News: January 2007

In  January 2003 the owner of Dreamland, Jimmy Godden, announced the closure of Dreamland. The park is to be redeveloped as "leisure boxes, some retail and a supermarket". Joyland Books will provide updates on the campaign to save Dreamland and its internationally-important Scenic Railway ride.

Click here for the latest news

Thursday, 25 January 2007

Friday's Isle of Thanet Gazette reported that Dreamland's owner is ready to  unveil its vision for Dreamland.

Wednesday, 17 January 2007

We have received some details of the Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company's (MTCRC) Public Consultations on the future of Dreamland. The events are on the following dates:

7th February 11am-3pm
7th February 6pm-10pm
8th February 11am-3pm
Queens Hall, Winter Gardens, Margate.

The event is described as follows on MTCRC's literature: "The forum will be an exciting opportunity for people to see provisional plans for the Dreamland site and to discuss the exciting range of possibilities that exist for Dreamland and the seafront. Ultimately we hope to use the event to formulate a consensus of opinion on what people want for the Dreamland site and Margate."

The events will comprise:

- 20-minute presentation by Toby Hunter
- 5-minute presentation by Dan Anderson, Tribal Group (www.tribalgroup.co.uk)
- Q&A Session Discussion Groups

Full details will be in Friday's Isle of Thanet Gazette.

Monday, 15 January 2007

Nick Laister and Sarah Vickery met with representatives from the Margate Renewal Partnership, Thanet District Council and Locum Consulting today to discuss Dreamland's future.

 

Monday, 1 January 2007

Happy New Year to all Campaign members!

Due to other commitments, the webmaster has been unable to upload news updates since the end of October. Normal service should now be resumed, in what could be an important year in the Save Dreamland Campaign, as the owners of Dreamland move forward with proposals for the site's redevelopment.

In the meantime, below is an update of some of the main news items over the past few weeks. Remember to check back to this page regularly for news as it breaks.

First, media reports. The Isle of Thanet Gazette included an article about Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company's (MTCRC) consultation on the future of Margate on 24 November.

The Thanet Times ran a similar article on 28 November.

The 24 October Thanet Times had a series of articles on the visit by a group of MPs looking into the future of coastal towns.

Private Eye also mentioned Dreamland in a November edition, as part of an article on the demise of Southport's Pleasureland Amusement Park:

Detailed plans for the future of the Margate Dreamland fun park site are to be unveiled in the new year. The site was bought last year by Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company, part of developers Waterbridge, who have previously said they want to develop: "a fantastic mix of leisure,
restaurants, retail and accommodation" there. Several public consultations have called for the amusement park to be retained on the site.

On the Campaign's behalf Susan Marsh has been having an exchange of email correspondence over recent weeks in respect of our response to the consultation undertaken by MTCRC.

After a lot of thought we decided that our views hadn’t changed and the position we set out in Nick Laister's Proof of Evidence to the Local Plan Inquiry and the Masterplan remained as valid now as when we submitted them and decided that we would re submit them for consideration as our response.

Susan Marsh explains the Campaign's position further: "We have repeated our view that the consultation is flawed as it doesn’t request views on Dreamland, despite the site being owned by the company (in fact, it doesn't even mention Dreamland!), nor does it give any information about who MTCRC is and totally omits any closure date for responses. In fact it gives little information as to what the purpose of the consultation is."

This approach appears to have offended their representative as he makes the following comment:

“We note your assertions about our consultation’s validity and we are fully aware that you will beat the drum at the appropriate time to try and, what appears to be a desire to, discredit our findings.”

Despite their unhelpful stance we would still ask that you make your own responses. MTCRC has issued a flyer as part of its consultation on Dreamland (although, again, the flyer does not state that this is a consultation on Dreamland, nor does it provide any information on MTCRC, the company's assets in the town or what they are going to do with the results). It can be downloaded from the Save Dreamland website in PDF format (2.9 MB).

In other news, the Save Dreamland Photo Gallery, A Cavalcade of Photographs, has been updated with a vintage photograph of the famous Dreamland snail sent in by Paul Bolland and a colour photograph of Billie, the Dreamland loco, in 1974, courtesy of Nigel Hyde. Don't forget to visit our other Photo Galleries.

And whilst Campaign Leader Nick Laister was on the publicity trail for his new book, Pennies by the Sea, over the past couple of months, he managed to slip in a few references to the Campaign. Most notably, a slightly inaccurate story in the Guardian provided a little bit of unexpected publicity for the Campaign. It also came with a nice photo gallery. Nick, who is working on several seaside regeneration projects around the UK, also appeared live in the studio on BBC Radio Sheffield talking about his book and the changing face of British seaside resorts.

Finally, a big thank you to Dave Collard for his tireless work throughout 2006 in reviewing the local press and providing the news reports on this site. And thank you also to Paul Freeman who has been working behind the scenes on the Forum which, despite suffering some technical difficulties over the past few weeks, is now fully functioning again. The Forum is the best place to meet other Campaign members and discuss the future of Dreamland, so make sure you visit regularly. If you are not already a member, click here to join and you will be able to start posting straight away.