For seven years he did his best, but as each year passed Cllr Ezekiel steadily lost effective control of TDC. Despite his volatile behaviour being reported in national magazines, he clung desperately to power and Thanet suffered accordingly. Who knows what effect his 'style' of leadership has had on inward investors?
His legacy is somewhat depressing. Early this year Cllr Ezekiel led TDC into the unknown with his panic to push through the 'shared services' scheme for East Kent. TDC is now tied in to long, expensive and binding agreements with it's neighbouring authorities with no clear financial savings yet established and substantial financial penalties to find should the ventures fail. Just days after that decision the council was presented with a Financial Risk Assessment in which its own financial officers described the 'shared services' project as probably the largest risk facing the council to date and that the likelihood of shared services not being progressed was also deemed to be high risk.
More recently we had the Montefiore Village Green application hearing. What a sorry state of affairs? A long, drawn out legal battle between a local council and it's own residents. The public had to sit through days of complex legal wrangling, the penultimate step in a process that has drawn on for years and still has months to run. Goodness knows how much this has cost us all as local ratepayers?
Sadly, under Cllr Ezekiel's leadership Margate's High Street has also been branded one of the dreariest in the country and Ramsgate Royal Harbour has been downgraded to the bottom six of ninety one UK harbours.
I congratulate Cllr Bayford on his reported election as Conservative leader, but seven years of Cllr Ezekiel's leadership has left our district in a very sorry state indeed and turning this situation around will be a major task.
Cllr. Clive Hart. Leader of the Opposition at TDC.
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