Sir Roger Gale
Member of Parliament for Herne Bay and Sandwich (including West Thanet)
 

The opening of the Turner Contemporary gallery this weekend has been described as “just the beginning of the Margate Waterfront regeneration project” by North Thanet`s MP, Roger Gale.
 
Speaking at the opening ceremony Roger Gale said:
 
“The Gallery is a tremendous achievement on the part of the Architect, David Chipperfield, the Director, Victoria Pommery and the County and Local councils who have so determinedly backed the scheme and helped to generate the funds to fully pay for the project.

It has also been an act of faith and a great achievement for all of those local people who have stood by the venture from the very beginning, seen it through its difficult times and given the lie to those fainthearts who have said “it will never happen here”.

The Gallery has to be seen, though, as the cornerstone of the Waterfront re-development and not as an end in itself.

It has already had a dramatic effect upon the Old Town of Margate and that influence is now spreading up the High Street as well as shutters are coming down and new businesses are opening.
 
We now have to push the progress forward and, as visitors and investors start to wake up to the fact that Margate is back in business we have to capitalise on the “Turner effect” to deliver other significant projects.
 
I want to see a new lifeboat centre on the site that the boat is currently temporarily occupying. That will free up the existing boathouse site to facilitate the development of a good new seafront hotel.  The Winter Gardens has to be renovated and revamped though private investment and the Lido site, which has been largely dormant for far too long, is now ripe for re-development.
 
At the other end of the Main Sands the Nayland Rock is needed as another prime-site hotel and we have to make sure that the Dreamland Heritage Amusement Park is not allowed to falter.
 
There is a huge amount to be done but the opening of Turner Contemporary has proved that Margate can deliver.  Now for the rest of it!”

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