by Nisha Chopra

Thanet District Council is warning that "doing nothing at Dreamland is not acceptable".

The local authority's stern words come ahead of a public inquiry on Tuesday into its bid to get a compulsory purchase order [CPO] for the site.

The former amusement park on the Margate seafront has been left to decay and been virtually unused for the past five years.

The council says it has been forced to set out a case to buy the land.

But the site owners, Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company, are said to have their own ideas of how the site can be revamped into a major tourism hotspot again - with talk about building houses.

The ccouncil is now fixing urgent repairs to the Dreamland cinema and if the CPO is successful it will be able to restore the whole site, which includes the scenic railway.

Clive Hart, leader of the council said: "It's heartbreaking how anybody lets a building like that fall into that disrepair - to see the deterioration that's been allowed to happen is tragic."

He added: "It's the heart of Margate and the fortunes of Dreamland run parallel with the fortunes of the town and the site has become a blight on the area."