The mark of a person of substance is the
ability to admit being wrong and then right that wrong.
This Wednesday,14th of October at 6.30pm, the
Council meets to debate the call by over 2000 residents to halt the illegal
destruction of that much loved Victorian architectural gem, Marlborough Primary
School.
Council Leader, Nick Paget-Brown took office with the promise to listen to residents.
On Wednesday he and fellow councillors
have the chance to demonstrate, not only that they listen, but are ready to
step back and reconsider a bad decision
Jane Solomon, that indefatigable campaigner who has worked so hard to save the school asks that everybody fill the Public Gallery.
It will be your chance to see local democracy in action.
Will your representatives bother to turn up, and, if they do, will they treat the issue with the gravity it deserves?
And one other thing...certain councillors love to boost their ego's by wasting YOUR money on projects they think will define their legacy...Pooter on the new Holland Park School; Moylan on the dreadful £27 million Exhibitionist Rd and now Coleridge with this pointless vandalism.
This is your chance to be there and decide whether you have any say in the running of your BOROUGH
Remember, this is the moment to see whether your councillor deserves your future vote.
Too late Dame. The Tories already decided the route they will take on Wednesday. Two fingers to residents.
ReplyDeleteThe Royal Socialist Party of Kensington and Chelsea will be voting with the Tories
DeleteWhy do you lot in the south keep voting in Tory councillors and then expect Labour to clear up the messes they make? Don't you understand that Labour DO NOT HAVE A MAJORITY in this borough and don't have any authority to deal with matters inn Tory areas. So stop being so silly!
DeleteCalm down dear
DeleteLets hope that the dreadful Gordon Taylor and his rabble stay away from the public gallery
ReplyDeletePalmer....Taylor has brain: yours got lost many years ago
DeletePalmer....Taylor has brain: yours got lost many years ago
DeleteJack Welch, that great CEO of GE, was on TV last night talking about the current circus in US Republican politics and the unexpected resignation of the Speaker of the House - the third most powerful person in US Government.
ReplyDeleteHe said a very compelling thing. "When running an organisation or political party you have to give everyone airtime. Everyone has to be listened to. You have to go around, shake their hands and listen". His analysis of the current circus is that the last US election produced many new faces in the Senate and they were ignored by the old guard. And they were punished (ie denied office/position) if they refused to follow the party line.
Sound familiar?
Our modern and corrupt political system is entering turmoil because of alienation. The result is Corbyn and Trump ahead in the polls. What a mess.
Paget-Brown has the chance to lead from the front with Marlborough school. It would be noticed. Is he up for it?
Pigs will fly
DeletePaget-Brown thinks he is listening when he holds his pathetic "meet Nick" sessions. Sad residents are expected to turn up and be intimidated and jerry mandered by the Town Hall heavies.
DeleteHe should take the Jack Welch advice and go and talk with all strands of opinion. Everyone with a constituency.
Has Paget-Brown EVER talked with the Dame?
Is it possible to talk with the Dame? Surely she is a fantasy!
DeleteHard to imagine that there is something to be touched, seen and heard. That is capable of being punched in the eye.....
The Dame has yet to meet the Leader, but, were her diary to permit, be happy to have a post lunch Kummel with him.
Delete10.06 The Dame would be quite capable of defending herself. She is adept with her hatpin
Ah! The Dame may be a real person after all
DeleteLeader Cllr Paget-Brown may think the old girl is an evil smelling toe rag, but he would do well to reach out and try to find some middle ground. The Dame and her hornets are not a force that should be trifled with. They have demonstrated an extraordinary ability to root out and expose corruption and wrong doing in the Royal Borough. And to marshal forces to even topple Leaders.
Dotty could be a powerful arrow in Nick's quiver
Observer is spot on. Jack Welch says it all.
DeleteNick's quiver??? Tell us more......
DeleteThe die is cast. The planning guys are on the take. Officers and Councillors. Odeon cinema, Marlborough, Notting Hill Gate, Lancer Square, Charles House, Earls Court, etc etc. The reptiles know very well that petitions, hornets and newspapers are no more than "little local difficulties".
ReplyDeleteAs Buffy used to say, "the dogs are barking".
And those pathetic poodles that we vote in as representatives do not have the balls to stand up and be counted.
Puffers
DeleteThese Councillors are incompetent, they do not research or even bother to educate themselves in regards to their roles and responsibilities as lead for planning, housing etc etc. But they take their money! They stupidly depend on the ever expanding group of corrupt arrogant incompetent officers. So when a mess like this happens they have themselves to blame for the flack they are about to receive. As for Nit Packet Beige...utterly bloody useless. What has he ever done following his patronising controlled listening sessions...nothing...again! The Borough is in meltdown!
ReplyDeleteAll the Dame needs to do is "keep at it". It is a dangerous climate for the crooks in Hornton Street. One day, for no particular reason, the press will pounce and we will have another T Dan Smith affair splashed all over the newspapers. Right in the middle of Kensington and Chelsea
ReplyDeleteResidents became angry and concerned when the cost of the proposed Holland Park School refurbishment quickly escalated from £30 million to £100 million. The national benchmark cost of a new school is £26 million. A focus quickly developed on the then Leader (Cllr Cockell), his shadowy Director of Planning and the back seat driver of the Planning Committee.
ReplyDeleteCockell was quickly exposed as an individual pursuing a vanity project for personal gain and living the life of Riley on the tax payer. The establishment rose to his defence when Lady Hanham dismissed his lies to the local newspaper as "political rhetoric" and the Chief Executive (Derek Myers) retrospectively approved his use of the Bentley to "save taxi fares".
The Residents Association hired an investigator to look into the affairs of the back seat driver. This Councillor was a member of the Cockell inner circle, an ex Mayor and an ex Chairman of the Planning Committee. The married father of two was living with his boyfriend and circulating indecent images of young boys on the Council computer system. Despite protestations of poverty, the investigator found that he had three offshore bank accounts, nineteen credit cards and three properties hidden in offshore trusts. Two in the Royal Borough and a country house in the name of the boyfriend and bought with a loan from the Councillor. A complaint to the Standards Committee by furious residents brought the riposte from Cllr Coleridge that "these arrangements are quite common and nothing to worry about".
I remember it well. The Standards Committee slapped the lucky Councillor on the wrist for failing to declare his properties in the Royal Borough in the Declaration of Interests which all councillors are required to make.
DeleteThe Council also spent £40k on lawyers fees (from Council Tax) to prepare a defence the councillor at the Standards Committee.
The Standards Committee has since been abolished.
You could not make it up
DeleteAnd he had Savile Row suits made and opened a bank account with Coutts (that requires a rather significant sum in deposit, does it not?).
DeleteBut unfortunately the remit of the Standards Committee was very narrow and only related to property affairs within the Royal Borough. Most of the information you provide above was not admissible and was not even known by those on the Committee. Since then, the Coalition Government reduced even further the powers of the Standards Committee and said that these matters in future should be decided by the electorate. Well to an extent - at least one Earl’s Court councillor was defeated, although he was not the culprit in this matter. Almost everything happening in planning in the Royal Borough these days points to past and current corruption and we are powerless to address it.
Cllr Cockell pursued this vanity project in order to get noticed and prepare the way for his campaign to enter the House of Lords. Mercifully this campaign was spiked by the Dame. Long live the Dame.
DeleteAn account with Coutts requires a cash balance of £500k to be maintained. It is where the Queen keeps her money.
DeleteThis was the period when public consultations "peaked" in the Royal Borough. The Cabinet Member for Education (Cllr Weale) let the cat out of the bag when she was heard whispering to the Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee: "We agreed to listen but not to hear".
ReplyDeleteThe naïve and inexperienced resident who overheard this extraordinary comment from Cllr Weale at a public consultation meeting, asked his Ward Councillor (Cllr Robert Freeman) who the people were. That is the Cabinet Member for Education, Cllr Mary Weale he said. The other is the Chairman of the Education Scrutiny Committee, Cllr John Cox.
DeleteThe place was the annex meeting room of the Town Hall Library
Cllr Weale hates Cllr Borwick
DeleteEnvy dear boy. Envy.
DeleteBorwick is a big supporter of developers being a part of Boris Johnson's coterie. Unfortunately she is part of the problem not the solution. We have another Rifkind on our hands, unfortunately our Great leader, Rt Hon Dame will not be as dogged as she was with Riffers senior.
Deleteeveryone in Kensington is furious about what is taking place, I have sat through endless consultations, taken part in actively opposing them and been in the gallery when many of these monstrous decisions have been granted by our planning committee, despite overwhelming opposition from residents, and even some councillors. However You are wrong about Victoria Borwick, she is a great supporter of people and the community including the most vulnerable in the area, we are very lucky to have her as our MP and not to have had a high flying political opportunist parachuted in.
DeleteWhat a pity that the Dame and her hornets were not around when the decision was taken to convert the old London University building on Campden Hill (Queen Elizabeth Hall) into "buy to leave" flats. The irregularities in Hornton Street made the Holland Park School project sound like a walk in the park (excuse the pun)
ReplyDeleteMore trash on the Hornet. From bored and mischievous miscreants
DeleteCllr Palmer(for the nonentity gets a thrill being so addressed) you have been warned by the Leader not to comment on the Hornet.
DeleteWithout being boastful the Dame is proud her little blog has become such an obsession with you. On virtually an hourly basis you log in.
Have you nothing more useful to do?
The Hornets Nest now racks up between 1000-1800 daily page views and, exceptionally, 2,700! so yours help the tally.
Anyway, the Dame would enjoy a post lunch Kummell with you. She would like to hear your side of the story over international telephone calls.....
BTW how is your Council Skills training site going....or not going?
Many of us suspect that the Queen Elizabeth development lies at the root of all this.
DeleteIt is nearly lunch time on Sunday morning and Up Yours has woken up. Long live the Inspector
ReplyDeleteHopefully this means we will all turn out in force on Wednesday at 6.30 to show that we've had enough, this is the beginning of the end of Horton Street corruption!
ReplyDeleteJust seen RBKC gave £5 million to Holland Park Opera but there was not enough money to spare for green recycling. What the frack!?
ReplyDeleteAnd lets not forget the £4million interest free loan (from Council Tax) to millionaire Sir Terence Conran to "help complete the design museum in Holland Park".
ReplyDeleteThis is an open invitation to the Evening Standard. Please investigate the assets of the last three Planning Directors of Kensington and Chelsea and compare with their declared earnings.
ReplyDeleteA forensic examination of the decision at the Planning Committee to allow the Lancer Square development compared with the written evidence against approval prepared by the Kensington Society should be carried out by Counsel to determine the robustness of the decision. Cllr Warwick was Chairman of the meeting.
ReplyDeleteLancer Square is only 19 years old. Construction was previously approved by the Planning Committee. Holland Park School was 50 years old and was knocked down because it was leaking and the playground was flooding.
DeleteHousing stock in the Royal Borough is 250 years old and people cant wait to buy into it.
Get it?
The planning hubris in Kenisington and Chelsea is staggering. A small bunch of people decide arbitrarily what they think is "good" and then manipulate process to ride roughshod over resident opinion. Time and time again.
ReplyDeleteAnd another small bunch of people use this cover to do their deals with the developers.
Not only is this corrupt, but it diminishes democracy and has built a huge wave of alienation and cynicism in the Royal Borough about our elected system. It is really sad that the new Leader, Cllr Paget-Brown, allows this situation to continue on his watch.
What is the name of the Earls Court Councillor who has been accepting lavish entertainment from the developers?
DeleteThe four recent Tory councillors of Earls Court are:
DeleteTerence Buxton (trustee of CapCo's charity Olympia Trust)
Jonathan Read
Fenella "Inane" Aouane (had £44 dinner with CapCo at Hurlingham Club)
https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/az/CllrPublicInfo.aspx?tab=4&seed=Councillor%20Fenella%20Aouane&key=14859
Malc SPALDING (Earls Court Society the party Chameleon, sorry I mean't chairman) he has many links to CapCo through Earls Court society the man has unusual taste for certain things.
So it could be any of them or most likely all. As a tory voter it is outrageous for our councillors & MPs to abandon us in Earls Court to the asset strippers. We have to rely on a Lib Dem Councillor Linda Wade (who is great); so bad was it during the election we voted for Labour Rod for leading RBKC.
Spalding sounds like another Phelps.
DeleteSpalding IS another Phelps
DeleteThe biggest dung heap of all is the planning for Notting Hill Gate. What is going on beneath the surface defies description. Officers have been carrying out public "consultations" and inviting residents to exhibitions in buildings owned and paid for by the developers, using materials and models provided by the developers, and distributing materials paid for by the developers.
ReplyDeleteThe opposing forces are residents who value their "café society" and developers who see a huge wealth creation opportunity to bulldoze what is there and replace with "buy to leave".
It sucks.
Pro bono contributions from developers saves tax payers money. It is very expensive to hire exhibition space in Notting Hill Gate and leaflet distribution does not come for free.
DeleteBalls. The Hornton Street planning department has become the marketing department of the developers
DeleteThe Kenisngton Society commissioned a detailed report into the planning irregularities surrounding the Charles House Development. Extracts from this report were published in the last Kensington Society Annual Report. But many of the findings were too hot to handle.
ReplyDelete2000 inner city office jobs were destroyed when Charles house was knocked down and replaced with "buy to leave". All the spending with local shops and services has stopped.
DeleteThe £5 million two bed flats are now owned by Arab investors who come once a year in August and the blight of noisy super cars has spread from Knightsbridge. The Porters tell me that they pick up £100 tips at 2.00am when the drunks return home incapable and have to be decanted from taxis, transported to their flats and undressed.
The Town Hall Tories are just about to ban the presentation of any further petitions to the Council meeting. In future you will only be able to send them in by post - and maybe or maybe not get a reply when they feel bother send to send one. See the agenda for Wednesday's council meeting under Administration.
ReplyDeleteWith the stuff on here the Royal Socialist Party have no excuse not to make a stomping and devastating attack on the Tories at the Council meeting on Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteEven more compelling is the case for Tory councillors to defy the whip. They cannot maintain any kind of credibility with the electorate if they continue to toe the line with this thoroughly corrupt regime. How much more evidence do they require?
Keep dreaming, Owl. Tory councillors have been forbidden to read the Hornet. On pain of expulsion.
DeleteJust read Paget-Brown's piece in London Weekly news where he sports his inane thoughts which are not those of the residents. Here he is writing about why it is good Marlborough school is being demolished;
ReplyDelete"A lot has been written about Marlborough School and why we are replacing it with a new building. It certianly is fair to say the Victorian building has given great service for a long time. But, the way we educate our children has changed and the building really has some quite stark shortcomings perhaps most major being that it really is not acceptable today to have a building that a disabled pupil cannot move around in."
Once again Paget Boring is not in sinc with the residents of Kensington and Chelsea time for a change.
http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk//launch.aspx?pbid=5669b14b-77bc-4ebe-9b9a-8c40beba8dbf
The Councillors always grasp Health and Safety as a last resort to try and justify any kind of nonsense that they want to get away with. I seem to remember that disabled access was also wheeled out to justify spending £100 million to knock down and rebuild Holland Park School.
DeleteHornton Street needs a dose of common sense. And if Paget-Brown is peddling this clap trap then he needs to be shafted.
The other reasons for knocking down 50 year old Holland Park School were that the playground was "hard" and the classrooms "drafty". If I had made similar suggestions at my 600 year old school I would have been a laughing stock.
DeleteNote: My Kensington House is 250 years old. When I needed disabled access I put in a stair lift. It never occurred to me that I should knock it down and build a new house!
What an extraordinary set of stories and information are contained in this thread. Almost unbelievable. How does one get the system to act and respond to facts?
ReplyDeleteA huge body of people used to believe that the earth was flat. There was no basis in science for this belief. But the thought was prevalent.
It seems clear from all the examples and stories that have been put together here, and from so many sources, that something is radically wrong with our planning system. And corruption is rife. For some reason the establishment seems to be unable to understand this and take some action.
The only way is to get one media institution newspaper or television to make these facts widely known.
ReplyDeleteDame, is this the longest comment thread in the Nest?
From memory, the longest was one on the TMO which exceeded 100.
DeleteWhilst on the subject Cllr Paget-Brown is not telling the truth in suggesting that
knocking down the school was the only way of 21st proofing the building.
Has he not noticed the remarkable redevelopments behind retained facades.
Cllr, you need to remember that the residents of K&C are, in the main, remarkably clever. Telling them obvious lies is not sensible.
Now Earls Court Post Office is closing but still no sign of Victoria Borwick.
ReplyDeleteMarlborough School being knocked down no sign of Greg Hands
What do our MPs actually do?
Anon 17.08 is correct. RBKC Planning has long addressed planning applicants, rather than applications. A former acting executive director once asked a complaining resident if he wanted a one-size-fits-all planning system; to which the response was: "Yes. It's called a level playing field!"
ReplyDeleteBehind all this is a shadow economy. Dosh in the right places morphs into planning permission, regardless of the law, never mind planning policy.
Are you paying over $5 / pack of cigarettes? I buy all my cigs at Duty Free Depot and I'm saving over 70% from cigs.
ReplyDelete