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