This is a copy of an e-mail sent to Steve Moore, principal strategic planner at Thanet district Council.

Good afternoon

It's not often that I'm totally discombobulated, but that's the way you find me now.

Well back in April I responded to Thanet District Council's 2030 vision document. You now tell me that this consultation is closed and that a new consultation about a core strategy up to 2026 is now under way. You tell me that these are connected.

However, the 121 pages of the new document seem, at a quick first scan, to cover the same ground as the old vision document, which ran four years longer.

Now, I don't know how many people in Thanet want thoroughly to read this new document and take the time and effort to understand every paragraph and clause. I am absolutely positive that the endorsing council leader hasn't, but perhaps I'm being a bit cynical. The authors and councillors want a public response so that they can say that public opinion has been taken into account - authors to cover their posteriors, councillors to show how good they are even though they haven't read it either.

What is TDC playing at? Discombobulators par excellence. Why go to all the effort and expense of publishing, promoting and corresponding on a vision to 2030 and then start all over again looking at a time line up to 2026? It takes my breath away.

Yours gaspingly

Paul Conyers-Silverthorn

PAUL CONYERS-SILVERTHORN - who am I? Why do I make such a fuss about tourism?

I have spent my life in the travel industry, as a tour operator from junior courier to marketing director; as cruise director in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean; as passenger officer with British Eagle airlines; as proprietor of a chain of travel agencies; as consultant to the Canadian Government Office of Tourism, to the President of the Seychelles, to British Rail International, to Eurostar. Then as I returned to Broadstairs, where my family have lived for hundreds of years, I couldn't refuse the offer of becoming general manager, sales and marketing and director of external affairs of Sally Line, as one of the team which brought it into profit and turned it into the cash cow of the parent group.

I was elected to Thanet District Council, where I served a year as deputy leader, and Broadstairs and St Peter's Town Council. I served as trustee on three local charities, as Governor at my old school, Chatham House, as a founder member of the Thanet Skills Initiative and Ramsgate Spring Festival, which I helped run for seven years. I was also a founder member of the Association for the Promotion of Herefordshire, East Kent Tourism Development Action Programme and the North West European Tourism Organisation. I was guest lecturer on empowerment and the practical application of interpersonal management theory to small business at various management colleges and business forums, as well as a frequent speaker at charity and business breakfasts, lunches and dinners. On the other side of the coin, I was appointed Town Crier for Broadstairs and St Peter's, the first for 60 years. Sadly, after five years, I had to retire due to ill health, which I have now conquered. I now have time to sit at my computer and think and put my thoughts on paper as e-mails and letters, using my speech recognition software since I can't operate the keyboard any more.

My life in tourism and my love for Thanet drive me to seek the very best tourism promotion we can get, because that's our finest resource and lots of people lose sight of it. Economic regeneration for such a deprived area is a vital part of the future, despite the cries of people who thought they would like to retire down here to get some peace and sod the jobs.