Letters Page

Dear Hornet

I agree with all you say about the Leader of K & C Council but the thing is, he is a weak man who is influenced by another. There is a certain councillor in K & C who typifies all that is wrong with the Kensington & Chelsea Council . We all know his name, Daniel Moylan. He is the “Grand Master” who rules K & C. Somehow this man has wheedled his way on to committees on public art. He is the one who is consulted whenever there is a controversial (so-called) modern development. He loves 20th century retro architecture, so why he doesn't go and live in the Docklands or Birmingham I don’t know.

Moylan never seems to take on board residents opinions. Thus he upset most of the residents in Chelsea with his Sloane Square proposals . He upset Earl’s Court with is imposition of an overlarge and expensive newspaper stand. Then he again upset the local residents with a proposal to put a crass piece of Public Art on to an obscure traffic island in Warwick Road- at a cost of £100,000 in the very week of the Banking crisis! He upset the residents in the Holland Park area by giving a pretentious half hour speech on surrounding the grade 2 listed Commonwealth Institute with three boring blocks of flats. These he described as “perfect cubes”. Now the line of Plain Trees which front the Institute, giving the illusion that the Park continues along the frontage, will be chopped down. All this against the majority of residents wishes.

As for Exhibition Rd, another gigantic waste of money and doubtless we will see the beautiful 'antique' lamp standards torn down and replaced by hideous stainless steel junk.

Moylan now has a conflict of interest in that his dead hand will have influence over the Earl’s Court Exhibition redevelopment. Being deputy leader of K & C and working for Transport for London ensures that. This old fashioned. dated Tory has too much power over Planning matters and should resign from the council.

Moylan spends public money like it was his own. Papers sent to his Thailand flat and expensive entertaining are just two of many examples.

I agree with you entirely about the Holland Park School fiasco. The proposed new building is a monstrosity, too large,and replacing a better building. When Holland Park School opened in the 1960’s it was pretty ugly but in later years they improved the buildings using brick as a finish. At the beginning there was 2,500 pupils, far too many. The school was chaos and was a failure until they reduced the numbers down to about 900.

Keep up the good work.

Regards,


Resident Association Chairman