Dear Dame,
It appears the already blitzed residents of Earl’s Court, currently enduring salvos of noise, dust and earthquakes from demolition works, are now to be guinea pigs.
The Royal Borough’s Head of Waste and Street Enforcement, Cleaner, Greener and Cultural Services, (what is that?) Matthew Lawrence, has decided to put residents through a three month long ‘residential waste bin trial’. With no consultation and one letter to the residents, whimsically dated ‘June’, he says “The Council wants to work with residents to keep our streets clean and clear of dumped rubbish. To help combat waste placed on the street at the wrong time, we are embarking on a trial of bins on the street.”
On Monday the large industrial bins were dumped at the ends of Penywern Road, Eardley Crescent and Kempsford Gardens. Belt and braces an extra two were dumped in the middle of each road in residents’ precious parking bays.
It’s interesting that these three roads should have been chosen and not for example, Philbeach Gardens, Nevern Square or Trebovir Road where ward councillors live.
Residents in the three roads, Penywern and Kempsford Roads and Eardley Crescent, are already under enormous stress from the five and a half days a week of massive demolition activity. That demolition has taken away the nearby Seagrave public car park which used to be available for commercial vehicles; these vehicles now use the ‘trial area’ streets as free parking. Forget resident parking here, the permit free vehicles start circling at about 5pm waiting to nab spaces, safe in the knowledge that RBKC no longer fields wardens in this area after 4 o’clock.
The people who live here, pay their council tax, pay for their parking permits and they vote but they have to think carefully about driving off anywhere after a certain time for fear of not getting a space anywhere in the area.
Now Lawrence of Waste has decided to dump ugly industrial bins in parking spaces on already congested roads. There are:
4 bins taking up two residents’ bays in Penywern Road
2 Bins taking up two residents’ bays in Kempsford
3 Bins taking up two residents’ bays in Eardley Crescent
Altogether 15 bins on the roads and pavements.
These metal bins are for industrial estates rather than a residential area.
Matthew Lawrence claims the bins are for those residents who do not have access to a bin store. Some years ago selfless, hard working members of the Residents’ Associations spent weekschecking with every single household in those streets, ascertaining that they had access to a dustbin area; where they did not the landlords were persuaded to provide one. Does Lawrence of Waste know that every single household has a basement bin area for rubbish?
The problem with fly tipping is borough wide, worse in some areas than others and not determined by smartness of the area. Unpleasant, lazy, dirty neighbours are a problem for everyone. The enforcement officers in this borough are exemplary. They work very, very hard and catch a good number of the repulsive soilers but the upper echelon does not prosecute. Instead, they send a letter to the culprits for being naughty. For years residents have asked for cameras to be focused on the known black spots but have been offered a variety of excuses as to why it cannot be done, the best being that it impinges on the ‘human rights’ of the dumpers. However, it is widely believed that there is deep fear of the Daily Mail’s scrutiny of Bin Idiocy. Rather than slap heavy fines on the pondlife who dirty our streets Lawrence and Co have taken it upon themselves to place heavy duty bins taking up space residents already didn’t have.
Two days in the same old slugs who dump their rubbish on the pavements are still dumping it on the pavements and now on the roads and next to the shiny, new bins. Enterprising dumpers from outside the area are driving by to dump theirs too. At about 6 feet high and with a large space beneath these bins are providing excellent cover for wildlife, both foxes and drug dealers.
This ‘trial’ smacks of a serpentine route to cutting domestic refuse collections. Would it be too cynical to suggest that perhaps someone somewhere has friends whose portfolio includes The Enormous Industrial Bins Company?"
The proper answer to recent claims of asset stripping is show me the teapot.
Asset stripping is a less serious charge than social cleansing I suppose and for that at least I am grateful. But it’s irritating nonetheless that yet again an ugly charge has been levelled against the Council that has no basis in reality whatsoever.
Call me old-fashioned but I think serious claims ought to be backed up by serious evidence. Cleverer men than I have made the same point, and far more elegantly. Carl Sagan said that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.
Christopher Hitchens offered us Hitchen’s Razor: what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. But my personal favourite is Russell’s teapot. Bertrand Russell pointed out that it is really up to the person who says there is a celestial teapot orbiting the Sun to prove it, not for me to disprove it.
Now I know these big-brained chaps were making a larger point, but their logic is just as sound on the somewhat smaller stage of Kensington and Chelsea. If you are going to protest outside North Kensington Library saying that the Council is “closing the library”; that it is leasing the building to its friends “on the cheap” and “asset stripping the community of all its public spaces” then there ought to be some sort of evidential test to pass before your claims are taken seriously. Let’s apply that test now, taking the largest claim first.
The Council is stripping North Kensington of its assets: the Council has recently built a state-of-the-art leisure centre and a brand-new academy. It has re-built Middle Row Primary School (now Ark Brunel Primary Academy); it intends to re-build Barlby Primary School, to build a brand-new school for children for special needs nearby and to add hundreds of new homes in North Kensington. And, oh yes, the Council has also painstakingly assembled the case for a station on the Elizabeth line at Kensal Portobello. I could go on, but I won’t because the point is made: claims of asset stripping are the purest junk.
The Council is closing North Kensington Library: er no, it isn’t. It is actually building a fine new library not 50 yards from the old one that, in library terms, will in every way be better than the old. Yes, the current library is a listed building but it doesn’t work as well as it should for its visitors. It was built at a time when architects simply didn’t consider the needs of the disabled, the elderly, or parents with prams. Spread over three floors it is not nearly accessible enough.
The library is being leased “on the cheap”: residents are not only getting a new library; they are going to continue to benefit mightily from the old one. That is staying in overall public ownership and being let on a 25-year lease to the prep school next door to provide places that are in great demand in Kensington and Chelsea.
Thanks to our hard-nosed approach our property income has soared from £3.8 million in 2010-11 to £10.5 million in 2016-17. So be in no doubt, there have been no mate’s rates. We have negotiated a good deal on the old library that will help fund our vital services as we go into our sixth year of austerity.
There. Job done I hope. Despite the passionate intensity with which they were made, the claims of closures, asset stripping, mate’s rates, and social cleansing for that matter, are no more real than Russell’s planet-sized samovar."
Herr Paget-Brahn
https://rbkcleadersblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/20/claims-of-asset-stripping-are-junk/