those of John Stuart Mill in 1885 and Winston Churchill in 1919. It is clear that even when solutions have long been evident, implementation may take time. Professor Jan Pahl of the Canterbury Society and the University of Kent writes on a growing funding crisis for local authorities later this year. Ramsgate Heritage Action Zone advances on many fronts including the High Street, Central Harbour Ward and a new project, Pulhamite and Promenade. Spring will bring Geraint Franklin’s book, Ramsgate, the town and its Seaside Heritage’ part of Historic England’s Informed Conservation series. The Society is about to celebrate its 40th year as a member of Civic Voice. A decade ago, South Thanet MP Laura Sandys and new society committee member John Walker held a litter pick and collected an outstanding two tons of litter. Today that amount would be harder to find as the Society and other voluntary groups hold regular litter picks. Social media is changing how we communicate. Readers with e-mail will have received an electronic News Letter. It is the responsibility of new Committee Member Samara Jones-Hall, who has been extremely active on the DCO campaign. The e-mail can immediately inform correct and complement in ways beyond a bi-annual publication. As organisations in Thanet expand and multiply, new creative businesses, exhibitions, workshops, classes and educational initiatives emerge to change Ramsgate and The Ramsgate Society hopefully join the Society in recognising the Town’s unique Registered Charity No.1138809 artistic inheritance, historic significance and potential. 2 This edition is the first to have every cover image and many sites. Matters welcomes your views, ideas, produced by one hand, that of Frank Leppard, who suggestions and potential contributions. we thank, and whose work may be seen on FaceBook A Crisis of Affordability by John Walker “Land is limited in quantity while the demand for it, in a prosperous country, is constantly increasing. The rent, therefore, and the price, which depends on the rent, progressively rises, not through the exertion or expenditure of the owner, to which we should not object, but by the mere growth of wealth and population. The incomes of landowners are rising while they are sleeping, through the general prosperity produced by the labour and outlay of other people.” John Stuart Mill, 1871 There is a strong consensus that we need to build more homes to house our growing population and to cope with the changing demographics. These homes need to be built in quantity, at prices people can afford to buy or rent, and in areas where the need for housing is greatest. On each of these measures the house building industry, the planning system, and the land owners are failing to deliver. Between 1997 and 2016 house prices in England rose by 259% while average earnings increased by just 68%. In 1997 the average home was 3.6 times average earnings whilst by 2016 this had risen to 7.6%. (ONS 17th March 2017). When land is allocated for residential development in a Local Plan, its value increases almost overnight from say £10,000 an acre for agricultural land in the South East of England to over £1million per acre. Land with planning permission is a scarce commodity and developers will outbid each other to buy it. The land cost of the average new home is a third or more of the final selling price of the house: before a brick has been laid or any infrastructure provided, the selling price of the house is far beyond the reach of most ordinary people. Under the present system the land owner can walk away with a fortune, whilst the social costs of providing all the services required are simply “outsourced” to the local community or to society at large. Attempts to rebalance the system by capturing some of this increase in value for the communities that granted the planning permission have invariably failed. The response of landowners has generally been to withhold land from the market and await a more favourable tax regime. At Edinburgh in 1909, Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for Trade, said: “I do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land is morally worse than anyone else who gathers his profit where he finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. It is not the individual I attack; it is the system. It is not the man who is bad; it is the law which is bad.” The time is long overdue to address the underlying issues and introduce a system whereby local authorities would not only grant planning permission but also compulsorily acquire land for development at land values that would enable affordable housing and community infrastructure to be provided. 3 Whilst Local Plans have a key role to play in identifying the need for social housing they have only limited powers to ensure delivery. This is usually secured by the imposition of planning conditions or Section 106 Agreements in relation to the number of social houses to be provided by developers. These conditions are often subsequently reduced or bypassed completely because developers argue that the cost of meeting them, on top of the high cost of purchasing the land, could make their developments financially unviable. A new approach would require the repeal of the Land Compensation Act 1961 and its replacement with legislation that allows for more equitable compensation. The landowner would still receive many times the value of his land before planning permission was granted but not the excessive amounts that are currently achieved in the so called “open market”. Any mechanism for compensation would need to ensure a reasonable balance between the landowner and the local community but finding this balance would restore public confidence in the planning system. Recommendations: 1. Both Central and Local Government need to respond to the crisis of affordability with a more radical approach to the underlying problem of high land prices. This should include the reform of the Land Compensation Act 1961, which enshrines the right to receive “hope value” - that arising from the hope of future development- in addition to any current use value at the time compulsory purchase takes place. 2. A major overhaul of the planning system is required to ensure communities, not developers, decide what is built in their areas and local authorities have the powers and resources to deliver the affordable housing their communities need. John Walker The Ramsgate Society presentswelcomes three yourtalks views, about ideas, suggestions voluntary and potential and community organisationscontributions. supporting . Ramsgate Doors open 7pm for 7.30 start March 19 at Royal Temple Yacht Club Jenny Dawes, Chair of Ramsgate Coastal Community Team, on `Interconnectedness’ — with particular reference to the voluntary sector in Ramsgate April 16 at Royal Temple Yacht Club Rob Kenyon, Chair of Heritage Lab CIC, on their progress towards turning parts of Granville House into a thriving creative hub and a world class event space May 21 at The Oak Hotel, Harbour Parade Geraint Franklin, Architectural Historian at English Heritage, and author of soon-to-be published `Ramsgate – the Town and its Seaside Heritage’ 4 Ramsgate Glass to the Rescue Many readers will be aware that in 2012 the Society local enterprise with a real sense of being part of the took on the renovation of the 14 Ramsgate Promenade community. Shelters at a cost of some £540,000. Since then regular For Society members who regularly volunteer to clean, incidents of vandalism, mainly glass panels being redecorate and fund repairs to the shelters, this was a broken, have cost over £9,000. The Society funded this really welcome boost. in the belief that a few ant-social individuals should not be able to spoil the enjoyment of the large number of So, many thanks to Kevin Cox and all at Ramsgate Glass residents and visitors who enjoy the use of the shelters for a positive example of civic pride. all the year. Last year saw a particularly bad series of breakages, especially on the East Cliff. The damage was reported to Kevin Cox at Ramsgate Glass, who being aware of the Society’s commitment offered to replace the glass free of charge as a contribution to the local community. The only condition, not an irksome one, was that it would be done when the firm, which undertakes emergency work, was not under pressure and when the weather was favourable. Before the New Year they were able to re-glaze all the East Cliff Shelters and repair of the shelters in Nelson Crescent. The Company has been established in Ramsgate since 1965. As a well-known family-owned business with a strong sense of belonging to the Town, many of the employees are local and feel they would like to “put something back into Ramsgate.” It is an excellent example of a Who am I and what’s my connection with Ramsgate? Can you guess the author of this quote? Turn to page 17 for the answer ? “‘One of the matches between Mick McManus and myself drew a bigger (TV) audience than the Cup Final.