By Jane Wenham-Jones

​ANOTHER captivating press release from Thanet council.  Apparently, nearly 400 people have taken part in a  budget consultation, called “Your district, YOU decide!”, which asked how they would prioritise services. What came out tops is no surprise –  waste and recycling, street cleaning and economic development and regeneration. What I would like to know, however, is how much this “consultation” cost. Because not only could the council have worked out the answers for themselves simply by reading the letters pages of this newspaper but, despite the results being the same for the second year running, they’re still not listening. 

Asked about the importance of services that the council does not legally have to provide, economic  development and regeneration headed the list, closely followed by parks, open spaces and recreation and sports facilities. Councillor Martin Wise, cabinet member for finance and corporate service – who, I must say, I have always found to be a jolly nice chap with his heart in entirely the right place –  called these results “really useful” and claimed they would “help to shape our budget plans over the next few years”. Hmm.

So could someone please explain to me why the council have spent our money hiring a barrister to fight the good people of HOOT (Hands Off Our Tennis Courts) who are simply trying to preserve one of those open spaces and sports facilities that the council have been told very clearly we want them to maintain? It smacks to me of our illustrious representatives, once again, paying lip service to the consultation process – as we’ve seen before over the sale of public assets, and then going their own sweet way anyhow. For anyone not familiar with this latest outrage, the council want to flog off the tennis courts in Montefiore Avenue in Ramsgate (courts, I might add, that were very busy all last summer, something I can vouch for personally) and sell the land for (yes – you’ve guessed it) yet more housing we don’t need (regeneration does not mean endless flats on the market). HOOT have, rather intelligently, countered this with an application  to Kent County Council to register the tennis courts and adjoining land as a “village green” which would save it from development and retain it for the benefit of local residents. 

One of the HOOT members, Mike Matthews, has prepared the case and is presenting it and carrying out his own cross-examinations, despite having no legal training. Thanet council, on the other hand, have hired an experienced barrister (and we all know they don’t come cheap), to cross-examine the elderly witnesses called to testify how the amenity has been used for the last 20 years. This cross-examination that continued to what Alan Poole, the ward councillor, describes as “the point of confusion” and was, he says, more akin to an interrogation.

As a lay person, I am not up on the technicalities but can only say, in my own unscientific way, that I think it all stinks. I am furious that Thanet council dares use my council tax like this and cynical of any outcome dependent on the Tory-controlled Kent County Council going against the wishes of the Tory-controlled Thanet council.

I do trust there’s an appeals process. But what makes me even more incandescent is the pretence that what we think matters. Time and time again protesters have made it clear that we want our trees and greenery, our leisure facilities and open spaces and still the council is hell-bent on sacrificing all that to get some cash in the coffers.

So, dear Thanet council, may I suggest that you economise first by abandoning “consultation”. Save on the man-hours, the paper, the webmaster’s time. Because there’s little point in asking any of us what we think when you don’t take a damn bit of notice.