FAR TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

Someone assist the Dame, please.

RBKC runs something called the Architecture Appraisal Panel. 
It's stuffed with  grasping architects all pushing the interests of their developer clients.

Some questions...





1. Are Squire & Partners still members of the panel.

2. Are they still working for Area, the New York asset strippers, ripping the Odeon apart.

3. Is Cllr Danny Boys Moylan still a member of the Panel.

Why does the Dame ask these questions?

During the recent BBC London interview, Moylan attacked the Save the Kensington Odeon Group's plan as being unrealistic.
One can be certain that Mr. Squire would have been delighted by Moylan's support; after all, he wants to keep the Odeon job.
But can it be right that Moylan, so close to Squire, be intervening in what many might perceive to be a supportive role. 

If Moylan is still on the Architecture Appraisal Panel with Squire he should have kept his mouth shut.

There is a probable conflict of interest...if they are both Panel members.

ESSA ASKS SOME AWKWARD QUESTIONS AND CALLS ON THE COUNCIL TO SAVE THE ODEON

Tens of thousands signed a petition demanding the historic Art Deco Odeon Cinema be saved for posterity. 
Many will have been Tory voters. 
How insulted they must felt as they watched councillors sneering at the idea of saving the Odeon as a Community Asset.
It now seems the interests of certain councillors are aligned with a bunch of New York-based asset strippers. 
This BBC LONDON INTERVIEW shows the pompous Moylan in typical form and it's little wonder he's reviled by all.
The Dame is a vulgar old thing, but by dint of social climbing and some elocution lessons now moves in the 'celebrity circles'. She is very jealous of Danny's plummy tones: he would make a duke feel quite common.....

The Dame has got her gnarled and bejewelled hands on this excellent letter to Director of Planning, Graham Stallwood.

In the letter ESSA asks why Mr Stallwood's letter to Mr Oliver was undated! 

Clearly, Mr Stallwood's Dept are under orders from certain members of the Cabinet so the Dame stands corrected.
We need an answer from the Leader.

This letter from the chairman of ESSA, Anthony Walker

Dear Sirs,

I have seen the undated letter to Mr Oliver regarding the application to register the Odeon as an Asset of Community Value.  Although I was not able to attend the meeting on the 25^th May I have been told by several parties that the decision was to allow until the end of the month for further information regarding financing to be made available.The letter I refer to appears to appears to be totally contrary to that decision. The fact that it is undated suggests that it had already been prepared and may have been sent off accidentally.
We consider that the reasoning behind the supposed refusal is irrational. 

We see no reason to consider the restoration or rejuvenation of the property would not nor provide substantial social benefits in the interests of the community.  The possibility of the use of this property as a Arts Centre has been welcomed by our membership and in many ways reflects the grounds of our objection to the appeal for residential development of the site earlier this year which was widely supported by both the local community and the wider community. 

While we recognise that there are many hurdles still to be overcome we do not see any evidence that they are insurmountable and look to support not obstruction by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Yours faithfully,

Anthony Walker

Chairman

Edwardes Square Scarsdale and Abingdon Association

DANIEL MOYLAN LECTURES ON PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT!

Talk about Irish blarney!
At the EGM, Daniel Moylan pontificated on the viability of creating a community asset out of the Odeon. 
Should we take him seriously?

Not Martin McGuinness!
Where did it all go wrong?

His own property track record? 
Most uninspiring!
He's non-executive of two property funds, The Glanmore Property Fund Ltd and Glanmore Investments Ltd.

Both are utter investment dogs with a host of ANGRY INVESTORS unable to liquidate their investments.
The graph makes very unhappy viewing in a decade of exponential growth in property values

The Moylan Touch: Glanmore-blue line against
                       global market in red!

Moylan's other Johnson sponsored excursion into the property world was short lived.
His chairmanship of the London Legacy Development Corporation lasted just sixteen weeks!

The excuse was that he was required to promote Johnson's 'dead duck' idea of an airport in the duck infested reaches of the Thames Estuary: an excuse with no wings.

The Dame was chatting to a fellow board member with years of success in property. 
Why did he give the old thing a wry smile when asked the real reason for Daniel's short-lived tenure?
Another example of Moylan's total inability to work with people?
Daniel's hopes of more preferment from Johnson look dashed.
Johnson is, politically, a dead man walking......

Beware councillors....Moylan back and needs a job!
He will be a disruptive force for bad.

THE BEST LEADER WE WERE NEVER ALLOWED TO HAVE

Dear Dame

May I most respectfully request that you reproduce these pictures of our Mayor at Chelsea Flower Show.

 

How's Pooter?

I happened to have been there with my old Box Brownie camera and caught the Mayor having an animated conversation with both P. Harry and Duchess K.

A question we should all be asking ourselves is this.

Why on earth did we residents ever permit Cllr Freeman to be sidelined for his entire career on the Council? 

It's an utter disgrace that one of the most talented and accomplished of men was never effectively used.

Charmed by the Mayor

Ex Cllr Cockell has much to answer for. 

He deprived residents of the Royal Borough of a 'man for all seasons' simply out of petty jealousy.

Could we have a competition for a caption guessing what Harry might be saying to the Mayor?

Here ends my rant, dear Dame. 

I was surprised not to see you mingling with the great and the good......

Kindest Regards

An Admirer

YOUR COMMUNITY NEEDS YOU. PLEASE BE THERE, TOMORROW WEDNESDAY 25 MAY

WEDS 25 MAY FROM 4.45PM (meet outside at 4.30pm)

KENSINGTON TOWN HALL

Support the application for Kensington Odeon

to become an Asset of Community Value!

HEAR THE DEBATE

AT THE EXTRAORDINARY COUNCIL MEETING

PUBLIC GALLERY, COUNCIL CHAMBER,

TOWN HALL, HORNTON STREET

Meeting starts 4.45pm prompt, meet outside at 4.30pm

The Friends of the Kensington (Odeon) are working with amenity societies, schools, cinema and theatre professionals including the specialist theatre design group Charcoal Blue (www.charcoalblue.com) to propose a mixed use arts venue.

The working title for the project is “The Hitchcock, Kensington” as it was his local cinema and the place where his first two movies were shown in 1926 and 1927.

“The Hitchcock, Kensington” will provide:

1)  A large, flexible theatre (800-1000 seats) for classical concerts / opera / plays / shows  and TV/ Radio broadcast.  There will be a fly tower and a flexible format stage.  

2)  A smaller flexible studio theatre with around 400 seats for film, theatre performances / TV / Radio broadcast

3)  A rehearsal studio on the top floor with TV / Radio broadcast ability

4)  Four underground cinemas (200-300 seats each) accessed by extending the existing staircases downwards

5)  Gallery Space

6)  A café / Tea Room / Bar / Members Club within the original tea room spaces

There will be strong educational and community programs and the Hitchcock would create a new West London festival for the Performing Arts. The Hitchcock will also form a cultural hub with the new Design Museum, scheduled to open opposite in November 2016.

The Friends of the Kensington (Odeon) Hitchcock Kensington proposal would retain and restore the full facade, entrance, the marble staircases and restore / re-introduce the original foyer / reception. It is our aim to restore and sympathetically enhance many of the original art deco features.

We have the support of: The Cinema Theatre Association; The Kensington Society; Edwardes Square, Scarsdale and Abingdon Association; The British Film Institute; Opera Holland Park; SAVE Britain’s Heritage; The 20th Century Society; Portobello Café Society

MANY PLAUDITS FOR CLLR FREEMAN, OUR OUTGOING MAYOR

So, another Mayoral Year draws to a conclusion.....

Those close to our Mayor, Cllr Robert Freeman, have been emailing the Dame asking her to emphasise how hugely successful an ambassador he has been for the Royal Borough.

He and the Mayoress have raised substantial sums for two local charities, the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital Charity and the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity; but, just as importantly, have found the time to support a whole range of civic activities.

Mayors can go through the tired motions or pour their heart, intelligence, charm and wit into the role. 

Cllr Freeman and the Mayoress did the latter.

With Emily Maitlis

But no mayor of the Royal Borough can be successful unless they have two powerful ingredients.

Our current mayor was blessed with the support of his much-loved wife, Elizabeth.





Tribute should also be paid to Cllr Rossi, the Deputy Mayor. And we should not overlook the man who keeps the whole show 'on the road', the estimable, Jim Babbington. 
Jim is the Mayoral Private Secretary with a wonderful sideline in brilliant talks on Borough history.
Well done, to all of you. You have done the Royal Borough proud.

18 BRITTEN STREET: THE BATTLE LOST: THE DAME BERATED

The Dame has been severely reprimanded by a 'learned observer' for impertinently suggesting the Battle of Britten Street had been 'won'.

Where the owner stacks his loot-tax free!

No such thing, says the Dame's expert.

He explains why below.

Please read it. 

It devastates,with forensic precision, the position of the Planning Committee.
The Planning Committee should be thoroughly ashamed itself: it has let down the residents and played patsy to a secretive investor from the Marshall Islands whose sole interest is making money.





In other words, "There is no longer the artistic hub in the centre of the local community, over which Heinz presided as a hairdresser supreme, a painter, a friend and a passionate advocate of all things new, curious and stimulating, whose door was always open to residents and passers-by alike.,

“ Britten Street Lost”, not saved, should be the headline.   There is nothing for the RBK&C Planning Committee to be proud of. 

The damage was already done when the Planning Committee refused to save Heinz Schumi’s salon, and granted the Landlord planning permission.   Their decision was taken despite being faced by powerful legal objections from Nicholas Padfield QC, who was acting for Heinz, as well as by the objections in support of Heinz from a considerable number of longstanding and distinguished local residents, over which the Committee rode roughshod .

The Committee was reminded of their duty to act in accordance with the Government’s policy, which had been adopted by RBK&C, which was effectively to preserve the artistic, cultural and historic parts of Old Chelsea from the relentless progress of predatory developers, in their avaricious pursuit of commercial gain at the expense of Chelsea’s heritage.

Nevertheless, the Committee, advised by so-called lawyers, rejected the advice of Leading Counsel and over-rode the objections of local residents, and gave the absentee Landlord permission.  In so doing, they were complicit in the destruction of a part of Old Chelsea, and what was an artistic hub of the local community.  

There can be no rational justification for the Committee to have taken the perverse decision which they did.  Having been warned by Leading Counsel that the Landlord’s application was not a genuine reflection of what he in fact intended, but would, if granted, lead to further applications which would transform his original application beyond recognition, the Committee for whatever reason proceeded to take the Landlord’s application at face value and granted him permission.  

When the Landlord finally showed his true colours, the Committee eventually woke up, and denied him the ultimate prize which was the creation of yet another development.   What was the reason for the Committee’s change of mind, one is entitled to ask?   Surely we are entitled to know in the interests of transparency and open governance what led the Committee to grant the original application, which has cost Heinz Schumi his livelihood, and then by an about-turn, to refuse the Landlord’s further application by eventually giving effect to government and local policy.

This is all far too late in the day.   There is no longer a Heinz Schumi salon.   There is no longer the artistic hub in the centre of the local community, over which Heinz presided as a hairdresser supreme, a painter, a friend and a passionate advocate of all things new, curious and stimulating, whose door was always open to residents and passers-by alike.

No thanks are due to the Planning Committee for their delivery, too late of too little.   They should not enjoy the support of residents of 'Old Chelsea'.   

They will be marked for all time as the encouragers of development, including sub-basements, the destruction of old Chelsea, and the panderers to big business interests.   Let us hope that they will be satisfied with currying the favour of foreign parvenus to keep them in office.   One wonders where their interests lie.

OH NO, NOT ANOTHER BOROUGH COMMANDER!

What on earth is going on within our local K&C police force?
We are now on the 4th or 5th mediocre Borough Commander in as many years.
The only notable exception was the excellent Chief Superintendant Jason Gwillim. 

Gwillim: top class Borough Commander

Jason lasted just months before being shoved into some paper pushing job-much against the wishes of residents.
If you ran a business the way the Met runs itself you would go bust and your good staff leave.
It's time the Met's boss, Bernard Hogan-Howe got a grip and introduced stability in the ranks: this constant chopping and changing is not just bad for police morale; it undermines the confidence of residents.
And, on the vexed question of leadership....not so many years ago the office of Chief Constable was frequently occupied by senior, retired Army officers
Unlike Hogan-Howe and his ilk, these senior ex-officers were tough with a lifetime of man management in conflict situations.
They may not have had dodgy degrees in 'social criminal behaviour' or 'social anthropology', but they knew how to deploy and manage resources.
We need them back to replace these useless 'new age' police theorists.

Residents are told no resources exist to control the excesses of Middle Eastern visitors, tearing around our streets in their Lamborghini's.
Well, the Dame demands to know why, for so many years, the Met had  teams of officers wasting time ensuring Assange didn't do a bunk from his embassy lair.
It's now been decided they were superfluous and have mysteriously vanished! 
So tens of thousands of police man hours were wasted to no purpose.
As the Dame's disgraced butler, ex Cllr Phelps would say, "you cannot make it up'!

THE LAST OF THE CHELSEA GRAND DAMES

Larger than life itself

The Dame doesn't normally 'do' social diary stuff, but she felt she had to pay her obeisances to that truly remarkable Chelsea lady, the late Marisa Masters.
The funeral Mass took place at the Little Oratory and was celebrated by Father McHardy who clearly had never seen such an unconventional hearse
He handled it with great sang-froid

Marisa was never, in life or death, someone to stick with boring convention and the picture below testifies to that.

Her late husband, Lindsay, was the force behind the phenomenal growth of Haymarket Publishing.

Though Michael Heseltine claimed to have started Campaign, in reality, it was Marisa and Lindsay who came up with the idea. 
In fact, the first issue was made up on their kitchen table!
But then Heseltine is a politician..... truth and politics are uncomfortable bedfellows as we all know.

BATTLE OF BRITTEN ST VICTORY

Great news. You can read all about it HERE

EGM CALLED TO SAVE THE ODEON FROM NEW YORK BASED ASSET STRIPPERS

Certain issues are of such monumental community importance they transcend and cut across-frequently trivial-national and local politics.

The saving of the Odeon, Kensington is one such. 
This is why the letter below from the head of RBK&C Governance Services is so vital. 


It opens the door for our council to debate and support a motion to convert the much-loved Odeon into a Community Asset.
If the Council support the motion there is a well-conceived plan to turn the Odeon into an engine room of creativity.
We don't need any more luxury flats, but we do need something like THIS
If you really want to show your support please try to attend next Wednesday. 
The Dame will be there: after all, she was once a matinee idol.
And, dear councillors, though this may be a Labour-sponsored request it has the support of many thousands of local Conservative voters. You should remember that.....


Dear Councillors,

The Mayor has received the attached request for an extraordinary Council meeting signed by five members of the Labour Group.

The Mayor has directed that the meeting will be held at 4.45 pm on Wednesday 25 May in the Council Chamber.  

The agenda for this meeting and for the Annual Meeting on the same evening will be issued tomorrow.

Yours sincerely,

Martyn Carver

Governance Services

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Click to enlarge

THE EU EXPLAINED FOR SIMPLETONS

The Dame is a foolish and vapid old thing so she struggles to understand all this referendum chatter.

A LISTENING DAME

Luckily, the chairman of a local resident's association wrote the below using an RA analogy to explain how the EU works. 
It's well worth a good read and helped the Dame.

Once upon a time, a man moved into a house.

He kept a few chickens. His next door neighbour made jam.

After a while, they got chatting over the fence & he gave her a box of eggs which she accepted. In kindness, she gave him a jar of her homemade jam in return.

This became a regular thing. 
It was a trade between them & they got on fine.

But nearby they have a nasty bossy neighbour Mr Pluncker who wants to control everyone. 
He runs the local residents association that has high membership fees.

He tells them they will benefit if they join the residents association it will enable them to meet more of their neighbours & network so they may be able to sell more eggs & jam to their neighbours.

So they join. It has seven other members at the time. This all worked OK. But, after a while, the residents association committee started giving them advice on how to run their own households.

Then some affordable housing was built nearby with poor people in. 
They are allowed to join the residents association, but instead of having to pay a membership fee, being poor,  they actually get paid to join.

After a few years, the membership expanded to 28 households.

Half of them were poor households and benefitted from free membership. 
Some of the poorer ones even receive money from the association each year.

After a while, the residents association committee started getting bored & wanted more power to do something ‘exciting’ & ‘visionary’ & ‘bold’.

 So they gave a few of the poor countries Wonga Wonga type loans, on which the association got commission, as a nice little earner,  from Mr  Goldman and Mr Sachs. They had a bank in the town and were good friends of  Mr Pluncker.
You see, the residents association doesn't actually have that much money, so it borrows the money to lend to the poor residents.

The man with the chickens also had a large pond with lovely koi carp that breed & he sells the fish. 
But the association took a vote & decided he should let the other residents come & take out 80% of his fish so they too could sell them. 
Of course, he voted against this but got outvoted. But this was all perfectly fine because the decision followed the democratic process.

The nasty bossy neighbour Mr Pluncker who runs the association then started telling residents how they should run their households. He even made it a condition of their loans. 
If you don't do as I say then the loans stop & I'll have your car off you.

This rule secretly got extended to all residents. When they sign their annual subscription fee it's written in the small print that  ''No single member of the association will be permitted to make any decisions on how to run their own households without a vote being taken on it''

The idea was sold to the residents on the basis that they will all get to vote on whether they're permitted to do this or that in their own house, so it's completely democratic.

Furthermore, each member is told - ''New rules on how you are to run your household will be generated for you & you must obey. You will, of course, be given a chance to vote on the new rules as this is a democracy’’

  

The reality of this wonderful new democracy is that 84% of the residents get out voted by sheer force of numbers. Meaning that whatever was right & appropriate for one household was probably not right & appropriate for another;no exceptions were allowed. 
Every household had to do exactly the same as the other households thanks the democratic ‘community method’

But no matter. Everything is voted on so it's all perfectly democratic.

Residents are also told to leave their front doors unlocked so other members can wander into their house & stay as long as they wish. 
The poor people especially love this.

Some residents wonder where their money is going. 
But when they ask to see the association accounts they are always refused. 
And they wonder how Mr Pluncker the chairman of the residents association ever got voted in by the committee. 
Turns out he was the only candidate in a secret ballot.

Half of the residents think this is perfectly OK. Frankly they're rather timid & pathetic and feel if they were to leave the association it would be A LEAP IN THE DARK. 
They'd be ostracised from their neighbours & wouldn't know what to do or how to run their households.

In fact, after so many years of being told what to do, they've lost all confidence that they could ever run their households again. 

So they just go along with everything without complaining.

Besides, the poor ones have little choice. 
The association now holds their purse strings.

When any neighbours suggest they might all be better leaving the association, they get called ‘xenophobes’ meaning they must have a morbid fear & loathing of their neighbours in wanting to leave.

The motto of the new democratic residents association is 'Pay & obey'.

And they all didn't live happily ever after........