How does she rationalise her stupid claim? By making a quite dishonest and misleading statement.
She may not be bright, but she knows people will assume the land to be brownfield-not swards of lush green playing fields that they were before destroyed by greedy developers.
Her behaviour is shameful..... an opinion shared by the media and readers of the right wing Daily Mail
She has done the very thing Boris Johnson condemned....selling off playing fields for luxury flats to house shady Eastern European arms dealers. The woman really is a liability.
Now the children of Holland Park School have £400 chairs, but no playing fields. Idiotic woman!
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| POOTER CHECKING HIS EX'S |
When his fag selling company closed down Pooter strong-armed councillor colleagues into paying him £70,000 a year on the grounds he was 'full time' leader. But now that he is collecting another taxpayer gifted £60,000 a year from the LGA he refuses to adjust downwards his RBK&C allowance: this despite the fact he is rarely seen in Hornton Street. Colleagues are furious at his greed!
No one has ever managed to understand Pooter's past but we know education did not figure prominently.
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| THE £400 CHAIR |
Another ambition of this blatant little social climber is to plonk his fat bottom on the red leather of the Lords. His thinking is that he needs a taxpayer funded income replacement scheme for when he forced out of the Rotten Borough and the LGA. He also assumes some idiot will give him a non executive directorship or two. He eyes, with great envy, Br'um Boy's NED's of heavily loss making companies.
He hopes Holland Park School will pave the way to a peerage. In the process he has broken Michael Goves' 3 Golden Rules.
- Rule 1 No school should cost more than £50 milllion
- Rule 2 New schools should increase pupil places
- Rule 3 You NEVER sell school playing fields to fund costs( A Boris Rule)
Holland Park School is, after huge delays and overspends, complete. It is a monument to the ego of one silly little man, Pooter Cockell: it offers not one extra place and costs double the original budget.
But not content with wasting money £50 million Pooter rubs salt in the wound by commissioning a £150,000 sculpture for the school. How gormless can you get?
His other little foible was to personally commission Ercol to design chairs for the school. At £400 a pop Ercol promised they would be 'exclusive'....sadly they misinformed our great Patron of the Arts...the chairs are everywhere! As Pooter's old comrade in arms and great buddy, ex Mayor Phelps was prone to say, " you could not make it up."
With palpable excitement Pooter awaits the Grand Opening when he can mingle with, as he charmingly describes them, "The Royalty." What an embarrassing little fellow Pooter has become.
I don't suppose the North Kensington based Kensington Aldridge Academy will get this sort of treatment. Interesting that it has been funded by Ron Aldridge, founder of Crapita whose company has benefited massively from the Rotten Borough. Well done, Ron....nice deal mate!
ReplyDelete£150k for a work of art for the school? PAid for from the Council tax?? You cannot be serious
ReplyDeleteAfter power corrupted absolutely, around the eighth year of Cockells current 14 year stint as Leader, the rich Borough of Kensington and Chelsea became his personal fiefdom and spending has increasingly gravitated to his vanity projects. Driven by a soaring ego. Part of his game was to build an elaborate patronage system for other Councillors, also paid for by Council Tax, so that his profligate spending goes unchallenged. Worse than that, the corrupt practices are spreading by example to other colleagues. It required a small band of fed up Tories to expose the rotten practices and agitate for change. First it was using the Bentley and driver for personal jaunts. Then it was using council tax to entertain friends at expensive restaurants in New York. And all the splurging on Chinese granite for Exhibition Road and now £15ok sculptures for a school refurbishment whose cost broke national and international records of extravagance. And a Mayor who entertains one hundred and four "friends and family" to tax paid parties in the Mayors Parlour.
ReplyDeleteNot a nice picture
It is monstrous that this continued splurging of tax payers money continues. At any time it is abhorrent. But even more so in the midst of a recession. Nothing wrong with sculptures for schools. But not paid for by tax payers. And an abomination when decisions about the spending of public money is the whim of an egotist
ReplyDeleteThe last throw of the dice. This is Cockell's Statue of Liberty in the Park. His bid for fame and a place in the House of Lords. The depths of troughing
ReplyDeleteThis project has been out of control since it was hatched by Cllrs Buckmaster and Cockell. All democratic efforts to influence the initiative have failed and it continues to thrive as the personal indulgence of the Leader of the Council, Cllr Cockell. The public policy failure is that this whole indulgence is being funded by public money without an ounce of democratic authority
ReplyDeleteThat bird brain Cllr Elizabeth Campbell told the press that "we set out to build the best school in England and we built the best school in Europe". Talk about firing from the hip. What criteria does she use to come to this conclusion?
ReplyDeleteThis is a classic utterance from the self deluded Cockell Cabinet. And of course she, more than any of her colleagues, is a beholden poodle
Residents should not expect too much from this buffooned Thatcher look alike. Some little bird told her that "the school cost nothing because we sold the playing field to pay for it". Well thank heavens that this Einstein is not looking after my financial affairs. Someone should point out that the asset register of K&C has diminished because assets have been sold. The family silver has gone. A school playing field in the densest part of London has been sold and can never be replaced. My alcoholic uncle mortgaged the house to pay for his gambling and repeatedly told his family that it cost them nothing. This is the Cockell school of economics
DeleteWe should expect more of this empty brain stupidity from the Cabinet Member for Schools in the coming weeks. The PR school of sycophancy is on full blast in preparation for the grand opening with Cockell and "the Royalty". Pass the sick bag
DeleteOFTED results for Holland Park School have climbed steadily, every year, for the last six years. Lets wait and see what the new buildings deliver. Not much, if anything, I wager. It is a vanity project.
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ReplyDeleteThe school is horrendous. Designed by an office architect with Colin Hall saying the most important goal was to make sure it did not look like a school. No thought about how much it was going to cost and English Heritage saying it was going to damage not one but two conservation areas. Quite an achievement.
Probably doesn't need to look like a school for future purchasers.... a multi purpose property overlooking prestigious Holland Park...we can all imagine the property prospectus, when it goes belly up. Like most of the vanity projects this council embarks on the ulterior motive is to gain coffers by selling it off at some point.... to fund another crock of sith, sod the local people.
DeleteWe used to criticise Lambeth and Liverpool Councils for ridiculous councillors and irresponsibility but here we in RBK&C and exactly the same thing is happening here. I think the councillors should get together and demand that Sir Merrick goes. Sir Merrick has developed into a laughing stock, useless at his job and a total embarrassment to the Tory party!
ReplyDeleteOn a slightly different note but the same in principle. Another example of extravagance at the expense of ordinary hard-pressed workers in London is Boris's 4.2% increase in bus and tube fares. Boris is also becoming a liability; self promoted and only interested in his own ambitions (like Sir Merrick). Fortunately people like Max Hastings can read Boris like a book! Mr Hastings, any chance of an article about the Sir Merrick and the irresponsible and extravagant antics at Hornton Street please?
ReplyDeleteOnly the incredibly thick Cllr Elizabeth Campbell could say that "I spent £100 million but it cost nothing". By dear old Grandfather (bless his souls) always told us that women should never, never be given a cheque book or a driving lenience
ReplyDeleteThe Dame has been in overdrive again - weekend national press full of articles taking apart the ridiculous new creation called Holland Park School - now elevated to the status of West European white elephant
ReplyDeleteSilly cow
ReplyDeleteThe Dame or Cllr Elizabeth Campbell?
DeleteScribe
DeleteHow dare you!
Richard Needham MP called Margaret Thatcher a "Silly Cow" and he got fired. The knives are out for 9.34
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