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| DO NOT DESTROY! |
Dear Dame Hornet
What is 'progress' today in our much loved Royal Borough? It is a serious question for our Councillors, particularly when it concerns the future of 'people, their community and homes' - in our case Chesterton Square and Broadwood Terrace.
Chesterton Square and Broadwood Terrace are above the council offices in Pembroke Road and the main depot. We have homes we love, gardens and balconies that add greatly to the quality of our lives - and perhaps most of all we feel safe and secure here. There are people who have lived here for more than 30 years.
The Square and Terrace are unique and iconic - a view shared by 20th Century Society, Kensington Society, ESSA, Earl's Court Society and a growing number of people. They are quite simply gardens in the sky.
Our homes are now, potentially, under threat of demolition and development . Consultants were appointed in 2013 to look at various ways the whole site (along Warwick Road and both sides of Pembroke Road) might be used in the future - mainly because of less use of the offices by the council and a question mark over the future of the depot. The results of that study are now out.
There are four options outlined - one of which, Option 4.1 to.4.4, suggests complete demolition and a brand new development. And, it doesn't have to be this way!
There are other options that would save our homes and protect our community. No decision have yet been made and so this is the right time to look at the project with fresh eyes and creative thoughts.
We are not opposed to progress. But we are opposed to yet more luxury developments in Kensington and Chelsea bought by overseas owners for investment, They seldom use their properties and take no part in the community life of our neighbourhoods.
And so Councillors, particularly members of the Cabinet, please say NO to Option 4.
People matter and safe, strong communities are vital.
They have an significant impact on our health and quality of life in general - and don't we all deserve that?
People please on this one before profits!!
People matter and safe, strong communities are vital.
They have an significant impact on our health and quality of life in general - and don't we all deserve that?
People please on this one before profits!!
Kind regards
Annie Redmile
Annie Redmile
Property developers greasing palms in Hornton Street has been developed into an art form in the Royal Borough. It is called "Studies and options" with the final decision invariably being the knock down and redevelop for high end residential. Maximum profit, maximum palm greasing.
ReplyDeleteSilly comment. It is the free market approach that ultimately benefits us all. Even recipients of pay day loans are able to keep going a bit longer
DeleteCan you translate so what you are trying to say makes sense?
DeleteEven today's Parliamentary Tory Party would part company with someone as crass as Muppet.
DeleteMuppet do tell us which school you went to because your understanding of economics is CSE Grade 5 standard and we all need to make a mental note not to send our children to your old school.
How strange - last night in committee Councillor Rock F-M was saying how responsive and welcoming the residents of this estate had been to the Council's proposals (unlike those dreadful people at Wornington Green and Sutton in Cale Street he didn't have to mention).
ReplyDeleteWhat piffle we are seeing from the trolls. Cllr F-M is on message
ReplyDeleteCracking stuff
DeleteI am sure that Councillor FM is on message. The TMO will be on message too. What are the Labour lot on the Council doing about this Kosovo style "social cleansing." Perhaps, they will deign to tell The Dame who may well sting them.
DeleteAny resident expecting the toothless RBKC Labour Group to help them will be severely disappointed.
DeleteHow right you are about the "toothless" RBKC Labour Group. I am sure that resident's faith in Labour doing anything useful to avoid social class cleansing will be seriously dented.
DeleteThey're worse than Ed Miliband for concentrating on some minor peripheral point in a big debate, "labouring" their point at ridiculous lengths believing that what they are saying is terribly important when it is, in reality, insignificant to what really matters - people losing their homes.
I am sure that the Dame will instruct one of her best hornets to sting them severely.
This block is not in a Labour ward. Back bench and opposition councillors cannot interfere in matters that don't affect their own wards. Only cabinet members can do that. So it is up to the Abingdon Tory councillors to step up to the plate here.
DeleteAccording to "Staying Put" An Anti-Gentrification Handbook for Council Estates in London the Labour Party support the policy of regeneration and social cleansing.
DeleteThe Aylesbury Estate in Labour run Southwark being a case in point.
Anyway all but one RBKC Labour Councillors live in private, middle-class accommodation and are set to see their property prices rise as they allow the spread of gentrification across the Rotten Borough.
In reply to anonymous at 17.28 above,the Queen Bee knows the rules regarding representation at local level. Whilst the labour lot cannot represent the people concerned because the Ward has returned Tory Councillors, if RBKC Labour Councillors were any good, they would be criticising the Tory Administration's policy most severely for socially cleansing K&C of its Labour's empire of Council Tenants. The trouble is that the Labour lot are completely useless in opposition.
DeleteWith regard to Anonymous at 17.46, we all know that the Labour lot in this Borough are wealthy, middle class, individuals who feel for the lower orders whilst enjoying the privileges of wealth, university education and home ownership. They like the trappings of the Town Hall talking shop as much as the Tories; none of them joined Labour from the factory gate.
" on message" speak the damned Queen's English for god's sake
ReplyDeleteMore social cleansing. The Rotten Borough putting profits before people. Warwick Road twinned with Macau: a stacked odds casino for Asian fat cat speculators facilitated by
ReplyDeleteHornton Street's whipped pussies ...and with a motorway running thru it. Just what K&C needs!
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ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I understand. The borough is in desperate need of affordable and social housing, and yet this looks like it could be majority luxury housing and a small amount of social housing to satisfy the planning committee.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure nobody thinks that the councillors are in the pockets of the developers, but the evidence would suggest otherwise. They make used car dealers look good
btw, Congratulations to Sir Merrick Cockell for getting a job as chairman of a property consultancy.
There are 12 Labour councillors; five live on TMO Council Estates, two live in Notting Hill Group social housing, two rent privately, one lives in tied accommodation, one lives in a co-operative co-ownership, one is mortgaged up to the hilt – so none of them are going to get much profit from the ludicrous property machinations in Kensington and Chelsea. But why worry with facts when insults work so much better? Only one Tory councillor lives in social rented housing and most Tory councilllors have two or more homes.
ReplyDelete12.05 sounds like a Labour Councillor getting angry - the politics of envy is so sad.
DeleteWe know that the Tories are wealthy with a touch of class. Tell us the facts that we don't know
How many of the Labour Group have been to University?
How many of the Labour Group joined the Party at the factory gate?
Which is the greater sin - to have been to university or to have joined the Labour Party at the factory gate?
DeleteI like your reply at 18.00- very good.
DeleteWill the Councillor or the apologist for the Labour Group at 12.05 tell us the housing tenure of the five Councillors who live on RBKC Council estates?
DeleteHow many of them have bought their homes or leases from the state. (I would expect a Labour supporter to know that these estates belong to the Council not the TMO)
How many of the Labour Group living in Notting Hill HA properties own a stake in their homes through the shared ownership scheme and what percentage of their home does each of them own. I know that one of them is a shared ownership leaseholder. Hardly a pauper as the Councillor/ Supporter at 12.05 would have us believe.
At least 12.05 admits one of them is mortgaged up to the hilt which means the property is owned albeit with the benefit of a mortgage; a good investment the capital asset might be owned outright one day.
Why bother with the truth when facts can be manipulated with partial truths. I am a Labour Supporter but I do not feel guilty about being filthy rich.It is time for the RBKC Labour Group to modernise its 1960's Labour thought processes. Claiming to be something that your not to toe the party line has had its day.
Not sure I understand what’s being said here. The Labour apologist is saying that their councillors’ housing arrangements are such that they cannot profit from them. Is 08.40 saying that they have all got to be Council tenants and that leaseholds, shared ownerships and mortgages are somehow not Labour? The whole point of Council tenancies is to give people a helping hand when they are in difficulty. No one should have a Council tenancy for life – and hopefully next year’s incoming Conservative government will introduce a system whereby all council tenancies are reviewed every five years. Then if people’s circumstances have changed, they will vacate their subsided homes in favour of families in greater need. Thankfully I don’t have Labour councillors, but if I did, I wouldn’t want one who couldn’t sort out his own housing arrangements and had to live in a council house.
DeleteI hope to clear up the confusion for 13.24.
Delete08.40 is suggesting that the RBK&C Labour Group are not necessarily occupying their homes as Secure or Assured tenants just because they live in Council or Housing Association accommodation. They could just as easily be owner occupiers living on a Council estate - or a Housing Association leaseholder. I know that the latter applies to one of them.
The Labour apologist or councillor unskillfully implies otherwise with a comment which refers to the geography of properties on Council estates or in Housing Association stock. In other words, the Labour Group may not be as poor as the proverbial church mouse in the way that the Labour Councillor/ Apologist suggests.
Notice that the Council is buying up any leasehold properties on the estate that come n the market!
ReplyDelete