MORE FROM WESTWAY AGM...

THE DAME JOINS THE GURKHAS...A STORY OF FILTHY DISGUSTING 'LUCRE'

GURKHA 

This is a story of filthy, disgusting lucre and for the ignorant, like Cllr Palmer lucre is pronounced luca.......
When the Dame hears of an old soldier being mistreated by a sinister, tax avoiding BVI-based property spiv, her hackles rise.

This is happening to a local, nearly ninety-year-old, Gurkha officer whose remaining years are being made hell by foreign developer louts.

So the Dame warns....'back off'!
She will ensure any solicitor helping these people suffer severe reputational damage'...and that includes the man with the wig.
It does an adviser no good to be seen to helping an unscrupulous foreign client; especially one who has spent years bullying a frail old gentleman: a man whose entire life has been devoted to serving king, queen and country

Mr Solicitor...you have been warned...your vaguely more respectable clients won't like the idea of keeping the same company as a 'lucre-driven bully' 
The Dame would have expected these people would relish the honour of helping this ex-soldier- a man who has served us so well-by going out of their way to look after his needs.

The Dame hopes she won't need to pick up the ormolu mounted telephone and demand to speak to young Jonathan Harmsworth. 
But, if forced, she will.....

The Daily Mail loves the Gurkhas and young Jonathan is a good friend of the old Dame.....( she knew his mum)

17 RBK&C OFFICERS NOW PAID OVER £100K A YEAR AND FOUR GETTING £150K

The horrible bunch at the Taxpayers Alliance have been once again been attacking senior council officers for being greedy little PIGGIES

It's so unfair. Not a day passes without headhunters like Korn Ferry pestering officers to bring their deep commercial skills to the soft world of the private sector. And for those cynics amongst you who deny any instance of a private sector company wanting to recruit a local government officer the Dame says, 'but pigs one day may fly'.

FLYING PIGS

But there is nothing more exciting that seeing our senior officers up there with the rest of the UK in the troughing stakes. 


K&C has 17 people receiving individually over £100,000 and that doesn't include pension and other perks


11x Receiving 100,000
4x  Receiving 150,000


1x Receiving 200,000 

This must be Mr Holgate....would he have got this at the Treasury? Doubtful.

That is 1.9 million pounds sterling. 
Nearly 2 million pounds!

AFFINITY SUTTON TO GROSS £360 MILLION FROM PROPERTY SALES

FIGHT FOR SUTTON DWELLINGS

A planning expert writes to the Dame

Dear Dame

Affinity Sutton have now had their planning application for the Sutton Estate validated by the RBKC planning officers, and it seems that officers may not have given it their recommendation. 
This would appear to be because  of the loss of social housing. Something Cllr Coleridge has always said he would resist.

According to the AS planning application the proposal would entail:

Number of social rent homes demolished =

383
Number of social rent homes 

proposed

 =

237

Total loss = 146 homes

Social housing floorspace to be demolished =

18,708 m2
Social housing floorspace proposed = 16,142 m2
Total loss = 2566 m2

Number of sheltered housing units demolished = 73 (Blocks J-K)
Number of sheltered housing units to be built = 0

Private garden and community area for sheltered housing residents will not be replaced.

Gross revenues from sale of properties > £360 million !!

An analysis of the planning documents on the RBKC website shows that the income from the redevelopment and sale of more than 44% of the new development would be £360m. That leaves a profit of £130m from the re-development. Affinity Suttonhave always claimed that this is the minimum necessary sale of the estate to ensure the retention of social housing and that they wouldn't make any profit. 

Apart from the issue that the proposed building is an ugly mediocrity totally inappropriate and out of keeping and context with its surroundings, this application is in clear breach of the 2010 RBKC Core Strategy in the loss of social housing. 

Both the RBKC Consolidated Local Plan (CLP) and the London Plan (LP) state that there will be no net loss of existing social rented provision.

Policy CH4 Estate Renewal of the Consolidated Plan states the council requires that where the redevelopment of social rented housing estates is proposed:

‘the maximum reasonable amount of affordable housing, with the minimum being no net loss of existing social rented provision.’

The London Plan, Policy 3.14 Existing Housing, section B states,

‘loss of housing, including affordable housing, should be resisted unless the housing is replaced at existing or higher densities with at least equivalent floorspace’.

Since they took over the estate Affinity Sutton have claimed that they have no money to refurbish the estate even though they have been getting an income in excess of £3.5 million p.a. from the estate and shops. They paid nothing for the estate, they have done nothing to maintain the estate, and now they are cashing in on William Sutton's legacy to the working people of Chelsea. 

Almost all local Chelsea residents and the vast majority of the estate residents wish to stop this project. Any objection that you could be put to stop this very faulted proposal, which can only serve to damage the community and lead to further social cleansing of London should go to 

This is the time to tell the Council NO....We want no greed driven demolition.

Please make your feelings felt by clicking HERE

AFFINITY SUTTON APPLY TO RAZE SUTTON ESTATE TO THE GROUND. OBJECT NOW PLEASE

ANGRY MAN

ANGRY MONK

Hot on the heels of the wrecking of beautiful Victorian Marlborough Primary School we can now focus attention on the equally well loved Sutton Dwellings. For over a century the Estate has done just what its benefactor, William Sutton intended; a place for the less affluent in our community to live. 
£300,000 a year Affinity Sutton boss, Keith Axford, a housing manager turned property developer, now plans to raze most of the Estate to the ground and raise tens of millions by building multi-million pound flats for offshore investors.
The application is now in. 
You have just 17 DAYS to convince the Council to throw out this greed driven plan.
Please click HERE and help save this vital piece of social housing by objecting vehemently.
Incidentally, the Dame hears Axford spent close to £4 million preparing the application. 
Just imagine how many flats could have been refurbished with that money....

MR COLIN HALL 'COHERES' HIS MATES AT HOLLAND PARK ACADEMY

No one can accuse the old Dame of being a nasty, vindictive old hag digging around in dustbins to find out the dirty little secrets of others.

COHERER IN CHIEF!

But, sometimes, those 'others' do her dirty work. 
She had a look at Mr Hall's self promoting puffery and saw that he claims to 'cohere' a team.





The Dame has only an O level in floral arranging so had to look that one up. 
Why can't he use language we all understand? Pretentious idiot....

Anyway, cutting to the chase...

The Dame has received an email making such defamatory remarks about the Academy's purchasing policy that she has had to pass it over to lawyers.
It may well be too 'hot' for her and if that's the case she will forward it to Mr Hislop and team at the Eye.

It's now a question of 'watch this space'

PS The Dame hears that cardigan wearing teachers give Mr Hall cardiac arrest. 
So if you apply for a job don't wear the cardie.

WESTWAY TRUST AGM....CALLS FOR ANGELA McCONVILLE TO GO

The Dame's roving reporter writes....

Last night's Westway Trust's AGM  was held in the beautiful St. Helen's church in N. Kensington. 
Amid drumming and singing, hundreds of local residents attended for an enthralling evening of grand opera in several acts. 
A panel of 8 or 10 milk white, middle class, directors and trustees faced a vivacious and motley audience of people spanning the five continents and the seven ages of man and woman.  
After the usual life-sapping social propaganda and, at the very start of the meeting, Robina Rose loudly questioned the legitimacy of the Trust's secret change of its focus from providing services for local residents, to serving five London boroughs including Wandsworth!  
This caused uproar. 
The accuracy of the minutes were then questioned by one audience member after another. 
To roars of approval, the matter was settled by trustee Cllr Mason, who confirmed that  last year's vote had been illegitimate. 
The new Chairman Alan Brown promptly withdrew the minutes and his agenda. There followed multiple calls for McConville to go and more than three hours of questions from the floor. 
Everyone from Rasta's to city slickers noisily questioned the Trust's motives. 
A director claimed that the soon to be evicted stables will be replaced by an equestrian centre. Rather than mollifying his boisterous audience, his remark was met by hundreds of loud demands for the Trust to support the existing stables instead. 
Nothing the Trust said was accepted by the residents - who, by then, were largely on their feet. 
The public dismissed a series of feeble excuses for Trust mismanagement ranging from a black sports group offered a 3 month lease, being immediately replaced with a white gallery granted a 5 year lease; to the closure of the much loved Maxilla children's centre. 
In a doubtlessly unintended condescending voice, McConville's tried several times to tell the audience that the Trust was duty bound to destroy local services in favour of other London boroughs. 
Despite or perhaps due to her efforts, the air rang with rejection.  Niles Hailstones and scores of his colleagues kept up the momentum. Panel members went either purple, were deeply depressed or in McConville's case, stared blankly into space. There was a vigorous discussion of why the Trust failed to attend the recent Tabernacle public meeting. McConville's excuses were roundly rejected. On and on it went until in the face of universal public outrage, the chairman agreed to another attempt at an AGM; this time on residents' terms. At last it was over, with the debate slowly turning into lively chats between small groups heading for the doors. It had been a truly wonderful night at the opera.

And McConville? She was last seen tottering out of the building on her 7" high heels, into a dark, wet and windy night.

CHELSEA SOCIETY SAYS NO TO CROSSRAIL 2 IN CHELSEA

SAYS CHELSEA SOCIETY

In a unanimous vote last night the Chelsea Society rejected Crossrail 2 in Chelsea.





There is no more to be said. The most powerful resident association in Chelsea has spoken

A COUNCIL AT WAR WITH ITS RESIDENTS

UNHAPPINESS IN BOTH ENDS
OF THE BOROUGH

There isn't a jealous bone in the Dame's ninety year old body so she is very happy to give space to Emma Dent Coad's excellent appraisal of how the Council's obsession with toadying to developers has done the most extraordinary of things.
In the last few weeks we have seen two disparate groups of residents taking to the streets protesting at how their ways of life are being degraded by a council hell bent on destroying the character of the Borough. 
And why? 
So a few favoured property developers can line their pockets.

There will always be the odd bore who will trumpet 'but, Dent Coad is Labour so she is bound to dislike developers'. 
Well, the conjoining of the affluent south with the less than affluent north is telling a very different story and Emma Dent Coad tells it well. 
We should all read it, irrespective of our politics. Dent Coad is talking rare common sense for a politician. HER BLOG

A CORRUPT DECISION

Are our councillors mad, bad or just plain stupid?

The question has to be asked. There can be no rational explanation for allowing six massive basement excavations to take place, simultaneously, in a narrow cul de sac off Fulham Road.
Could the fact that Norman Lamont's son, Hilaire, is one of the diggers have anything to do with things? 
Irrationally, Hilaire says he needs a 'vinyl room' whatever the hell that might be.

Even the Daily Mail has decided that such stupidity is front page news. 
This council is descending into farce!
Had one of the members of the planning committee lived in Seymour Walk you can bet the decision would never have been made.

Read about it HERE

A BIT OF A MYSTERY.....

Why was the successor chairman of the Local Government Association made a peer and Pooter Cockell not?
This is the great mystery 'de nos jours'.
It's not as if Gary Porter is prettier than Pooter and he certainly needs a haircut. 
Anyway, 'Call me Gary' tells the old Dame that his expenses and allowances, unlike Pooter, were minimal.
The Dame suspects the Hornet did for Pooter and she considers this a badge of honour,

ALAN BROWN, EX SCHRODERS AND THE WESTWAY TRUST

The Dame loves a good, strong comment.
This one is excellent.

Alan Brown built his reputation at Schroders on good governance in the companies they invested in. Did he realise when he joined the Westway Trust board that Angela McConville wouldn’t know what good governance was if she saw it? 

Did Alan know that Ang put through the alteration in the objects of WT last year when it decided to stop using the land it was given to provide amenities for the local community as originally intended and to become a property development business with no regard for local needs? Not only was there no public consultation beforehand, but they didn’t even hold the community engagement event that they had told the RBKC they’d hold! I expect they held some little private event as a fig leaf but I know they never told the community about it, let alone engaged with the community to explain their intentions. 

The meeting at the Tab would have been the first real community engagement event by the WT executive and it was disgraceful that Ang said she’d come then pulled out on a spurious reason. (Alan Brown will soon realise she has a track record of agreeing to things when it suits her and then doing a U-turn a few days later….) What a lost opportunity!!!

If Alan Brown is going to come away from his time with the WT with his reputation intact, he needs to stand up and act now, introducing transparency and proper governance from today. He needs to make contact with the North Kensington community immediately to agree a way forward that includes reinstating the amenities Ang has closed or is closing down and improving the 23 acres in partnership with them (everyone agrees the area needs improvement, just it doesn’t want the good things there swept away and replaced with Ang’s sterile vision). Another meeting at the Tab would be a good start. Meanwhile, he should scrap the “Destination Westway” idea which offers nothing to meet North Kensington’s needs, and (in the views of professional property developers, as opposed to the WT jokers) will not succeed so close to Westfield (currently being extended) and the Old Oak Common development. 

How about it, Alan?

WHOSE SIDE IS THE COUNCIL ON? A RESIDENT CHALLENGES THE DAME

ON MY SIDE?

Dear Dame

I write as a one time member of the local Conservative Party though, at a national level, I still vote Conservative.

However,  the way things are going in RBK&C I am having doubts as to whether I shall continue to do so.

One assumes an alignment of interest between residents and the councillors representing them.

Such an assumption would seem be wrong headed. 

Even the resident associations spend much of their time fighting resident unfriendly plans. 

There are honourable exceptions but, in the main, Conservative councillors fall into a couple of categories: those that do their best to stand up for those they represent and the others who enjoy a cosy relationship with powerful developers.

For councillors, whose lives have been lacklustre, there is a frisson of excitement in hobnobbing with shark like developers.

Pooter Cockell was a prime example. Nothing gave this nonentity a greater thrill than summoning up the personalised number plated Bentley for a trip to the Ritz to lunch with the Barclay brothers, It’s  that 'small boy' syndrome writ large.

Worse still, we find councillors so incapable of grasping detail they become putty in the hands of the officers.

The situation is now so dire natural Conservative voters are lining up against the council.

Crossrail2, Marlborough Primary School and the Odeon, High St, Ken are just a few examples.

Residents drove even the revision to the basement planning laws-against much initial opposition from the Council.

And the Tri Borough fiasco has succeeded in damaging the quality of services, with little financial saving.

The next election is a few years off, but there will be by elections in the interim.

This is the moment to start fund raising and developing an organisation capable of putting up independent candidates able to break the political stranglehold so damaging to the day to day interests of residents.

Yours etc

Mc CONVILLE GIVES CITY SLICKER BAD ADVICE....BAD START!

The old Dame is, as some vulgarians would say, 'well puzzled'.....
The old thing has met Alan Brown, the new chairman of Westway Trust(and his charming employment lawyer wife) 

Smiling Assassin 

She cannot get her head around why a man of such  City eminence would involve himself in an organisation teetering on the edge of collapse- and with a hapless and hopeless CEO at the helm.

She offers one explanation; it's one Angie McConville may not she wish to hear.

In his years as an investment manager there have been moments when Al has had to go into an investee company and demand the head of the boss.

Watch your back Angie....the Dame knows these City types....all over you like a cheap suit one moment..... sticking a knife between your ribs the next.

Al does not like poor advice. 
Telling him not to attend the meeting was abysmal advice.

'No SHOW" McCONVILLE......NO STOMACH FOR CRITICISM

This excellent letter from Katie Segal should make Angela McConville cringe with shame. 

Inferring the audience might physically assault her team McConville traduces the reputation of outstanding members of the community. She should, without delay, apologise profusely.
You can watch HERE the video showing the police firing tear gas at the rioting audience of OAP's and councillors!

If the chairman of a PLC refused to meet shareholders he/she would be pilloried in the press: McConville has done just that.....she refused to meet stakeholders.

She obviously has something to hide and cannot face reasoned criticism.

QUIVERING WITH FEAR!

Dear Ms McConville

I attended a public meeting in The Tabernacle, Powis Square, on the evening of Wednesday 11^th November. I have been concerned about, and interested in Westway Trust’s plans for their ‘Portobello Village’ development since the first day of the ‘public consultation period’ in March, and was very much looking forward to at last hearing your and other directors’ perspectives, first hand, as panel members at this event.

I was extremely disappointed to hear, on the day of the meeting, that you had recently cancelled plans to attend, and had advised other directors to do the same. I was also most perplexed to hear that your expressed reason was concern for the ‘safety of your staff’. It has since struck me how easy it can be to cast aspersions on others by suggestion of behaviour for which they have no record or inclination. 

We are the people who wish to meet you, who are extending an invitation to you, as opposed to the other way around – perhaps this does not sit well with you.

In the audience and on the remaining panel were 

• octogenarians 
• small children, 
• those with OBEs, 
• local councillors  
• parliamentary candidates 

and those who have lived in the area for their whole lives and others who have moved more recently from elsewhere; we represented a cross section of our community in every respect you might think of. 

I am curious as to which of us you thought might cause you physical harm.

The meeting went ahead despite your absence, but it would have been informative to have your input. 

The Westway Trust clearly cites the needs of the local community as their primary focus for grant applications, and have won a great deal of financial support on this basis, so it concerns me deeply that you do not appear to have a desire to directly engage with these very people.

Regards

K. Segal

AN INVITATION FROM THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

Grounds Transformation Project The Natural History Museum would like to invite you, and all other members of your Residents’ Committee, to a meeting on the evening of the 3rd December where we intend to update you on the developing designs for the grounds. As for the September meeting,  we would appreciate your assistance in inviting all other group members to help us achieve as wide an engagement as possible. The evening will commence at 5.30pm in the Darwin Centre. Can I ask that you please arrive at our Queens Gate entrance 10 minutes prior to the start of the meeting where you will be met and escorted to the Neil Chalmers theatre. We request that you advise your members to respond directly to the Museum to enable us to capture the number of representatives at the event. If you wish to attend please email anna-marie.harte@nhm.ac.uk by Monday 23rdNovember. We look forward to seeing you on Thursday 3rd December.

THAMESBROOK TO BE SOLD BY KNIGHT FRANK

Until the Council implemented a strategy of deliberate degrading Thamesbrook was a much loved local home for residents.
But when you need bucket loads of money to sponsor things like the Nour Festival(the other funders are the Qatari's whose other funding interest is in sponsoring terrorism)
So, in order to get rid of the old and vulnerable, subterfuge had to be engaged in. We were told that legionella was the problem. This is what the Dame's expert had to say about that rubbish....

Finally the legionella lie as it should be known was invented. Legionella in drinking water?? Did they not do their research properly? It only occurs in stored water and any drinking supply is mains fed. Even it it is in stored water it is only a hazard in vapour in for example a shower as any hotel manager will tell you. If the shower is used regularly and the system cleaned it is not a hazard at all. 

We were told that the residents had to be temporarily moved out.
You can read what the Dame wrote HERE

The truth will always out and so we now know that the only intention was to flog off the site...

Click to Enlarge

PUBLIC DISCUSSION ON NINE ELMS TO PIMLICO BRIDGE....PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS

AFFINITY SUTTON APPLY TO DESTROY SUTTON ESTATE

ABOUT TO GO

Demolition of existing estate buildings (Blocks A-K and N-O) and ancillary office and redevelopment to provide 343 residential units comprising 334 apartments and 9 mews houses within buildings of 4-6 storeys; provision of class D1 community floor space with associated cafe; class A1-A5 and B1 floor space. Creation of adopted public highway between Cale Street and Marlborough Street, vehicular access from Ixworth Place; creation of basement for car parking, cycle parking and storage and energy centre fuelled by CHP and works to adjacent pavement. (Major Application and EIA development))
 

What would the Dame do without her hyper alert readers?

Taking advantage of the 'noise' around Crossrail 2 Affinity Sutton thought they would quietly slip in their application to do a Marlborough Primary School on Sutton Estate. 
You can read about it HERE

Quietly assisting the thugs at Affinity Sutton the Council passed a motion in those lazy, hazy days of summer calling for the redevelopment of all low-density Council housing in Kensington and Chelsea. 
Fortunately few will be fooled by the Council’s call to build toy-town estates with pseudo-Victorian streets. They will see the motion for what it is: a call to socially engineer the few remaining corners of the borough not already invaded by foreign oligarchs hiding their criminally gained money, a call to further reduce the amount of land occupied by those on lower incomes, a call to enable mass profiteering by their property developer chums at the cost of those least able to defend themselves.

Central government for its part simply wishes to eliminate all Council housing in central London. The upcoming Housing Bill will force all Councils to sell off housing valued at more than £500k as soon as it becomes vacant. 

Large swathes of Council housing in the borough will be sold off to the highest bidder. Public property designed and built to serve a clearly defined social purpose will become the plaything of speculators and spivs.

The elderly and those with young families will be displaced. Those currently growing up in social housing will struggle to become productive and upstanding citizens having had their childhood blighted and their education disrupted by forced relocation. Worse still, having been ostracised to the edges of London, if not the edges of society, they will have nothing to aspire to.

Long-standing communities will be destroyed and the benefits of our mixed and vibrant borough will be lost forever.

Central London, and Chelsea in particular, is on the brink of becoming a mono-culture.

Is this what we want? All of the following are about to be/have been demolished:

The Balfour of Burleigh Estate
The Silchester Estate
Chesterton Square and Broadwood Terrace (Pembroke Road)
Marlborough Primary School
And the Sutton Estate … who will be next?
If you don’t like what you hear you need to urgently email Greg Hands


Greg Hands, MP for Fulham and Chelsea - handsg@parliament.uk or mail@greghands.com
Victoria Borwick, MP for Kensington - kensington@parliament.uk

TRAIN DOCTORS TO MANAGE

One of the Dame's good friends sent her this fascinating report produced by six young NHS doctors...

Such common sense from the coal face

Reform bulletin: An NHS leadership team for the future   RESEARCH   |   EVENTS   |   CONTACT US   |   WEDNESDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2015

Yesterday Reform published An NHS leadership team for the future. The report is available here. The report, written by six young NHS doctors, recommends that medical students should learn how to be managers. In a foreword to the report, Sir Bruce Keogh, National Medical Director for NHS England, argues that, “having clinicians in leadership roles is as important to patient care as being a professor in medicine, surgery or primary care”. The authors are four junior NHS doctors and two medical students. They argue that the Francis Inquiry identified “professional disengagement” by senior clinical staff as a key contributing factor to the tolerance of poor-quality care. They point to an international body of evidence showing clinician leaders can play a key role in improving care quality and changing NHS services. In his foreword, Sir Bruce Keogh says: “In recognising the leadership and management potential of junior doctors, the UK is well placed to draw on a major pool of latent and willing talent.” In a second foreword, Sir Hugh Taylor, Chair of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, writes: “… for some reason clinicians in our system have, too often, been encouraged to see leadership and management as a separate ‘dark art’ from which they are excluded and, too often, despise. Disengagement has, sometimes disastrously, been the result. I think the authors of this report are right to diagnose a systemic failing in the NHS to break through this barrier. In particular, I strongly welcome and endorse the trenchant call for existing training programmes to deal systematically with change management and improvement methodologies.” The report’s key recommendations are: Medical schools must integrate management training into undergraduate curricula: “Medical schools nationwide should accelerate implementation of healthcare management options into undergraduate curricula” (page 53). The NHS should provide a career path for doctors who wish to pursue clinical leadership or management: “The career path for clinicians with leadership aspirations is often unclear. If leadership programmes are to be effective, they must support those participating in them to identify the best way to pursue a career that develops their interests. Physicians have traditionally followed a career that develops their interests. Similar pathways, however, do not exist for those wishing to pursue careers with a leadership or management focus” (page 57). The NHS should develop a national programme for emerging clinical leaders: “The formation of NHS Improvement presents an opportunity for a nationally coordinated process to train and place emerging clinical leaders to support quality improvement within provider organisations…There is a need for a single NHS clinical leadership talent management pipeline” (page 56-57).