Revised proposals have been submitted for a café, community space and toilet block at Hodges Gap Promenade .
The project, which is part of the £22.2m Margate Town Deal, comes under the Testing New Uses Walpole Bay scheme and has been allocated £1.025m.
A further Access Walpole scheme, which includes reinstatement of the grade II Listed Cliff lift, improvements to the steps and tidal pool and plans for pedestrian/cycling access, has a £1.1m allocation.
There is also £500,000 for revenue funding.
The cafe build was originally proposed on the promenade immediately facing the Walpole tidal pool.
Now, a scaled down scheme has been relocated to the east of Hodge’s Gap with Jan Kattein Architects developing new options focused on cost, operational viability and resilience to flooding and the coastal environment.
The proposal, which would remove some parking from the promenade, would consist of a two storey café, with a large glazed front opening up views towards the tidal pool. At the rear of the building, there would be a compact kitchen and storeroom site below a mezzanine seating area. During fair weather, café seating could be extended onto the deck to the north of the building.
The café will have 30 seats, 20 inside and 10 outside.
Two toilets, including provision for accessible changing and baby changing, will be housed in a self-contained single storey building. The block will be unheated but insulated. There will also be two outdoor beach showers.
The toilets would be managed by the café operator and locked down out of hours. Open, unroofed outdoor showers have been proposed to prevent anti-social use.
A shipping container to the east of the café will be for community use with a focus on sport and wellbeing activities for a maximum of 20 participants.
Vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists will be guided through the site with a line of boulders protecting a pedestrian route along the northern edge of the promenade.
A single lane width vehicle route will give access for emergency and refuse vehicles to move through the site. A wider section at the west of the site will allow car access.
A single designated disabled parking bay is proposed at the east of the site for building users or staff. No further dedicated vehicle parking is proposed. Eight cycle parking spaces are also proposed.
The café building will have a pebble roof and two bird boxes at high level sized to suit house sparrows or starlings.
There will also be native planting to a proposed ‘rock garden’ at the rear of the café and security lighting on motion sensors.
All buildings will be elevated to reduce flood risk.
The proposal will include a new foul water mains connection to the existing network at cliff top level.
Documents for the scheme say there will be room for growth if the café business or community use need to expand.
In July a project update anticipated construction start for January 2026 and project completion ahead of Summer 2026 but all Thanet regeneration schemes under Town Deal and Levelling Up funding have now been granted by government an extension for completion to 2027 where needed.
A decision on the application has not yet been made. Find the plans on Thanet council’s planning portal, reference F/TH/25/0927
The Grade II-listed art deco lift renovation has already gained planning permission.
The lift was originally built by the Ministry of Health in 1934 to encourage people to use the beach. But the ailing installation had been closed and left to wrack and ruin for about six years.
Last October TDC’s planning committee gave permission to allow the renovation works to begin. The carriage and handrails will be replaced and the top entrance will be refurbished to “enable the reopening of the lift.” A new light is also to be installed at the sea level, near the Walpole Bay tidal pool.
Original scheme: Early plans revealed for Walpole Bay lift, pavilion, pool and access projects as part of £3.55m Coastal Wellbeing scheme
There is already two cafes in that area… Gentrification gone mad.
Hopefully this one has a toilet.
What’s with your obsession with public toilets ?
My “obsession” is that I don’t like p-ssing in the street or wetting myself.
Veterans on the streets and OAPs freezing and let’s drop a mill on a shipping container…moral bankruptcy.
Support the idea but it’s the wrong side! It makes no sense there where it’s just around the corner from the jetski cafe and separated from people using the tidal pool. I’ve objected on that basis
I support the idea, but NOT in this location. It should be built on the promenade on the Margate side of the Tidal pool, where it was originally planned to be. The loss of the car park will impact on so many local people, especially the disabled, the sea scouts, anyone wishing to launch a kayak, a paddle board etc. Swimmers will have to park up the top and walk down which will be bad for the sea swimmwrs in winter as they will probably get hyperthermia getting back to their cars parked where? Come on TDC – you are taking away the well being of those who use the area now – for what? Another cafe (as if there aren’t enopugh already?) It’s gentrification on another level! Please don’t pander to the ‘new’ residents of the area. Who will profit from these cafes, stall and franchises I wonder? Brown paper envelope job, I bet.
This building already feels unviable. With space for only limited customers inside, it’s too small to make any meaningful impact. The glazed frontage will trap heat and become uncomfortable, yet there are no folding doors to create an indoor–outdoor flow, just enough for perhaps another 10 seats outside.
The outdoor design is equally questionable. The so-called rock garden to the rear risks becoming a vandal hotspot and, when toilets are locked, a place for anti-social behaviour, I am surprised kent police did not comment further on this. The “community container” with its flimsy shelter feels like an afterthought that will end up in the sea on the first storm. It’s particularly disappointing when the funding was facilitated by community involvement and by highlighting poor local health statistics and what the community is left with is, essentially, a shipping container.
Practical issues are also evident: only two toilets on a pump system that will constantly need repairs, and a café unlikely to survive the off-season given the exposed location, meaning the toilets will become limited in opening hours After five years of waiting, this is a small-scale, low-impact development that falls short of what was promised.
It’s hard to see how this will drive regeneration. The footprint is tiny, the upstairs space adds little value, and the so-called community facilities don’t have a clear purpose especially with no real swimming club to make use of them. In the end, it feels like a missed opportunity with no real community engagement at the final stages that could have led a design that was community centric.
Why would the cafe owner be able to look after the toilet block for such a busy swimming bay? There are toilet blocks at Botany Bay run by TDC, the main sands and other bays. Toilet provision is a key tourism requirement. The council’s repeated spending on the renting of shabby portaloos could have funded a toilet block plus attendents over and over.
The cliffs are very high at this point in the coast. How is the toilet waste going to be removed from the toilets?
Walpole Bay tidal pool has a great local usage and tourists that are in the know. The community spirit is key to this uncommercial bay. Why should toilet access only be open on the days the cafe business is open given this is public funding?
It’s a shame they demolished the public toilets near Palm Bay cafe. The excuse at the time was people can use the cafe toilet, but now the grumpy & grubby bloke who runs it serves food and drinks but don’t let anyone use the facilities! If only TDC stepped in…
If this is supposed to be an “all-season” facility, in the UK and in an exposed location, what person in their right mind would design it with no heating facilities?
Have your say here https://planning.thanet.gov.uk/online-applications
Searching for application F/TH/25/0927
Get that cafe on the top of the cliffs by the tennis court sorted out , if it was run properly by someone with a bit of get up and go attitude they could turn it into a year round success.
I agree. It’s dreadful now!