‘Unprecedented’ cost increases impacting £51 million Margate Town Deal, Ramsgate Levelling Up and High Street fund projects

64 Comments

1. What has leaving the EU and the Ukraine war got to do with costs of materials we have plenty of suppliers here in the UK.

   • Nothing.
     But it’s an easy excuse for politicians at every level and of every stripe.
     I wonder if there are any large, private infrastructure projects of national importance near by that will suffer cost increases of 20-30%?

     • Quite so.
       A trifling £500,000,000 (to pluck a random figure) becomes a mind-boggling £650,000,000.

   • The left would rather blame those than more likely things such the huge increase in illegal immigration, or the obesity epidemic impacting our society.

     • I noticed that Grant Shappss (on the right, surely) blamed Covid and the Ukranian war for cost overruns with HS2.

       • If Starmer is supposedly a Tory in disquise, then surely it works both ways?

       • Surely you mean Michael Green, Sebastian Fox and Corinne Stockheath?

         • Never heard of ’em.

     • I would rather blame the 9 odd billion that the Tories wasted on useless PPE thanks to giving the deals to their useless cronies/friends/donors like Baroness Boobies. The Tories that gave a huge ferry deal to a company with no experience of running ferries, that had no ferries & who stole their T&C from a takeaway website etc.

       The huge immigration increase has to do with the Tories having no will to protect the border properly-strange the tv stations always know where they are setting off, but the government are clueless & their inability to process claims & then come out with stupid gimmicks like Rwanda-which would cost more & a barge that holds less than often arrive on one given day.

       Obesity could again be reduced by a government who had the balls to get the food industry in line, but as shown over & over the Tories are in bed with them-so tough talk always ends up being very lightweight regulation or nothing.

       • Obesity is entirely to do with lazy and greedy people and nothing to do with the government.

         • That is a very naive attitude.

         • Well, I’ve been poor most of my life, and always lived near cheap takeaways. Yet I’m as trim now, in my 60s, as I was in my 20s.

         • I understand that your whole life seems to be trolling on this comments section but let me explain.
           There are a huge number of studies that demonstrate the link between obesity and poverty.
           There are many underlying reasons for this including lack of education, limited time etc. but the thing I always come back to is the cost and quality of food.
           Ultra-processed foods tend to be more filling than healthy, fresh produce. A quick cost-per-100kcal will show you that.
           If the government were to invest properly in education and youth services (including reopening surestart – where new parents were supported in learning how to prepare nutritious food) – we would see progress in the fight against obesity.
           They won’t though – because they either lack the imagination or see the working classes as a sunk cost.

         • Rubbish. How much do bags of porridge or rice cost? Or carrots, potatoes and cabbages?

           (walking is free!).

         • Blaming fat people for the cost increases lol. Starmer fans have really have lost the plot!

         • As trim now as you were in your 20’s?

           Can I get your number? 😉

   • Lots of materials are imported from EU countries and the rules have changed.

     Ukraine war led to the increasecin fuel costs so companies making things and delivering things put up their prices to cover the increased costs.

   • Brian, do you actually think that every single item sold in the UK is produced in the UK? Obviously UK based suppliers source materials from outside the UK. Even our Brexit Blue passports are made in France. The brexiteers decided EU member states are more capable and competent than British manufacturers.

2. There’s lots of money about.Knowing this the companies up their prices,wages will not go up,just the companies take a Brucie bonus,as always

3. quite right Ms Pink , but people are afraid to mention it , its the elephant in the room. i wonder what excuses they would have without ukraine , covid , blah blah blah . just face it years of the tories have caused this mess. and we always knew this money would vanish in admin , meetings , enquiries , fees , and consultations . whatever they are ?

4. Same old morons with their daft comments.
   The war in Ukraine plus Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-budget created a leap in inflation as energy prices (you need energy to make stuff) soared.
   Brexit created terrible instability owing to the amount of red tape we now face when importing materials etc..
   Remember ‘project fear’ back in 2016? Well turns out the remainders were right all along.
   The reason immigrants and obesity aren’t blamed for rising costs are because they leave literally nothing to do with it.

   • The reason Covid was such a problem in this country is because of this country’s obesity problem. Otherwise we could’ve got away with having Swedish style lighter controls.

     • I think it was more the aging population and those with respiratory health problems, single out those with obesity if you wish but they were just one demographic within the wider “at risk” category.

       Sweden’s “light touch” led to a high death rate amongst its 10 million population and a higher death rate than other Nordic nations.

       • The overwhelming majority of the younger people (under 50) who died of Covid in the UK were obese.

         • The number of under 50s who died of COVID was a small percentage of those over 50 who did.

           As I said people who were obese were just one of the many demographic groups within the at risk catagory.

       • Have a read

         https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/obesityandmortalityduringthecoronaviruscovid19pandemicengland24january2020to30august2022/24january2020to30august2022

         • I have read that, under 50s died at a lower rate than those over 50 and obesity played a part in some of those deaths, if you were classified obese you stood a higher chance of dying compared to those who weren’t, compared to those with respiratory illnesses those diagnosed with obesity died at a lower rate.

           Do you think it says something else?

5. People may have noticed that in recent insistence on the Margate Town Deal being on course (something about ducks pedalling away but you can’t see the feet) there was a studious avoidance of Margate Digital. The initial £750K splurge on refurbing to dam and asbestos proof was supposed to have been completed by Spring two years ago so that at the least the ground floor could have been turned over to interim use (creative craft fairs, gallery exhibitions, indoor food markets … we have enough grassroots entrepreneurs) for the benefit of the tourist offer. Instead the building has become an orphan – no money available for some white spirits clean up seemingly. Poor ‘imagery’ but do they care ?
   It has been put to the Thanet Scrutiny Panel (beginning in early April) that there may be sound business reasons for EKC to savagely reduce, if not abandon, their very ambitious ‘teenager’ programme : just consider how long it has taken Nelson College to get the CCCU B’stairs campus up and running. And we now know that there are fatter fish to fry over at Manston with a replica Stansted Airport College much more centrally situated for East Kent.
   That’s the trouble with dither and delay in an inflationary age – one watches with interest the ‘cull’ now that there is sufficient licence to reshuffle the pack (up to £5 millions w o reference to Marsham Street.) Farewell Creative Land Trust – must bolster Dreamland as ‘shovels’ already at it ?
   Not quite as bad as HS2 but older readers will remember Blue Streak !
   The problem is of course universal and there have been concerns about poor delivery for some time (not least from the National Audit Office.) Fact is, LAs have been so denuded that they do not have the managerial capacity and the argument is that they need combination – abolishing the Local Enterprise Partnerships from next March is a step towards such devolution. The Airport may well be that economic driver for the region – all those prospective 4th Industrial Revolution satellites.
   Let’s see what the King’s Speech reveals in November – The Margate School is hosting a REINVENTION 3.0 shortly after.

   • Hilarious statement Geoff, and clearly lacking any real insight on the Stansted Airport College, which has a huge amount of highly specialised provision for a very well established and busy airport. The idea that Manston would bring anywhere approaching that amount of business is genuinely hilarious. It’s also incredibly worrying that anyone would be placing their chips on this absolute clunker that will in my view, ultimately, fail to get off the ground. Were I a young person, there is no chance I’d want to engage in any kind of training for an airport which will never gain any traction or have any planes. Sad, but true.

     • It was over 50 years ago that I flew from Stansted on a publishers’ one day jolly to the Frankfurt Book Fair – Channel Airways, which was probably coal burning. The place was pretty desolate but has clearly ‘matured’ over the decades. What its passenger future may be is something else given increasing carbon footprint conscience amongst the travelling classes (as if.)
       East Kent College have been closely involved in developing the prospect of a ‘replica’ Stansted College at Manston – it provides the only reasonable focus for retaining and skilling our youth (by which I mean the E Kent economic sub region). We aren’t talking about ‘robotic’ cargo handling but the Airport as a renewed catalyst for the rest of the century’s high-tech firms. The Green Port at Ramsgate is, we are assured, potentially another such for construction trades. I would discount the World Toffee Apple Academy at Dreamland but others might not.
       So, Stansted did not spring fully armed from the head of Zeus like Athene but such is the modern technological pace I have faster hopes for Manston – obviously not overnight. At least there is some Vision Thing hereabouts but alternatives welcome for consideration (and that doesn’t mean more executive housing estates with double garages.)

6. God are we still blaming the EU for all our woes Thought we left several years ago!!!!.We have only ourselves to blame. We have become a joke to the rest of the World.We can’t pick up litter or weed our streets let alone anything that requires vision.

7. Those wishing to blame Brexit for cost increases here really should go to Europe and see what the situation is like over there. Average inflation in the EU is around 10.4%, some countries have inflation figures over 20%. Croatian’s are now rueing the fact that when they joined the Euro this year everything went up between 25% and 50%, for example, a beer that cost £2.5 last year is now £3.5.

   • EU area less than UK, 8 out of 27 higher than UK.

     https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/17524083/2-19092023-AP-EN.pdf/7b701ff5-0011-ccc9-8cde-9f559f345ce9

   • Yes inflation is high in Europe but no worse than here in the other major economies.
     The difference between them and us however, is that there governments haven’t spent the last 13 years allowing their national infrastructure to collapse through lack of investment.
     Seriously – take a look around and look at what the Conservatives have done to this country!

8. And of course by next year inflation will have eroded more of the capital so we’ll have to reconsider and reschedule. And so it will go on and the Royal Harbour and its surrounding area will remain as they are while only the consultants will have benefited.

9. I see Ms Pink continues their usual migrant hating speech, nicely allowed. That diet kept them trim but bitter.

10. Why can’t we use local architects and businesses to improve Thanet, have local councillors from the area we all live to run Thanet. Makes sense and would also work out cheaper in the long term. People who understand Thanet’s needs and stop using over priced London rate business.
    Or is that too easy
    Money for the Thanet spent in Thanet by Thanet businesses??????

    • Great idea, Chris. But gang on, I thought we value competition and giving the job to the best person/company?

    • The council’s procurement procedures place a huge burden on those entering the tender process, as with most things in the public sector the requirements are gold plated, as a result its generally only the larger companies that end up bidding for work. The same happens within the councils housing repairs, not so long back they ran a tender process so labrynthine for the relatively common task of replacing flat roofs that they only had one tender response. It would probably be fair to question a process that only gets one tender as it hardly leads to much competitive bidding. Plus you have those companies that specialise in working within the local government network, it’s not hard to imagine that its a very different environment to the wider commercial world.

      • V well said, urgent change required

    • Unfortunately – there’s a dearth of professionalism in Thanet and too much of an old boys / golf-club network.
      The tender process means TDC will be able to employ professional outfits who will ultimately deliver for residents rather than their golfing buddies.

11. The increases in construction costs were very well known before the Margate Digital bid was put in.

    Someone obviously hasn’t allowed properly for contingency in the project or simply hasn’t costed it properly in the first place.

    The delays in delivery and financial problems at East Kent College Group where they have been laying staff off due to financial issues is very worrying indeed.

    • EKC Group is not to blame at all for the delays to Margate Digital, for that you need to look solely at TDC, the Department for Levelling Up and Homes England.

      All FE Colleges have just been brought under DfE control again, this means that borrowing is reduced, leases to buildings have to be 125 years and projects are much harder to get off the ground.

      I’m not sure where you get your info about staff layoffs and financial difficulties but I’d suggest getting knew contacts, yours are out of touch and clearly have an axe to grind.

      • They don’t need to borrow. The whole £7m cost including their “own contribution” (which is just more money given to them by government for equipment) hasn’t cost East Kent Colleges a single penny.

        I also know managers in Technology, HR, Finance etc have been made redundant in the last 12 months with the reason given the Group’s financial situation.

        From what I’ve been told, it seems the College Group are more than happy to spend a load of money for an all day staff jolly at Dreamland but less on keeping staff employed.

        • Correct it hasn’t cost them (so far), the DfE requirement for TDC/Homes England to give EKC Group a 125 year lease on the building may be a sticking point.

          The Group, like any business and especially one that is primarily funded by Central Government has to keep a tight reign on payroll budgets, unfortunately some management roles were made redundant in the last 12 months or so. Would you rather lecture staff and students support staff were made redundant? As a taxpayer I want to see my money is well spent, if that means removing some middle layer management roles to keep staff in classrooms and workshops so be it.

12. May I know just how many consultants are being used on that part of the levelling up fund that is being spent in Newington?

    The digital project has not taught 1 student anything yet.

    Will the fishermen in Ramsgate get the modest support included in the planning or will that part of this scheme be quietly forgotten about?

    Pushing it all into next year and beyond just provides longer and more lucrative contracts to consultants and more opportunity for inflation to absorb more of this.

    Please get a move on with building the skate park in Margate .

13. In the absence of more funding becoming available , given that inflation whilst dropping a bit is still well above that of recent years and the extra delays and costs incurred for more reports and consultations. It’s not hard to conceive that only half of what was originally planned will ever get completed, the endless arguments and horse trading over which half gets done will just add to the increased costs and delays.
    Then at some point someone somewhere will then question the economic benefits of spending so much for so little and more reports and delays will ensue.
    And all this before the inevitable cost overruns when projects finally get off the ground, especially so in the case of the repurposing/ renovation of old buildings.
    There must eventually be a point where it’s decided that the benefits of the money spent are so marginal that the whole thing is bought to a halt.

14. How about taking back the 4 million pounds Kemsley awarded to the private company she works for.

15. The self righteous Checksfield (Ms Pink) is lucky because his body does not retain fat,except where his head is concerned.Being poor and overweight is not due to some moral deficiency but is instead linked to poor diet,poor housing,poor education,and a lack of life chances.Much of the cheapest foodstuffs are ultra processed and these are a root cause of obesity.Poor people can of course be feckless and indolent,but the ‘idle rich'(now that’s an old term,in fact a rave from the grave),can be equally feckless and indolent,but no one judges them.
    But getting back to the matter at hand,if you let TDC,do anything you get nincompoopery involved.
    Ramsgate is not getting much out of this levelling up,except a refurb of TDC properties,which they failed to maintain. There is a perfectly good firm of architects in Ramsgate,but no TDC prefer to outsource from London.I think TDC have forgotten what ‘levelling up means’.TDC cannot run bathwater without flooding the place.
    What will happen is Ramsgate will receive a half finished job and TDC will blame external issues being the cause of the cost overrun as they are doing here.

    • Really, so housing has got worse than it was 50 years ago? The endless streams of food delivery couriers at the fast food outlets may probably suggest that people just can’t be bothered to prepare even the simplest of meals. The numbers of obese people seen waddling around can’t be put down to poverty and the allure of processed foods, there are many who just won’t put any effort into what they choose to eat, having insufficient money for food is more often the result of the other priorites people choose for the incomes they have.
      When you have so many people that can’t look away from their phones long enough to cross the road , you can pretty much take it as a given that they aren’t going to take the time to peel a carrot.
      Societies desire to not offend the so readily offended should not be taken as a reason to excuse lack of personal responsibility.
      At some point the country is going to have to address the problem , or the costs of supporting those that don’t work and bring forward the need for complex health care decades as a result of excess weight is going to place an unaffordable burden on the nation

    • My lunches as a young kid tended to be either bread and dripping or bread and sugar, with a tin of spam saved for special occasions. Yet we all stayed slim. Why? We were outdoors, whatever the weather, running, climbing, jumping, while playing cowboys and indians or similar. Far more than diet, the lack of exercise is why there are so many larger than life people around these days.

      So George, how do you keep fit and slim?

      • I’m completely heartless though, as I often contribute tins of spam and pilchards to food bank collections when in supermarkets. I hope those who are struggling enjoy them.

      • We had a fat prime minister that made it illegal to play sports and used taxpayers money to give everyone free fast food. Just saying!

        • He’s just big boned.

16. People have always ate high fat low nutrient foodstuffs for decades, and a much higher percentage of people smoked blissfully unaware that their choices would not lead to adverse health outcomes – mainly because they died earlier without the virtue of advanced treatments seen today.

    The reason you are seeing more obesity is because the afflicted are “propped up” by modern treatments and care agencies thus they are living longer with this excess weight, diabetes mellitus and poor health.

    As LC said, if you don’t look after yourself, you will experience a slow “death by 1000 cuts”, as opposed to a oblivious exit and atonement for gluttony at the Pearly Gates.

    • Yes,housing has got worse.The onset of council house sales,reduced the social sector and re energised the private sector.Not all private landlords are Ebenezer’s but some are and the housing they provide is Dickensian.
      If your outlook is limited and set in an echo chamber,you will not notice how bad things have become.
      Since 2010, food banks have increased by an enormous amount.As for food delivery bikes etc,I think you will find that the poorest cannot afford them.
      The trope about fecklessness and the deserving and undeserving poor is both hackneyed and inaccurate.The poorest will be deciding between heating and eating again this winter.
      Back in the 1950s when Checksfield was a boy or a little Ms Pink,real wages were on the rise,as were living standards,so suggesting yet again that we should all return to old values,is hardly appropriate in the cutthroat gig economy of today.
      Up to 1979, the difference in wealth between the poor and the rich was narrowing,today the opposite is true.
      This constant harking back to the good old days and poverty denial,is a delusion.Blaming the poor for being poor is an old game,and won’t change the situation.
      If you want to stop ‘gluttony’,then ban or tax ultra processed food,increase the minimum wage considerably,build more social homes,with rents at no more than 30% of median incomes, and invest in life time learning.
      I hope those who prefer to blame the poor rather than take action,have no answers,no solutions,only blame and criticism, because they know that their ideas are losing traction and they don’t like it.

      • Yet again, you’re looking only at people’s eating habits. It is EXERCISE that should be more of a focus.

        • And I’m still awaiting details of your own exercise/eating routine, as you seem so good at preaching to others.

      • You’re being absurd, you can’t measure the standard of housing on the basis of a few bad apples, if you want to do so, then you’d be campaigning for the end of social housing on the back of the events at grenfell, lakanal and the death associated with mould and damp.
        As for education we keep hearing about the extremely high levels of persistent absenteeism within education , no pupil will learn if they are not in school, as for poverty and measuring it on a scale as a % of average incomes, this is again a piece of society’s nonsense, there are too many in society that would still have poor outcomes if you gave them ever more money.
        Filling the country with low skilled workers because our own workers don’t want to do the jobs and we haven’t encouraged investment in technology and automation , instead offering employers endless cheap labour , has done us no good and left us with endless pressureson housing and services.
        The nation most certainly made a huge policy error when it parked huge numbers on sick/unemployment nenefits when we deindustrialised, a shameful waste of north sea revenues that should have been used to retrain and upskill workers who lost their jobs.
        The intergenerational cyclality of benefit dependence needs interrupting along with a crack down on petty crime and fraud.
        Equally there should be a policy of identifying those rented properties that are below standard and outside of the tax system, incentivising councils to do this would be the best way forward, give them access to databases of land registry, council tax, benefits, hmrc , utility suppliers, electoral role etc to identify those properties where the owner lives elsewhere and theres reason to beleive the property is rented. Then prosecute where dishonesty / property standards are found.
        But it’s not a priority as it’d uncover millions of people who are in the country that shouldn’t be and throw everything into turmoil as the newly discovered people need to be absorbed into the system which has been funded for a smaller notional population.
        The lie was exposed with the numbers officially estimated as expected to register to remain in the uk after brexit and the numbers that actually did so. The difference being something like 4% of the population , you can’t suddenly find that you’ve unexpectedly gained 1 in 25 people, which rather supported the view that the country was overly attractive to eu migrants at the time.
        Perhaps we should have a real reckoning of how many are in the country and calculate a genuine per capita productivity figure, i’ll wager it shows we have been going backwards for some time and underlies our inability to provide the services needed.

17. As with our good old MP MacKinsey, readers of TIOTN are experts in nutrition, public health, social epidemiology, architecture, and economic forecasting. One has to wonder why they dont volunteer more to help TDC, the Conservatives, or the UN.

    • No expert, just someone who has (it seems miraculously) stayed fit and slim, despite poverty.

18. How many more feasibility studies etc. Who is paying for those? Just give Ramsgate Town Council their share of whatever money is left and I’m sure they can find plenty to spend the money on. The longer this sorry saga goes on the more likely the money will just disappear into the big black hole to pay off KCC debts. Show us the money!

19. If they want to make it easier for pedestrians to access Ramsgate town centre from the harbour, then why wait for a highways project to get the green light? Why not just adjust the timing on the pedestrian crossing so that we get 30 seconds instead of 6 seconds to cross the road?

20. They didn’t spend a lot on presentation. Pinning an A3 sheet to wire fencing doesn’t really sell the idea. Much like anything where a large amount of tax payer funded money is given to a public body the consultants and planners will take their cut. The officials will have moved on before people start asking questions about how tax payer money has been spent and nothing will have been achieved.