Pierremont Park Depot latest - buyer pulls out but council says a resolution will take months

The latest news on the Pierremont Park Depot saga is that whoever the buyer was that TDC had decided to sell the site to, "the highest bidder," - has pulled out.  Read all about it in the Isle of Thanet News here. 

So that's good. Presumably they got their own legal advice and realised that it wasn't going to be a simple matter to get planning permission to develop this particular plot, as we've been pointing out since the whole thing first arose as an issue. Perhaps all the protests that the community have been doing helped them to see sense too - let's hope so.  

We were in the Folk Week Parade, then did a protest walk from the depot to the Bandstand at the end of Folk Week and got quite a bit of press coverage for both of those events and people have been making their views known by chalking their thoughts outside the site which is really helpful way of raising awareness of the community strength of feeling . Well done all. 

The discussion  at the TDC Overview and Scrutiny Meeting tomorrow 25 August,  which we were planning to attend, will now not go ahead so if you were coming to that, you can now do something else with your evening. 

We definitely would love to see you though - and to chat about what you think we all need to do next, to get TDC to agree to accept the Town Council bid so the site can start to be used again asap to benefit the park and wider community (and make it all nicer for visitors as well) . 

We're holding a Pierremont Park Day planning meeting at Broadstairs Library on 1st September, 3:30-5pm. This won't just be about the Depot, but we can use some of the time then to discuss that.

The main purpose of the 1st September session is that on 17 October, to tie in with Heritage Week events at Pierremont Hall, we are aiming to do some kind of Pierremont Park Day at the library - and we want to get everyone's input into what that and what it should look like: thinking about ways that we can celebrate and encourage positive use of the park. There will be opportunities to make arts and crafts about the park and look at the books that the library hold about the park's heritage.  But as it's a chance to come together that's already in the diary, we can talk about Depot stuff too. 

See you there maybe? 

In the meantime. If, like us, you think this saga has been going on long enough and the answer is staring TDC in the face - they should hurry up and agree to sell it to the Town Council so it can be brought back into use and we can all benefit from the social value it would deliver, as clearly outlined in the Town Council's thoughtful bid which you can read here  - please write to TDC Cabinet members and your ward councillors and ask them to get a move on and stop dragging their heels over this.  At the moment they are saying it is going to take them months to even talk about it again. That's not good enough! Let them know your views. Our results so far on this campaign have shown that collectively our voices can make an impact, so let's not stop now.  

In other news, bats have been reported on the site, by someone with a bat scanner. So that might also be significant..... We need to find out more about them and the legal protections that their habitat might benefit from.... Looking into all the angles. 

best wishes

Friends of Pierremont Park