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DAMESATHOME@GMAIL.COM
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Tuesday 21 April 2015

CHARITY BEGINS IN MR EXFORD'S LUXURIOUS HOME

The Dame's idiot  playboy nephew, Ludo, is always pestering the old thing about getting into a business where he can indulge his greedy ways. She had suggested local government but having seen how Mr Exford looks after himself she is now trying to push Ludo into a charity housing association sector....sounds a nice little earner for a lowly housing manager....


Dear Dame

More news from the Dame's 'favourite' charitable housing association, Affinity Sutton, (in)famous for its nefarious dealings on the Sutton Estate in Chelsea.

£1000 a day 'charity' worker!
This time the association,and its chief executive, Essex boy,Keith Exford, who grossed a handy £24,000 and change per month in 2013/14, stand accused of social apartheid in North Kensington.


Taylor Wimpey's new development of 133 apartments at the old Grand Union Centre on Ladbroke Grove (wittily marketed as The Ladbroke) includes 22 shared-ownership flats and 18 social rent properties that will come under the auspices of Affinity Sutton. For £126,000, you'll get a 25 percent share of a one-bedroom flat, with rent to pay for the other 75 percent, on top of the mortgage and service charge.

The development includes a rather charming internal courtyard garden for communal use. But not if you're one of the shared ownership or tenant  types, whose flats are no doubt round the back by the bins. They, we learn from a gushing piece in the Evening Standard, will be firmly excluded from the garden. And quite right too! Obviously, anyone who can afford the full £503,000 won't want to mix with those who only paid a quarter of that, or worse, the social tenants.

And just to remind us how far Affinity Sutton has departed from its original ethos of providing housing for people less wealthy than Mr Exford, 
Gemma Wallace, a senior sales manager at Affinity Sutton tells the Standard, “It has definitely got good potential for price growth.” 
Gushing Gemma
Someone should remind Affinity Sutton that people on lower incomes aren't looking for an investment, they're looking for somewhere they can afford to live.

Well done Affinity Sutton! And a special thank you from the poor folk of North Kensington to Keith Exford, who by the way earned £5,559 per week in 2013/14. Not bad for a charity worker, eh?

Best wishes from North Kensingtonian

33 comments:

  1. Gemma looks very charitable with that 'come hither' look....

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  2. Silas rides again

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  3. The pernicious influence of a rotten borough council has led to this disgraceful situation. Greed, both personal and public, trumps the community's need for affordable homes. This is exactly reflected the equally disgraceful situation at the Westway Trust. RBKC's unannounced policy is to cleanse North Kensington of everyone on less than merchant banker's income. The loss of mixed communities is engineered by profiteers. It's time for change, before it's too late.

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  4. Is that the 'mad monk' from da vinci code

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    1. He looks like an albino so could be

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  5. Some new voices at the town hall please.

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    1. Mr Stallwood, the new Director of Planning, needs to look again at the rules for low cost housing. The idea should be to build a community and not just a genuflection to let developers clean up. Mix and match should be the name of the game - not apartheid.

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  6. Housing is the current "game" for the get rich spivs. It is a sad day when these spivs move in on Charities like Affinity Sutton whose purpose was entirely social. We need a bunch of shareholder activists to remind these organisations of their roots, their purpose and their duty. Followed by wholesale ejection of the Management.

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  7. K&C Leadership must start to articulate "values" and set a new tone in the Borough. This is the moment. Nick Paget-Brown is still trapped in the silly old world of Pooter - doffing his cap to billionaires and Royalty.

    At the recent opening of the new Leisure Centre in Kensington, graced by the Duchess of Cambridge, the whole Cambridge family was given free life time membership. But swinging charges were introduced for Senior Citizens who could previously swim for free.

    Nick, this is the wrong message to send out. It smacks of the bad old days. In fact we still seem to have the same old days.

    Shame on you

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    1. Why were the free loading and millionaire Cambridge clan given free use of the Sports Centre?? Worse still, why did they accept????

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    2. No breeding, daughter of flight attendant. And the Royal troughers have been at it for ages. They have now sunk to free swimming sessions as well.

      Pass the sick bag

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  8. As they say, it starts at the top. Cockle used to abuse expenses and so it was OK for the rest to put their snouts in the trough. Paget-Brown gives out free membership to the future King and family and charges pensioners for the same thing. So it is OK for Affinity Sutton to build "affordable shacks" for the unwashed.

    Time for Labour to sort things out. Socialism would never behave in this way

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  9. Sack the board and Exford

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  10. Even though Keith Exford may be the bastard progeny of an unholy coupling between Silas the psychopathic monk from the Da Vinci Code, and Peter Rachman, it is terribly unfair to go on and on about his £300,000 salary.
    He can't be all bad as David Cameron gave him a CBE for getting rids of social housing, and building private homes.

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  11. Separated at birth: Keith Exford and Silas the psychotic albino monk?

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  12. This is a huge opportunity for Mr Stallwood to stamp his authority and style on the Hornton Street Planning Department.

    Is he man enough?

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    Replies
    1. Do not get excited WASP. Graham Stallwood never put his head above the parapet in his life.

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  13. This whole deal reeks of ' Corruption '!

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  14. He's been known to scream at a justifiably angry resident.

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  15. I believe Exford has invited two of the Candidates Standing in Stanley Ward for Councillor - The Conservative and Labour Candidates - but has decided against inviting the Independent Candidate for Stanley Ward - Ian Henderson - who came second in the Election last time .and who happens to be Chair of The resident association . Says it all really .

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  16. This is a Scandal. Its and old trick . Get 'yes ' men /women in the local community and portray them as the 'real' voice of the neighbourhood. Discredit and Intimidate those who disagree. Barshall and Henderson have already been checked out by Ex Anti Terrorist Officers and people profilers . The property market in Chelsea is overinflated and 50 per cent of the spaces are empty. They will turn the place into a ghost town and a parking spot for money launderers. Makes it useful at Election time though . Didn't dame Shirley Porter do something similar in Westminster ! This needs to be investigated . I for one shall be contacting Panorama . There should be FOIs put into RBKC and Affinity Sutton .

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  17. I hear that John D Wood is planning a raft of Social Housing development in and around Rbkc - allegedly . You may say he's a property developer what's his business in Social Housing . Affinity Sutton are a Housing Charity not a property Developer , there are not looking to profit from somebody else's Charity -they are there to provide low cost accommodation for Families who cant afford market rents OOOps - i seem to have got myself in a muddle here , can anyone explain to me the difference between Commercial Estate agents and Affinity Sutton !

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    Replies
    1. No i cant tell the difference either - its a con

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  18. Kensington Tory22 April 2015 at 11:31

    Mr Stallwood, the New Director of Planning, is in the spotlight. Whether he likes it or not.

    There is no point his continuing to pretend that he he sees, hears and knows nothing. He will lose the support of residents before his feet are under the table. It is an opportunity for the new Director of Planning to proclaim:

    "This is who I am. This is what I believe in. This is what I promise to you".

    Get on with it, man

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    1. The guy is a stooge of Bore. More of the "me, me, me" brigade. ie friend of the developers

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    2. The Dame's Investigator22 April 2015 at 11:34

      Mr Stallwood will come through OK. Just give him time.

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    3. Time is not something the Mentally ill people whom have been left living inside the Wornington Green building site have... every tap, vibration and breath of building dust is killing them. For what? Poorly built flats which have views into neighbouring flats. These people live in fear not just of the crime spree that have engulfed the area recently but of the noise and themselves. RBKC refuse to put up CCTV as it is not their policy. An 81 year old women is robbed in her new poorly built flat, terrorising the old and the ill is their policy.

      RBKC, Catalyst and Ardmore Group are funded by public monies, currently they are violating not jus domestic law but international law too.

      How can living in a building site be beneficial to the "well being" of a mentally ill person?

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  19. Dear Dame, strange that we think so alike (and NO people, she isn't me) I was just brewing a blog on this very same development. I'll work out just how much you would have to earn to buy into an 'affordable' flat there, give me a day or two.

    Kensal Town is being plundered in the name of overseas investors. This development was actually advertised in SINGAPORE six months ago!

    If you think nothing can be done you are very wrong. There are perfectly good planning rules and regs, we should just stick to them and not let developers wriggle out of them.

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  20. Largely due to the Dame's baleful stare, developers no longer feel as free as they once were to decimate neighbourhoods. With tax changes and the prospect of a mansion tax W2,11 and 8 are no longer the safe bets they once were for the world's laundered money. With the prospect of Kensington changing its parliamentary allegiance, the arrogance of the council is also much diminished. Messrs Stallwood and Exford would be well advised to pay attention to the fact that even the PAC has recently occasionally failed to play the developers' "game." Democracy is a truly wonderful thing.

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    1. Housing developments like this is where Economics meets Politics. Or should do. Unfortunately the Tory controlled Council does not seem to have an ounce of politics in its bones - just open pockets to benefit from the "encouragements" of the developers.

      Time for a change of Party in Hornton Street.

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  21. Here's an interesting statistic from tonight's Evening Standard p.37. Across London there are currently 41,000 units under construction that, when completed, will cost over £1 million. However, last year only 3,000 flats costing over £1 million were sold. This is why the London property bubble will burst.

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  22. Great post, I appreciate you and I would like to read your next post
    your-sale.co.uk

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