Cllr Ian Driver’s recent post containing a
“secret” document regarding allocation of the development site known as
Pleasurama, Ramsgate, gives considerable credence to the notion that there is
something untoward about this transaction. The report may or may not be genuine
but it deals with a part of the timeline (2002-3) for this project which has
interested me of late. This was the
period when the Audit Commissioner was preparing a report about Thanet District
Council, following a complaint to his office by a member of the public, that
scathing report was not published until October 2003.
During this period the Labour administration
had been ousted by a Conservative victory in the 2003 elections, and reading
the above “secret” report a planning application was eagerly awaited for the
Pleasurama site. The earliest document I have seen for the SFP scheme on
Pleasurama is one shown on Michaels Child’s blog here. This was prepared in 2002 by PRC
Fewster Architects of Surbiton in Surrey and appears to be a preliminary scheme by SFP
Ventures backed by Whitbread plc.
So, coming to the point of this post. I have
examined the UKplanning documents for the Pleasurama development and what
appears to be the same scheme at a more advanced stage, submitted on 4
Nov 2003 by
the same architects, PRC Fewster of Surbiton, Surrey , states that the applicant for the
site is Robert Leonard Group plc of Southend on Sea, Essex . They paid £22,000 for the
privilege of submitting the application for approval.
Even more curious is that some 3 months later,
the application was approved but the approval document carries the name of SFP
Ventures Partners Ltd. The Robert Leonard Group would have had to advise Thanet District
Council of a change of applicant and that correspondence should be on the
planning file. It also means that The Robert Leonard Group must be aware of the
identity of SFP Ventures Partners Ltd. This is particularly strange because the only UK based company which would have a "Ltd" suffix is SFP Ventures (UK) Ltd which was not formed until 2006.
P.S It has since occurred to me that a planning permission issued to the wrong applicant, who is in fact a fictitious company may be null and void
