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Response to BBC News report that funding for running of Turner Contemporary gallery will be cut by £34,000 and a question for the Conservative administration at KCC.From Cllr Clive Hart - Labour Leader of the Opposition at Thanet District Council.
"My heart sank last night when I saw the BBC News report informing us that funding to run the Turner Contemporary Gallery is to be cut by £34,000. The gallery was a brilliant local idea that has been persistently plagued by the Conservative KCC administrations mismanagement and poor decision making over the past decade.
Despite the serious misgivings of local people regarding the first 'seaborne' design, the 'experts' at County Hall in Maidstone brazenly carried on with their plans and in the end, several years of regeneration that Margate simply could not afford, were lost for ever.
Then, after far too long, the KCC administration finally saw sense and the design returned to the original land based project that was asked for in the first place.
For the four years that I was the county member for Margate & Cliftonville I consistently argued for the Rendezvous area to remain a car park for the people of Margate and visitors. Yet again, the Tories at Maidstone just would not listen to local concern and insisted that a hotel must be built on the site. Now those plans too are also in tatters, and guess what? We might even get a temporary car park again if we're lucky!
Even more importantly for the Conservatives at KCC is the fact that, according to their own plans, the hotel and associated development of the Rendezvous site was to provide an income of several hundred thousand pounds each year towards the running of the gallery.
What will happen now, with no hotel or development built to provide the large income to support the gallery and a further cut of £34,000 made before the gallery has even opened"?
Picture attached - Cllr Clive Hart - Labour Leader of the Opposition - Thanet District Council
Published by Cllr Clive Hart - 44 Northdown Road, Margate, Kent, CT9 2RW.
Perhaps the director has worked for 10 years at a grossly inflated salary rumoured to be close to £100K with a gallery to direct will take a 50% paycut for the next 10 years ???
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