Local Interest Only
Some small items of Westgate news for local readers.This evening, I spoke with Cllr Shirley Tomlinson, who holds the beach huts in her portfolio and she tells me that we are waiting on a response from the insurers in regards to the burned-down beach huts in St Mildred's Bay. Hopefully, it won't be too long before the charred and unsightly gap is filled with replacements.We have a new 'beat' Police Constable in Westgate, Lennie Atkins and I would like to welcome him on behalf of the community. I've pointed out some of the more immediate areas of concern and I'm equally delighted, that following the operational decision to re-allocate Chris Bungard

Help Margate’s Sea Cadets
Some of you may be aware of the "Peoples Millions" where organisations can gain funding for the benefit of the local community.I have been asked by Ray Heseldine, of the Margate Sea Cadets, to ask for your help in their bid to fund a safety training boat which would be used by Cadets, Scouts and Guides all over Thanet. It would also be registered as an emergency boat with the NVS, Coastguard and the Police, so it would be a multipurpose boat.Their application is on tonight on Meridian at 18:00, the more telephone calls in support they get will help them achieve this, and, apparently you can make up

Carbon Footprint
Like many other residents of Westgate out walking their dogs, I was appalled to see the fire damage caused to the beach huts at St Mildred's Bay, adjacent to the toilets.As you will see from the photograph it's a mess.I have spoken with the police who have it dow

Outside Broadcast
I decided to walk to Margate this afternoon for the exercise, all the way up to the council offices for a meeting on the web-casting project, set for its first pilot outing at next month's full council meeting.During my walk, I devised a new measure of time and distance, call a 'PB'. This, as you may have gathered from the acronymn, is calculated in passing 'Pit Bulls' and so while it took five Pit Bulls to get as far as Cecil Square from Westgate, it was much quicker on the bus on the return leg, avoiding the rain and as you might expect, this only took two 'Pit Bulls'.I'm interested to know if any other readers are able to measure their walks in the same way, in Ra

A Little Creativity
I've been trekking back and forth to the Chatham campus on a regular basis since September doing an education course. It's a subject that interests deeply me for a number of important reasons both intellectual and political and in particular because of its vital importance to the future of our society and our place in the world of the 21st century.Much of what I've seen so far is beautifully summed-up in this very good and humerous video lecture by Sir Ken Robinson. It's well worth watching. I also recommend www.ted.com which is a sort of intellectual YouTube, with lots of lectures by well-known people, such as Richard Dawkins, Al Gore, Brian Co