There is a French passion about the love affair between those makers of street garbage, Decaux, and our Council. The Dame has a memory as long as her old teeth.
From her Louis 'something or other' escritoire she dug out a copy of a bill for around £80 which Cllr Danny Moylan spent entertaining a Monsieur Jean Jean of Decaux in 2008.
Well, to be entirely accurate, which you paid as Danny expense'd it
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| YOU PAID! |
In the intervening years, Decaux has our council by the short and curlies. The Royal Borough is now littered with these vile 'solus' sites in prime areas: in fact, one has been stuck up bang next door to the Natural History Museum-a Conservation Area! As for replacing bus shelters? Forget it...far too expensive and with the solus sites generating a £100k for a few months why would they bother?
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| BANG IN A CONSERVATION AREA! |
In return for a new shelter,they will be allowed to place a digital advertising panel next to it – not an integral part of the shelter.
JCDecaux's power and influence is so great that they have even jumped the gun, in some cases erecting these panels before advertisement consent has been granted for the panels- and, even when granted, have removed the existing shelter well in advance of erecting new shelters.
Where is our brave enforcement team to be seen? Precisely nowhere!
The Council has received a considerable volume of complaints from residents about the lack of seating and has responded by installing park benches!
The shelters promised in January have still not arrived.
JCDecaux has been getting advertising revenue for several months and the Council, income, but the poor old general public has had to forgo the benefit of bus shelters and brave all weathers.
On the kings road there is no bus shelter just a bench. Not helpful when it rains.
ReplyDeleteLike so much else involving RBKC, Decaux is a racket run for the benefit of Decaux and certain parties in Horton Street.
ReplyDeleteEach useless lavatorial coffin costs residents over £30,000 a year. They're hardly used. They're not designed for use, but to fulfil Horton Street's box ticking exercises and as revenue earners for those in on the deal.
As for bus shelters, local business rate paying shops are prohibited from painting a traditional advertisement on the facade of their buildings. Nor can they use their own forecourt for their businesses without paying extortionate annual fees to our voracious Council. Yet a rotten French mob is free to erect its illuminated advertising panels at will, while receiving residents' money for doing so. This is a classic, multi-million pound racket run for the benefit of those at the very heart of the Town Hall. Paget Brown is oblivious.
Oh, has Decaux the contract for the personal ads in our phone boxes?
ReplyDeleteVery dry 12:44, but you know Eastern Europeans have cornered that market since 2004!
Deleteand People don't understand why people voted the European Union.
Eggs Benedict at the perfectly charming Ampersand Hotel in Little France, aka South Ken, costs only £8.50...and that's at 2017, not 2008, prices. Should not anything more exalted than "egg McMuffin-to-go," partaken in one of Decaux's ahem, discreet and desirable shelters, be at a councillor's own expense? Que dites-vous Monsieur Paget-Brown?
ReplyDelete