Title 7

The first part of this objection is based on errors and misunderstandings in the building applications flood risk assessment, having discussed this with the architects and flood risk assessor I can only assume that new plans would have to be drawn up for any development there based on a revised understanding of the situation.

This is a three floor development and due to some misunderstanding the flood risk assessor didn't receive the planning sheet for the undercroft.

The difficulty here is that the flood risk assessment doesn't cover the lowest level of the development so that my observations here are based on the upper levels only.

The flood risk assessment is written using a mixture of chart datum and ordinance datum levels to save confusion the following is written in chart datum only.

I think some of the confusion has come from, the figure 5.4m is the MHWS for Ramsgate, the flood risk assessment takes this to be about the highest astronomical tide, this actually stands for mean high water spring, i.e. the average height of a spring tide and not the highest astronomical height.

HAT - Highest astronomical tide is the one they should have used the HAT at Dover is 7.3m the difference for Ramsgate is 1.6 giving a HAT for Ramsgate of 5.7

The highest recent tidal surge locally was 14th Feb. 1989 at 10:00 hours this was 1.84 metres above normal high tide registered on the Dover tide gauge, as tidal surges are caused by low barometric pressure the level and would be the same for Ramsgate.

I would think it reasonable to assume that adding the HAT at Ramsgate to the surge would give the best idea of the highest possible spring and surge level here i.e. 7.54 metres.

The environment agency say that new developments should be assumed to have a life of 100 years, the best predictions for the rise in sea level by 2110 are between 1 and 2 metres, at the moment they are working on just over a metre.

Taking 8.54 metres as the expected maximum static tide at Ramsgate in 2110 would seem a reasonable working figure.

The ground floor level of this development is for the most part 8.88 metres according to the plans “proposed first floor plan” and 7.98 metres according to the flood risk assessment page 11.

Visual inspection of the site suggests considerable landscaping changes to Pier Yard would be needed to achieve either.

The other figure that needs be considered is wave height in the harbour, this is particularly important as part of the development is on the form of a pier, so there would be no wave dissipation.

Normally a development adjacent to waves would be on some sort of solid plinth or apron and the distance from the waterside edge of this apron combined with the height of the apron above the static high tide line, would allow for wave dissipation.

As things stand the waves and anything floating free on the surface will be under part of the building.

Wave height in the harbour can be quite significant, the east pier of the harbour has been breeched in storms in the past, vessels and mooring pontoons have broken free, these factors could add difficulties to situating a pier in the harbour.

Because of the position of the building it will be subject to the effects of salt water, waves breaking on the east pier will shower the building with seawater, I am concerned that this hasn't been taken sufficiently into account when choosing construction materials.

At the moment the site is used as a ship repair yard comprising four slipways and workshops, two of the slipways are mostly in use and appear to be essential to the harbour.

Slipway No 1 which will be retained if the development is built, is used for small ship repairs, I am not convinced that it will still be viable if the plans are implemented, this is a fairly noisy, dusty and industrial operation not really suitable for close proximity to a bar and restaurant complex.

The size of the new workshop that relates to using slipway No 1 and all boat repair operations, that is shown in the plans doesn't appear large enough for normal work like the bending of ships plates to continue.

Slipway No 3 is used most of the time for maintenance and repairs to windfarm vessels, meaning that if the development goes ahead the local economy could be adversely effected.

There is very little doubt that bar and restaurant use would be likely to be more profitable than boat repair use, but to a degree the spectacle of a working shipyard appears to enhance the historic harbour and may be partly responsible for the growing café culture in this part of Ramsgate.

I also have considerable concerns that the current lease restricts use of the site to boat building activities, granting permission to demolish, without the lease permitting change of use could leave an unviable and unusable site.

The boatyard appears to be an integral part of the harbour and may well be an essential part of the harbour.

There doesn't seem to be any great need for more bar and restaurant facilities in this part of town and it would seem that more are likely to become available once the pavilion comes back into use and the Royal Sands is built.

Some parts of the site have historical significance with relation to WW2 and these needs to be properly investigated to determine how unique they are.

Probably one of the major war museums should be consulted, if they haven't already.

This part of the harbour once formed part of a much earlier harbour, known to have been used at least as far back as roman times. Investigation should be sought as how best to deal with disturbing what is definitely known to be a site of historical significance.

During the construction of Morton's Patent Slipway (slipway No 1) Roman artefacts were found, coins from the Constantine period, tiles, brick and wooden piles driven into the chalk.

The development design doesn't appear to be sympathetic to the historic environment, apart from being between two listed buildings, it is in conflict with much of the existing architectures intent which is to represent earlier classical styles. The Pavilion and Alexandra being cases in point.

It is always difficult to criticise modern architecture on the grounds that it isn't visually pleasing, to criticise something just on the grounds of it being modern architecture, I think it ugly because it is modern, is a bit if a contradiction in terms. Like saying, I don't like it because I am not used to it.

Aspects of this design however lack taste and style, some of the developments features, like the inclusion of portholes and an attempt at a ships silhouette suggest rather a naïvely weak approach to harbour architecture, something that one would have hoped was abandoned in the early 1970s.

Ramsgate's maritime heritage is much more related to smacks, hoys and the earliest form of lifeboat, portholes don't feature.

I think the fin adjacent to slipway 1 is the architect's attempts to represent the Sally Rapide, once again where the potholes fit in is unclear.

The note that jars the most with this unsatisfactory attempt to appear nautical is the mounting of a lifebelt on the landward side of the building (shown in one of the elevations), in a town with one of the longest traditions of lifesaving at sea, this suggests a certain lack of architectural empathy.

The planning design and access statement makes much of the use of curves representing curved features in Ramsgate's listed buildings, as though the curve was a feature peculiar to them.

The possibility that the building material that happens to be in fashion in some architectural circles at this moment in time can be bent into curves seems to a much more likely cause of the circular features of the building.

At some time in the early 1970s a fabric was popular in the manufacture of clothes, mostly shirts and trousers, the shades of colour and the way the colours changed were remarkably similar to the proposed building material.

Perhaps the fact that the undercroft community meeting and slipway storage etc being partially submerged at high tide is the best indicator of how the development will integrate into the existing setting.

The planning design and access statement like the flood risk assessment it full of inaccuracies, below are two examples.

3.0.1 Is such a muddle of historical inaccuracies that is hard to know where to begin, suffice to say that John Smeaton had no involvement with the harbour until 1774 when the radial arms that he supposedly designed were pretty much complete.

3.0.7 That anyone could mistake the design of The Queens Head as dating from the time the harbour was built suggests an unfortunate lack of understanding both of the history of the harbour and architecture in general.

The present queens head dates from 1921, this replaced a building that was built during the harbour expansion between 1749 and 1792, which is thought to have replaced an even earlier building of the same name.

There is also seems to be a peculiar desire in this document to twist the intention of planning policy.

4.1.2 PPS 4 indeed states that local planning authorities should support diversity of usage and then somehow concludes that adding another bar and removing most of the only boatyard will achieve this.

4.1.3 suggests a high resilience to climate change somehow exists in this design and that the removal of a working boatyard will be someway beneficial to the relationship between land and water.

4.1.9 says that slipways 2 and 3 are only used to store boats, slipway 2 has been out of action since it was condemned by the council last year, in simple terms it failed its MOT and didn't get repaired, presumably because of this application. Slipways 1 and 3 have been in almost continual use during the last year.

4.1.10 suggests that slipway one could be modified in some way to do the work of slipways 1 and 3, this is simply not true as most of the time the vessels on slipway 1 are as big as slipway 1, there simply isn't room between the high water mark and the site boundary for any larger or extra vessel.

4.1.12 suggests there will be considerable employment benefits by reducing the boatyard activities and replacing them with bar and restaurant activates, this seems to be partly based on the notion that removing most of the boatyard facilities won't reduce the employment it produces and partly on the basis that there will be an increased demand for restaurants and bars in an area that already has a great many.

4.1.13 the remains of slipway 3 will not allow the slipway cradle to travel far enough to get vessels clear of the water at high tide, the most vulnerable and dangerous condition for most historic vessels is partially floating.


	Title 1 \| home Title 1 \| Title 3 \| Great Wall of Ramsgate photos of the paintings \| Title 5 \| Port photos from October 2010 \| Title 7 \| Royal Victoria Pavilion Ramsgate historic photos \| Title 9 \| Title 10 \| Title 11 Title 7 Objection to Ramsgate Slipways development. 1 FLOOD RISK ASSESSMENT The first part of this objection is based on errors and misunderstandings in the building applications flood risk assessment, having discussed this with the architects and flood risk assessor I can only assume that new plans would have to be drawn up for any development there based on a revised understanding of the situation. This is a three floor development and due to some misunderstanding the flood risk assessor didn't receive the planning sheet for the undercroft. The difficulty here is that the flood risk assessment doesn't cover the lowest level of the development so that my observations here are based on the upper levels only. The flood risk assessment is written using a mixture of chart datum and ordinance datum levels to save confusion the following is written in chart datum only. I think some of the confusion has come from, the figure 5.4m is the MHWS for Ramsgate, the flood risk assessment takes this to be about the highest astronomical tide, this actually stands for mean high water spring, i.e. the average height of a spring tide and not the highest astronomical height. HAT - Highest astronomical tide is the one they should have used the HAT at Dover is 7.3m the difference for Ramsgate is 1.6 giving a HAT for Ramsgate of 5.7 The highest recent tidal surge locally was 14th Feb. 1989 at 10:00 hours this was 1.84 metres above normal high tide registered on the Dover tide gauge, as tidal surges are caused by low barometric pressure the level and would be the same for Ramsgate. I would think it reasonable to assume that adding the HAT at Ramsgate to the surge would give the best idea of the highest possible spring and surge level here i.e. 7.54 metres. The environment agency say that new developments should be assumed to have a life of 100 years, the best predictions for the rise in sea level by 2110 are between 1 and 2 metres, at the moment they are working on just over a metre. Taking 8.54 metres as the expected maximum static tide at Ramsgate in 2110 would seem a reasonable working figure. The ground floor level of this development is for the most part 8.88 metres according to the plans “proposed first floor plan” and 7.98 metres according to the flood risk assessment page 11. Visual inspection of the site suggests considerable landscaping changes to Pier Yard would be needed to achieve either. The other figure that needs be considered is wave height in the harbour, this is particularly important as part of the development is on the form of a pier, so there would be no wave dissipation. Normally a development adjacent to waves would be on some sort of solid plinth or apron and the distance from the waterside edge of this apron combined with the height of the apron above the static high tide line, would allow for wave dissipation. As things stand the waves and anything floating free on the surface will be under part of the building. Wave height in the harbour can be quite significant, the east pier of the harbour has been breeched in storms in the past, vessels and mooring pontoons have broken free, these factors could add difficulties to situating a pier in the harbour. BUILDING MATERIALS Because of the position of the building it will be subject to the effects of salt water, waves breaking on the east pier will shower the building with seawater, I am concerned that this hasn't been taken sufficiently into account when choosing construction materials. DEVELOPMENT CHANGE OF USE At the moment the site is used as a ship repair yard comprising four slipways and workshops, two of the slipways are mostly in use and appear to be essential to the harbour. Slipway No 1 which will be retained if the development is built, is used for small ship repairs, I am not convinced that it will still be viable if the plans are implemented, this is a fairly noisy, dusty and industrial operation not really suitable for close proximity to a bar and restaurant complex. The size of the new workshop that relates to using slipway No 1 and all boat repair operations, that is shown in the plans doesn't appear large enough for normal work like the bending of ships plates to continue. Slipway No 3 is used most of the time for maintenance and repairs to windfarm vessels, meaning that if the development goes ahead the local economy could be adversely effected. There is very little doubt that bar and restaurant use would be likely to be more profitable than boat repair use, but to a degree the spectacle of a working shipyard appears to enhance the historic harbour and may be partly responsible for the growing café culture in this part of Ramsgate. I also have considerable concerns that the current lease restricts use of the site to boat building activities, granting permission to demolish, without the lease permitting change of use could leave an unviable and unusable site. The boatyard appears to be an integral part of the harbour and may well be an essential part of the harbour. There doesn't seem to be any great need for more bar and restaurant facilities in this part of town and it would seem that more are likely to become available once the pavilion comes back into use and the Royal Sands is built. HISTORIC IMPLICATIONS Some parts of the site have historical significance with relation to WW2 and these needs to be properly investigated to determine how unique they are. Probably one of the major war museums should be consulted, if they haven't already. This part of the harbour once formed part of a much earlier harbour, known to have been used at least as far back as roman times. Investigation should be sought as how best to deal with disturbing what is definitely known to be a site of historical significance. During the construction of Morton's Patent Slipway (slipway No 1) Roman artefacts were found, coins from the Constantine period, tiles, brick and wooden piles driven into the chalk. The development design doesn't appear to be sympathetic to the historic environment, apart from being between two listed buildings, it is in conflict with much of the existing architectures intent which is to represent earlier classical styles. The Pavilion and Alexandra being cases in point. AESTHETIC CRITICISM It is always difficult to criticise modern architecture on the grounds that it isn't visually pleasing, to criticise something just on the grounds of it being modern architecture, I think it ugly because it is modern, is a bit if a contradiction in terms. Like saying, I don't like it because I am not used to it. Aspects of this design however lack taste and style, some of the developments features, like the inclusion of portholes and an attempt at a ships silhouette suggest rather a naïvely weak approach to harbour architecture, something that one would have hoped was abandoned in the early 1970s. Ramsgate's maritime heritage is much more related to smacks, hoys and the earliest form of lifeboat, portholes don't feature. I think the fin adjacent to slipway 1 is the architect's attempts to represent the Sally Rapide, once again where the potholes fit in is unclear. The note that jars the most with this unsatisfactory attempt to appear nautical is the mounting of a lifebelt on the landward side of the building (shown in one of the elevations), in a town with one of the longest traditions of lifesaving at sea, this suggests a certain lack of architectural empathy. THE PLANNING DESIGN AND ACCESS STATEMENT. The planning design and access statement makes much of the use of curves representing curved features in Ramsgate's listed buildings, as though the curve was a feature peculiar to them. The possibility that the building material that happens to be in fashion in some architectural circles at this moment in time can be bent into curves seems to a much more likely cause of the circular features of the building. At some time in the early 1970s a fabric was popular in the manufacture of clothes, mostly shirts and trousers, the shades of colour and the way the colours changed were remarkably similar to the proposed building material. Perhaps the fact that the undercroft community meeting and slipway storage etc being partially submerged at high tide is the best indicator of how the development will integrate into the existing setting. The planning design and access statement like the flood risk assessment it full of inaccuracies, below are two examples. 3.0.1 Is such a muddle of historical inaccuracies that is hard to know where to begin, suffice to say that John Smeaton had no involvement with the harbour until 1774 when the radial arms that he supposedly designed were pretty much complete. See http://www.thanetonline.com/AnHistoricalreportonRamsgateHarbour/ 3.0.7 That anyone could mistake the design of The Queens Head as dating from the time the harbour was built suggests an unfortunate lack of understanding both of the history of the harbour and architecture in general. The present queens head dates from 1921, this replaced a building that was built during the harbour expansion between 1749 and 1792, which is thought to have replaced an even earlier building of the same name. There is also seems to be a peculiar desire in this document to twist the intention of planning policy. 4.1.2 PPS 4 indeed states that local planning authorities should support diversity of usage and then somehow concludes that adding another bar and removing most of the only boatyard will achieve this. 4.1.3 suggests a high resilience to climate change somehow exists in this design and that the removal of a working boatyard will be someway beneficial to the relationship between land and water. 4.1.9 says that slipways 2 and 3 are only used to store boats, slipway 2 has been out of action since it was condemned by the council last year, in simple terms it failed its MOT and didn't get repaired, presumably because of this application. Slipways 1 and 3 have been in almost continual use during the last year. 4.1.10 suggests that slipway one could be modified in some way to do the work of slipways 1 and 3, this is simply not true as most of the time the vessels on slipway 1 are as big as slipway 1, there simply isn't room between the high water mark and the site boundary for any larger or extra vessel. 4.1.12 suggests there will be considerable employment benefits by reducing the boatyard activities and replacing them with bar and restaurant activates, this seems to be partly based on the notion that removing most of the boatyard facilities won't reduce the employment it produces and partly on the basis that there will be an increased demand for restaurants and bars in an area that already has a great many. 4.1.13 the remains of slipway 3 will not allow the slipway cradle to travel far enough to get vessels clear of the water at high tide, the most vulnerable and dangerous condition for most historic vessels is partially floating.