Grilling the competition..

After getting to bed at 5am on Friday and 3:30am on Saturday, I didn’t have the inclination to go to Margate’s Big Weekend, and so that’s missed for another year, but I do have something to point you in the direction of for next weekend.

Next Sunday 28th June will see the Broadstairs heat (pun intended) of Britain’s Best BBQ’er Competition 2009 take place at Tesco Extra,  Westwood Cross, and my sauces (pun intended) tell me that they are short of people taking part. How do I know they need people? Well over at Canterbury on Friday, as soon as I told someone I worked in Broadstairs they almost but my arm off telling me about www.britainsbestbbqer.co.uk as they had a part in running it and were disappointed by Tesco’s promotion of it. I won’t be able to go as it’s my Sunday league footy team AGM, but it may interest some of you out there.

The 7th Britain’s Best BBQ’er competition is easy to enter, but will test your Grill-skills. You’ll have 1.5 hours to prep, grill and present two dishes, one of your choice and one, our infamous, yet delicious Chicken Ciabatta, which looks deceptively simple, but beware!

If you fancy yourself for this then go onto the website, fill in the form, and submit it asap to get your chance for a bit of fun and some prizes.

When I got back from work yesterday I set up my new cycle computer on my bike (cheapo one from Tesco) and went off for a quick bike ride. A very quick one as it was getting dark and rush-hour traffics meant there were a lot of drivers around who don’t always respect cyclists. I only did 3.25 miles, which is nothing really, but at least it was something, and then I got back to have some dinner and spent 2.5 hours in sheer agony at watching Arsenal only just beat Roma via penalties in the Champions League.

Back to last weekend I went out for my cycle on Saturday to see the Quad Biking in Margate I came across a few things that I only normal catch a glance of when I’m driving at it’s these:

Mystery gates at Westwood

I can only assume they are part of a former estate at Westwood (map here) but with no buildings there I can only assume and on the map you can see that the pathway leads a long way (more pics here, here, and here). Anyone know any more? Maybe they are just gates to the woods?

An artists impression of the Thanet College site in 2011.

The sale of the Ramsgate Road campus near Broadstairs town centre will partly fund the move and one can only speculate but it’s highly likely that the old site, 12 acres of land with sea views and close proximity to the town, will be demolished in favour of a housing development.

Is this just another nail in the coffin for our local towns? Thanet College has approximately 2000 full-time students, 6000 part-time students and who know how many employees, all of which contribute to the welfare of local Broadstairs shops on a daily basis. It may only be for a sandwich at lunchtime, or a chance to get a bit of shopping, but I can’t doubt that this will have a major impact on the local economy. Yes I’m only speculating but it’s simple economics right?

As one town gets a knock, a ‘new town’, Westwood, will be developing even further and the presence of the new campus will surely bring in more development and investment in the area (not including the proposed 1000 new homes). One of the talking points will be of traffic and transport in an already clogged up area and I’m told that agreements are already in place with local bus companies to improve public transport in Westwood and in particular with the new campus. Will this encourage more people to ditch their cars?

Have a think about what I’ve told you, and no doubt some will have differing views on this, but you cannot deny that education is something that needs investment in Thanet, and that this development provides a great opportunity for that.