A £457,111 increase in funding for Thanet council’s Green Campus scheme at Ramsgate Port has been approved.
The funding is in addition to £6.1m already earmarked for the Military Road campus, which is to be built partially by the council and partially by the private sector.
It brings the latest total to £6,558,461.
The aim is for the site to provide training, education and business opportunities for the marine and maritime sector.
Last October a report to TDC’s cabinet meeting said anticipated match-funding from the private sector had not been “forthcoming and secured.”
However, the council says it does anticipate a planning application for the scheme being submitted this summer.
The project is part of Ramsgate’s £19.8m Levelling Up programme granted by government in October 2021.
Other projects allocated funding included a new town square at Pier Yard; fishing fleet facilities although the sum for this has been much reduced; community facilities at Newington and Ramsgate and improved port infrastructure.
Last month TDC agreed to add £210,000 contingency to the Newington scheme, a £320,000 increase for the plan to create at Broad Street and the £457k increase for the campus.
A decision notice says the allocations are “to support delivery of the existing schemes as the costs move from design costs, to construction costs.”
The funds are from a contingency pot and have not been reallocated from other schemes.
In December 2024, Willmott Dixon Construction Ltd was appointed to deliver the Green Campus, Clock House and Harbour Placemaking schemes with work expected to start this start in summer and completion anticipated in 2026.
The Green Campus design is now for a phased scheme with the first phase including the construction of two buildings; a public-facing central core, with café, conference and meeting facilities, and the first workspace block, to support small and new maritime businesses, as well as provide education opportunities.
But rising costs mean more funding has been allocated to the scheme.
A Thanet council spokesperson said: “The budget for Ramsgate’s Green Campus project has increased, with funding reallocated from the Levelling Up Fund programme contingency.
“Rising costs are posing a challenge across all of Thanet’s government-funded projects, including the Green Campus. The budget increase is not related to any specific element of the project.
“The council is working with the contractors to complete the designs and update cost estimates before submitting a planning application in early summer 2025.”
The other contingency allocations are for:
Newington Community Hub, which will provide improved facilities with an extension to house a larger kitchen and a community garden. The new kitchen will allow the Newington Community Association to expand its popular food and cookery programme.
The 5a Broad Street property – the former haberdashery shop- which will be refurbished to provide workspace in Ramsgate town centre that is tailored for creative and third sector businesses. The facility will also be home to a new skills and careers hub.
What happens next for Ramsgate Port?
In January the search for an operator for the Port of Ramsgate ended with no contract being awarded.
A multi-stage procurement process began in August 2024, with the aim of attracting an operator who would be responsible for running a substantial part of the Port of Ramsgate, including 17.8 acres of port land and the two roll-on roll-off (ro-ro) ferry berths.
The Ramsgate Port and infrastructure project is also part of Ramsgate’s £19.8m Levelling Up programme. Initially £3.5 million was allocated for improved port infrastructure but an additional £4.12m funding was transferred to the scheme last year following a report to councillors outlining how port infrastructure work is likely to need £14m, for site clearance and remediation; improved breakwater and new berthing infrastructure.
The additional funding was taken from projects to improve fishing facilities and funds set aside for an overnight accommodation project at the Sailors’ Church/Smack Boys Home.
A grant of £4.5m was also to be made available to the prospective concessionaire, as a contribution to the delivery of works at the Port.
Thanet council says it will continue to explore the options for establishing a port operator concession and will renew discussions with government about potential funding opportunities. Work will also continue to explore alternative options for other maritime sector opportunities.
A further report will be brought to Cabinet shortly to agree the way forward.
Does there need to be a Plan B for the future of Ramsgate Port?
What progress has been made on Ramsgate and Margate’s £51m regeneration projects?
Granville Theatre owners announced as ‘preferred partner’ to take on Margate Winter Gardens
How does a green campus work with dirty Brett’s lorries going about the place ?
They’re going to paint them green.
TDC needs to decide what it wants, looking for a port operator, while building a campus on land that’s storing caravans, while they have an unused terminal building.
If they developed what they already had, an existing fishing fleet, in decline due to lack of facilities , and improved facilities for the wind farm , Border force vessels and the existing aggregate facility, it maybe money well spent. Certainly better than the x million already spent on pointless consultations.
How long has this been going on.
This is shameful nothing has been original costed and what we have is a disaster. Heads should be rolling in the council regeneration department.
Of course costs are increasing. We live in an inflationary world. The only people surprised by this are seemingly TDC. Can they not grasp that unless they actually start work on something we will simply be in an unending cycle of budgetary revisions until all the money (and, of course, this council) has gone.
Other towns are being regenerated with this money. Why can’t Ramsgate at least make a start?
I believe I’m right in saying that all money from these funds has to be spent by March 2026. Can anyone confirm that ?
Correct
Let’s spend more on a facility nobody is interested in. Great idea. And yet another cafe, but this time, in the most disused and unattractive part of the old ferry port. Not the bit where the travellers were, the bit with the sea view. No, let’s build in the middle of the ugly bit, facing the dirty road and cliffs. Brilliant.
Meanwhile, the Clockhouse limps on. Why oh why will TDC not fund our Ramsgate heritage assets? If there’s half a million in contingency, give it to the Maritime Museum and put a cafe there. In a building people actually want to go to. But can’t, on account of the endless delays.
This whole saga documents TDC choosing to put the majority of funds into two projects least viable, the Green Campus and the Ferry (which wasn’t even a LUF bid?). Meanwhile, the stuff people are actually interested in gets ignored. Go figure.
Mark my words: This scheme will never be built. The money will run out without a shovel hitting the ground.
The clock house repairs will be costly, maybe more than £1m when finished. Currently in planning application for listed building consent. Hope the bats are ok.
Willmott dixon appointed developer for green campus, Tdc consider binning off the green campus idea and allow the house building company WD to build loads of harbour flatlets.
Who are the proposed tenants of the green campus, doubt the wind farmer companies there will be interested, they all ready have their training centers. Bats
£1m spent on the Clockhouse seems like a very good use of £9m funding. Especially when £4m has been poured down the drain chasing non existent ferries. TDC seems hell bent on industrialising Ramsgate rather than focusing on heritage tourism. Utterly dreadful.
With all this housebuilding, people moving here need jobs.
Tourism is one of our major employers. Heritage is of world class value here in Ramsgate but also ignored in favour of industrialisation attempts. Nobody is interested in this project.
I am.
Why are all of these projects taking so long? It’s been years and s5ill nothings actually been started. That’s years worth of consultation fees and inflation, of course the costs are going to increase. Why waste time / money on ridiculous destractions like the VR nonsense to show what the town will look like.
The highway works along the harbour should have been an easy deliverable while design work was proceeding on other projects. By the time that was completed then work could have started on the next, and the next etc. You need to actually deliver something concrete otherwise your stakeholders are going to question what their money’s being spent on.
This is part of the wider problem with lack of growth in this country. Planning is a total mess, it’s slow and bureaucratic. It takes us years / decades to deliver anything. In other countries projects are actually delivered in the time it takes for us to stop talking about them.
Get on with it and ignore the NINBYs. They’re dragging the economy down. Making no decision is worse than making the wrong decision.
I don’t think there are any serious objections (from your mythical NIMBYs or anyone else) to the regeneration of the Clock House and Pier Yard. It’s just that our council, for mysterious reasons of its own, and unlike other councils in receipt of this kind of money just will not make a start on the work (and I mean the work not another exhibition or simulation or any other attempt to avoid the issue.)
NIMBYs aren’t mythical. 10 years for a decision on Manston… The NIMBY point was a general observation linked to both planning rules and lack of growth in the UK. At no point did I link NIMBYs to these projects.
The alleged Nimbys of Ramsgate have put up with this stupidity for decades. And so it continues. The financial depression is already here, many of us priced out of our hometown. Never has TDC taken seriously the maintenance and preservation of what brings people here in the first place. The state of the pavements tell the real story – covered in excrement and detritus.