It seems that the London Evening Standard have no such scruples. They have blatantly lifted the excellent story on the Holland Park School swimming pool without so much as a credit or by your leave!
Here is the Standard story:it totally replicates the Horrox story...
I wonder how long Camilla Horroc will stay of the Chronic? She makes the paper good to read.
ReplyDeleteThe Chronic is a breeding ground and Camilla is an excellent and ambitious young journalist. Within a year she will be off to a "national" - or maybe even the Evening Standard
ReplyDeleteThe focus is currently on the hopeless and out of touch K&C Planning Director, the aptly named Mr Bore, for failing to impose planning conditions that were imposed on the school. In fact the principal villain in the horror story is the Headmaster, Colin Hall, who does not want residents disturbing his council tax funded school. This small person with a chip on his shoulder considers himself "above the law" and has waived two fingers at the Council, which he has rightly figured out is weak and feeble. Time for Mr Hall to be brought down a peg or three and for lazy Cllr Coleridge (Cabinet Member for Planning) to get out of bed and do something. Dim Tim is a well known proponent of the quiet life.
ReplyDeleteCouncil Leader Paget-Brown has so far taken a back seat (he is pre occupied with another pet project, UFOs landing in Ladbroke Grove) but he cannot afford to stand aside for too much longer.
What a shower of SRA grabbing cretins we seem to have in Hornton Street
DeleteA previous Hornet blogger summed up the Headmaster's attitude in the following words
ReplyDeleteAnonymous5 July 2013 09:59
Colin Hall, the head teacher of Holland Park School and his praetorian guard of senior "managers" (formerly teachers) have set themselves completely against public use of the pool. To this end they are throwing in all sorts of constraints that effectively prevent community use of the pool. One such is that, for health and safety reasons, lifeguards and security officers would need to be employed. Mr Hall says that his School budget has no provision to pay for these, so the Council must pick up the tab. Since he knows perfectly well that there is no chance of that happening, his pool is now a private pool just for the School, regardless of any planning condition. Any attempt by the Council to enforce the condition would come up against the brick wall of health and safety.
Hornton Street is no match for Headmaster Hall. He knows froth when he sees it
ReplyDeleteSchool holidays have started and this publicly funded pool is closed and out of use. There is a Planning Condition that guarantees local residents use of the pool. It should be available during normal Sports Center hours in the holidays and after hours in the school term. If the Headmaster and his staff cannot figure out how this can be administered then there are many Sports Management companies running pools all over country who can be contracted to do the job. The admin cost can easily be recovered from swimming charges. None of this is rocket science. It is one huge abuse of power by the Headmaster
ReplyDeleteunfortunately they have handed over control of the school to an academy - what a con! so the council has no control. Apparently it can no longer be used as a Polling Station either
ReplyDeleteHall is running rings around the clowns in Hornton Street. In another master stroke, the Chairman of School Governors (John Baker) is resigning and will be replaced by ex council employee Anne Marie Cary. As a one time Director of Education in Hornton Street, prominent Labour activist, and after a very short spell as CEO of Dr Barnados, Ms Cary is a great secret weapon for the malcontents of Holland Park to screw the Council further into the ground.
DeleteA much more interesting appointment as Chairman would have been Jackie Griffiths - the one who knows where the bodies are buried and is under no illusions about Colin Hall
The Council would have to go a very long way to find a more unsuitable person that Ms. Griffin. Mrs. Carrie is an inspired choice. She won't take any nonsense from Napoleon Hall.
DeleteCllr Moylan has contacted Cllr Paget-Brown and informed him that stories in the Hornet that he is criticizing his Leadership style are mischievous, exaggerated and untrue. The reception was frosty.
ReplyDeleteCllr Moylan failed to pledge his loyalty and colleagues are quite clear what his feelings are.
There are big stories like this which Fitzpatrick and his £500k per year PR Department cannot handle. Their level is more in the line of UFOs landing in Ladbroke Grove, funded by council tax
ReplyDeletePaget-Brown UFOs. Please get your facts right.
DeleteResidents are refusing to give up and go away. The usual Council tactic of "talk the Muppets to death" is failing on this occasion. Council Leader Paget-Brown and Cabinet Member for Planning, Cllr Coleridge, need to wake up and do their duty. They are up against a determined Resident Association Chairman who has rock solid support from his constituency. This cock up cannot be left to the hapless Mr Bore who will mouth more useless platitudes like "It may be that the community use plan as originally envisaged does not now reflect the operational needs and management structure of the school". Why on earth are individuals like Mr Bore allowed to exist? How can result focused societies afford to support people like this with hard earned tax payers cash?
ReplyDeleteWake up Nick and get off the fence. Tell Cllr Coleridge to "sort it". You guys are pulling big SRAs. Time to give tax payers a return on their funding.
Time for a big warning shot to be fired across Mr Bore's desk. "Make sure you do your job properly and devise planning conditions that are robust. And understand that the same rules apply to the big guys as the small guys".
DeleteCan any of us imagine a resident deciding that conservation windows approved by the Planning Department for his house "no reflect the aesthetic desires of the resident". Bore and his henchmen would be down on the poor resident like a ton of bricks and a cart load of shit.
This whole saga needs to be laid at the door of disgraced ex Leader Cllr "squatter" Cockell. Cockell was busy making a splash with the giant sized school vanity project as part of his campaign to get noticed and make it to the House of Lords. The culture he created in Hornton Street was an enormous pressure to do whatever was necessary to get the school approved. And if irritants like residents objected, buy them off with baubles - even if there was never any intention of delivering the baubles.
ReplyDeleteA very difficult environment for loyal servants like Mr Bore to operate in.