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| DANGEROUS LADIES! |
Angela McConville and her team were very wise to run scared of last night's Westway meeting at the Tabernacle. In a truly shocking display of peaceful debate, over 300 members of the public listened quietly to the history of Westway and the Trust. This provoked a terrifying barrage of thoughtful questions to the panel. An expert informed a stunned audience that the air quality near the Westway is lethal. The levels of poison are 2.5 times the maximum permitted by the EU; enough to kill everyone in the room within 5 years, from lung disease or cancer. Local babies are born with smaller lungs than normal and face a lifetime of ill health. Even playing sport beneath the roadway damages participants' health. Despite this, no weapons of war were produced. Further lively debate followed. A vote of no confidence was unanimously passed on the travesty of the Trust's public consultations. Yet everyone remained ruthlessly seated. Another equally unanimous vote of no confidence was passed on the Trust's directors and trustees. The room was alive with silent battle cries. The attendees collected the small children playing on the floor and fled home in terror, after a nice little drink and chat in the lobby. McConville's lack of courage was fully justified. The evening was ghastly. The Westway kills local residents."
There was more information. Like the Hammersmith flyover, the Westway elevated road suffers irreversible corrosion problems. So again like the Hammersmith flyover, in a decade or two Westway will be demolished. It's replacement will be a road tunnel from Hammersmith in the west to the Edgware Road. The tunnel will solve the pollution problems. In any case, by then the current low-income population of North Kensington will be gone - effectively deported from London. So in a mere 20 years or so, vast swathes of prime central west London will be available for redevelopment. There are billions to be made. This is the underlying plan for the Westway, and the Westway Trust is preparing the ground for it.
ReplyDeleteThis makes a hell of a lot of commercial sense. It's literally the connection between Hammersmith, RBKC and Westminster. Fat commissions all round.
ReplyDeleteNorth Ken, I understand your position but I hear Westway is about to undergo a major refurb programme that would keep it going for 20 years or more. So long term it will prevail.
ReplyDeleteThe good news is that the major refurb might delay whatever Westway Trust are planning, for quite some time.
Twenty years is nothing in terms of such major infrastructure. Any works on the roadway now will not delay the inevitable for more than a few years. As for the Trust, their current project is a sham, which is why no one can make head or tail of it. Repeated attempts are made to keep a lid on this story. For example, at last night's meeting a community trustee told the audience that she's resigned because the Trust forbade her from discussing Trust issues with Trust directors, unless she had the management's prior permission! The whole thing is a disgrace; hence the two votes of no confidence.
ReplyDeleteWould it not of been better for trust . To have attended and questions and concerns disband rumours. And discuss facts on who and what is involved in they plans.
ReplyDeleteIndeed it would, but their announced plans don't add up. They repeatedly say one thing and do the opposite. This is often called lying.
ReplyDeleteYou in particular have suffered from the Trust's uncaring attitude; both personally, for the needs of local people and the wellbeing of your animals. The Trust repeatedly makes high handed and unreasonable decisions, without care for others.
You will also remember that at the meeting a young man told us that his sports organisation has just been turfed out of the Trust's facilities. Meanwhile another sports group has been given a 5 year lease for them. There are other similar stories.
We also keep hearing of people involved with the Trust being made to sign confidentiality agreements on different aspects of what's supposed to be going on. Why does the Trust feel this is necessary? What's behind it? North Ken is on to something.
The council allowed the trust to change it's constitution. It used to exist for locals, but now it's for the other nearby boroughs as well. It's at least partly a business.The adjoining boroughs are H and F and Westminster. We know what that means. It's all about money.
ReplyDeleteNow that a tsunami of gentrification has swallowed Golborne and Colville every decision is all about money. It's the only language the gentry understand.
ReplyDeleteMs McConville couldn't have given us a clearer indication of the Trust's attitude to consulting the public - no real interest, except on their own terms. The Trust will push on with its gentrification proposals.
ReplyDeleteHow can we stop them? I think the key issue will be planning permission. This whole project depends on building a four-storey private housing development (zero affordable housing) with about a dozen flats on the carpark between Portobello Road and Blagrove Road, along the walkway that leads between the two.
That is the main source of finance for the whole project. We'll need a vigorous campaign to convince the Borough to deny planning permission for this ghastly over-development which will do nothing for local people. Failing to get planning permission will stop the Trust in its tracks.
As yet no planning application has been made, so campaigners can congratulate themselves on at least delaying the Trust's plans as they orginally said that they'd apply in the summer. Admittedly, that's of little consolation for those who've already been turfed off Trust land.
Of course, another real possibility is that this project will collapse thanks to the quite astonishing ineptitude of many of the Trust's senior staff. But we can't count on that.
The community must ensure that every prospective purchaser of one of these so-called "luxury" flats knows that they will soon have a reduced life expectancy, due to the lung disease and cancer caused by the illegally high local air pollution.
ReplyDeletehence the continuing relevance of the original remit of the "Trust" being to compensate the surrounding residents of North Kensington - long since lost
Deletein the avalanche of "ammendments" made over the intervening years without consultation or comment and, perhaps most shocking of all, WITH the approval of the charity commission - themselves the subject of a critical select committee.