The news that RBK&C have extracted £800,000 from some hedge fund boss has been ramped by Mr Fizzypaddy of PR as being of momentous import. In reality, the hedgie has a smug smile on his face knowing he will be getting a mega return on his mega basement investment.
But what will the Council ending up doing with this windfall tax? Doubtless, it will be spent on some frivolity benefitting no one.....certainly not those suffering the hell basement excavations create.
The Dame says the £800,000 and all subsequent and similar taxes should be used to alleviate the hardship caused to neighbours having to endure years of misery.
Money raised in this manner should be used to provide exemption to council tax during the course of basement excavations. At least then neighbouring residents would feel that some account has been taken of their hardship.
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| LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK |
But what will the Council ending up doing with this windfall tax? Doubtless, it will be spent on some frivolity benefitting no one.....certainly not those suffering the hell basement excavations create.
The Dame says the £800,000 and all subsequent and similar taxes should be used to alleviate the hardship caused to neighbours having to endure years of misery.
Money raised in this manner should be used to provide exemption to council tax during the course of basement excavations. At least then neighbouring residents would feel that some account has been taken of their hardship.
As usual the Dame is on the ball. The first to acknowledge that it is poor neighbours who bear the brunt of the basement curse and it is time for these poor people to be given some relief
ReplyDeleteAnd I wonder whether there is not a basis for asserting personal liability for Councillors and Officers in Hornton Street who mindlessly approve engineering projects with such potentially dangerous and unknowable consequences. Perhaps it would be a salutary step for a wounded building’s owners to give Mr Bore and his chief engineer a big blast from a legal double-bore even if they apparently have a thick legal shield
ReplyDeleteK&C politicians have been asleep on the job for years. Pompous and self important Councillors closed their eyes while this whole evil practice of building jumbo basements in 200 year old buildings took hold. Now it is a contagious disease worse than the black death which plagued London in 1666. The pox on the useless Tories
DeleteBrain dead Cllr Palmer will note that some leftie is at work again on the Hornet
DeleteThe useless Mr Bore wrings his hands and says it is not his fault. (Of course). It is all the fault of Westminster and the dead in the water Baroness Hanham who has long since forgotten where she came from - puffed up with the robes and £300 a day tax free in the House Of Lords. Why does the useless woman not do something about Kensington basements and earn her living?
ReplyDeleteMr Bore has difficulty seeing the wood from the trees. He is a basic Administrator. If he read that he should jump off the edge of a cliff he would do so immediately. Of course he is also a paid up member of the Flat Earth Society.
DeleteEnough said
Concentration Camp guards in the 1940's had no difficulty turning on the gas to kill Jews. After all, it was their duty. They did their duty.....
DeleteThis whole issue is a political issue and needs political action. The Westminster crowd (according to Mr Bore) are supremely disinterested. Obviously this is a political issue that Mayor Boris is uniquely qualified to tackle
ReplyDeleteThe Mayor needs an urgent briefing from his Deputy, Cllr Victoria Borwick
DeleteYes I can see it now.
DeleteBoris "...... Yes Victoria very interesting ..... I think the new policy should be .........."
10 minutes later
Boris "Victoria can you explain why everything I told you in confidence has leaked out in the Internet?"
Quote one instance of anything Borwick has leaked? Certain petty minded and useless councillors are so insanely jealous of Cllr Borwick that they will spew out any lie in a vain attempt to damage her. Luckily cream rises to the surface whereas sour, out of date milk coagulates and is useless to both man or beast.
DeleteMatthew, concentrate on shoring up what little support you have rather than try to undermine your betters
Palmer the good news is that very soon you no longer be a councillor.
DeleteOf course Cllr Palmer cannot quote an instance of leaking by his fellow councillor. There is none. Just a rather sad and dreary Palmer full of jealousy for a colleague who just happens to be a nice human being
DeleteKensington Tory councillors are so self absorbed that even when the basement pox hits them personally they sit on the side lines and bleat. The house next door to Cllr James Husband (ex Mayor!) is undergoing a king sized basement excavation. The neighbouring house developed a huge crack down the front wall some months ago and last week the internal stairs fell away from the wall. The whole terrace may need to be rebuilt.
ReplyDeleteAnd where is the voice of Cllr Husband? Nowhere of course
Kensington basements are a huge new market opportunity for surveyors, architects and builders. In private they laugh at the antics of Hornton Street where they have been running rings around Officers for years and are in the process of castrating the basement bill that the hapless Mr Bore has been piloting after he was bounced into action by dim Tim Planning Supremo, Cllr Ahern.
ReplyDeleteSurveyors and Architects are not the only ones cashing in on basements. Disgraced ex Cllr Cunningham has set up a niche consultancy to advise basement applicants how to get their applications through the hoops administered by his good friend Mr Bore. The Labour reptile Cunningham charges a flat fee of £10k for his advice and £17 k for tricky cases
DeleteCesspit
DeleteBasement applications are coming in thick and fast now in anticipation of the very minor restrictions that K+C will be able to put on them under its proposed new supplementary planning rules. This really is a matter for Westminster; there is little that K+C can do on its own – so what are Mark Field, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Greg Hands doing to support their constituents? Nowt - and note that Cllr. Palmer is interfering in this thread to bad-mouth Cllr Borwick yet again. He is supposed to be on holiday with his family, but clearly can’t get enough of the Dame! One related matter of interest is the number of basement applications being promoted by Savills, who are currently also being commissioned (ie. paid) by the Council to assess the long term condition and future of its whole freehold housing stock.
ReplyDeleteCllr Palmer is briefing against Cllr Borwick AGAIN. When will Cllr Palmer get a life?
ReplyDeleteNo hope I am afraid. Very sad person
DeleteAbingdon Villas, the home of Cllr Husband, seems to be plagued by basement disasters. In addition to the good councillor's neighbour's house which appears to be falling down due to the basement dig next door, there was another drama up the street. A member of the Take That pop group (with more money than sense) bought a house and met an Irish builder (no relation to Cllr Moylan) in a pub who offered to dig his basement. The whole thing went through Mr Bore's apparatus of approval and of course got 5* treatment in view of the celebrity status. Unfortunately the Irishman was a cowboy and Party Wall surveyors had to call a halt when the house next door was close to collapse. Now there is a multi £ million case waiting to be heard in the Courts
ReplyDeleteWell done Mr Bore. Well done the Council Planning Committee. And pity the poor sod who lives at 12 Abinbgdon Villas
Keith Cunningham has three basement clients in Abingdon Villas. No 30, No 32 and No 50
DeleteAbingdon Villas is not the only place where there are horror stories. Phillimore Estates has had rampant issues with houses having to be abandoned. And the Cherry Trees area has likewise had multiple problems. The Council does not seem to want to publicize the true extent of these problems which just allows the whole mess to continue. The Alan Baxter study just scratches the surface of all the problems.
DeleteMrs Thatcher would never have tolerated this nonsense. She would have been attuned to the fact that property values have run so far ahead of building costs that it is encouraging people to convert old buildings in built up areas to totally inappropriate basement dwellings. As she once told me: "We must do the right thing. Always. And we will not be frustrated by timid politicians and Civil Servants".
ReplyDeletePoor old Nick Paget Brown and the infinitely useless and lazy Sir Rif are not cut from the same cloth as the Lady. Sadly we are lumped with whatever crawls out of the ballot box
DeleteIt is very difficult when this institution corruption sets in and common sense is cast to the wind. It all becomes a case of self interest and jobs for the boys. Mr Bore administers the rules, disgraced ex Cllr Cunningham makes a handsome living advising applicants how to jump through the hoops, and self important councillors wring their hands and moan "it is all very difficult - of course we sympathise but there is nothing we can do". Balls.
ReplyDeleteThe same corruption set in at the District Auditors Office (one time Board Member Pooter Cockell). Local Councillors Minister Eric Pickles told television viewers that it would have been a waste of his time to try and reform it. So he closed it down.
Cllr Husband has discovered to his cost that chickens always come home to roost. The Cabinet that he belonged to was asleep on the job and he is paying the price of a "basement next door". Lets hope that the new Leader, Cllr Paget-Brown, takes his residents more seriously than his predecessor
ReplyDeleteCllr Husband is not the only councillor to suffer from basements because the Cabinet has been asleep on the job. Cllr Ahern has a pile in Campden Hill Square (given to him by his rich ex wife) and there is an approved basement dig going on next door. As required the near blind Mr Bore recommended a huge basement development and this was approved by the bored and self interested Planning Committee. But the architects decided to keep on digging way in excess of the approved hole and of course Bore swung into action. "Stop! I approved a big hole. Not a huge hole".
ReplyDeleteWell there is stalemate now. A huge construction eyesore in prime Conservation Area which will remain for three years instead of the usual two. The greater shame is that close neighbour, Kensington Treasure Antonia Fraser, is also afflicted by this evil
Obviously the basement applicant next door to Cllr Ahern has not been introduced to disgraced ex Cllr Cunningham. He will be able to fix things with Mr Bore. But this is an extra difficult case and the fee will be £35k
DeleteAnother trip to Thailand then
DeleteIt does not take a great deal of common sense to figure out that most of the houses in Kensington are interconnected terraces built about 200 ears ago. Built on fit for purpose foundations and with 200 year old building technology. The last thing that it is sensible to do is to dig a huge hole under one of the terraced houses. This sets up all kinds of strains in neighbouring properties and dire consequences are to be expected.
ReplyDeleteI was talking to a particularly thick Tory Councillor (you know who you are) who told me: "In Kensington and Chelsea we allow market forces to operate. We believe in them. And if we tried to ban basements there would be an outcry from those who want to dig basements. I am considering one myself". I was speechless.
ReplyDeleteAfter a while, studying the face of this curious creature, I replied: "Some adults like sex with children. I am all for it". The idiot blustered: "Its wrong. We have to stop it!" The dear boy suddenly seemed to have forgotten all about market forces.
I guess we just have a thick bunch in Hornton Street. Patience is needed to educate them
Why isn't there an outcry about using the 800k to pay for more enforcement of the cowboy builders that regularly flaunt the rules on basements. The Council is worthless about enforcing the rules on basements once an approval has been done. As a result, all those construction method statements and traffic reports that Mr. Bore points to as "him doing his job" are unilaterally ignored and laughed at by the builders and architects. All of us residents know, at the planning stage, that the planning department is being fed total lies but hapless and idiotic Mr. Bore points to these as "him doing a good job" which all of us know is not the case. We should insist that all these large basements pay such fees and that the money is specifically earmarked for resources for the council to make sure basement builders do what they say, rather than just laughing and putting victory fingers at Bore. And while we are at it, why does Bore still have his job? This whole situation has been an absolute catastrophe. Do we not fire people for bad performance?
ReplyDelete