EDWARD DAVIES-GIDDY AND THE KA ON THE GROVEL

A MESS!

One resident association has excelled itself at being totally impotent in the face of the degradation of Knightsbridge.
Brompton Road now looks like a run down version of Edgware Road. 
Beauchamp Place reeks of the stench of shisha pipes and is awash with cheap little shops selling Middle Eastern clothing.
So, one has to ask what the point of the self-regarding Knightsbridge Association?
The chappie who is in charge of planning issues is the extraordinarily pompous, Edward Davies-Gilbert. 
Originally called Giddy the family quickly decided it might be best to change it. 
They even nicked someone else armorials!
The Dame's Personal Herald reports to her...
" My Dame, in the 19th century the Gilbert family were convinced that they were descended from the Gilberts of Compton( whose ever heard of them!)in Devon, and used their coat of arms, despite no connection being established."
More bizarre still is that D-Giddy has put up a Wilkipedia entry about his dreary family and their fabricated connections. It's just the sort of thing the pettily snobbish Dame might do
Anyway, enough of the pretentiousness of Mr. D-Giddy....
The real question is why has he swung the KA behind the attempted desecration of Hawksmoor's masterpiece.
The Dame suspects that D-Giddy is hoping to meet their Royal Highness's and boast of his support....silly little snob!

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MATTHEW

Dear Dame,
You may or may not be aware of a community-based social media site called "Nextdoor"?
Usually, the site is mainly used for posting tips on plumbers, electricians and buying/selling/borrowing thing and the like.

Anyway, myself and a number of concerned North Kensington residents have posted our views and concerns on there about the library, regeneration & Westway among other things.

When I added a few more topical posts (in regards to General & Local Elections),  I shared my views, particularly about RBKC, and also so did several others
Also, I referred to a post and video on your excellent blog  of Cllr Lightfoot and made a point about foodbanks.

Cllr Palmer, clearly overcome by the lack of support for the council on there accused me of a "smear campaign" (twice) and reported me to the "Leads" (administrators) - needless to say he didn't get anywhere and one of the Leads responded by posting a link to your post in question!!

Keep up the good work!


Kind regards,

Concerned North Kensington resident

A LETTER TO THE TIMES

An excellent letter from Father Robin Burgess......

Father Robin

ORANGERY OUTRAGE

Sir, The Orangery at Kensington Palace is a masterpiece by Nicholas Hawksmoor (“Royal couple’s neighbours in revolt against mega-basement”, Apr 26). In recent times his admirers have had to work hard to restore his rightful reputation as one of Britain’s greatest architects and to save some of his finest buildings when they came under threat, notably Christ Church Spitalfields. How sad it is that the Orangery too could now be undermined by the planned basement for staff of the palace. We look to royalty to preserve our priceless artistic heritage, not endanger it.

The Rev Robin Burgess

London W5

RUBBISH SITE DEFERRED

My Dearest Dame(if I might be so familiar)

Residents packed out a Town Hall Planning Meeting, leaving no standing room as they came to voice their protest at the high-handed way RBKC plans to plonk a rubbish depot on their common space, without even consulting them.

But, for once, all the tricks in the book didn't stop Councillors such as Cllr. Thompson questioning planning officer Richard McBride about residents' concerns, such as noise, lack of consultation etc. RBKC had played the old trick of 'burying' bad news, by sending an email notification of the planning meeting on Good Friday, leaving residents five working days in which to marshall protests.

Now, thanks to Councillors voting to defer the application, residents will find RBKC will have to give more notice, and as one of the Councillors pointed out, there had been a massive amount of protests, all with different concerns.  It was obvious that this was not an orchestrated protest, but genuine residents expressing concerns - from safety of children, noise, loss of amenity up to those who have purchased their flats, and now find the value has gone down by £100k.  

Now one wonders what will happen to Council funds; Cllr. Coleridge, when questioned by a resident who couldn't believe he and fellow Councills Weale and Paget Brown could allow such a development without informing residents, Coleridge had excused their conduct by saying the £30 million they would get by selling the depot was sorely needed, as "the Council is short of funds".

As disabled residents struggled out to the street to find their transport, they had to pass one of the Council's gleaming Bentleys.  That can park right outside - disabled residents have to walk. 

Respectfully

The Residents

LEAVE IT 'ORF JIMBO THERE'S NOW'T MILEAGE IN IT

The vandalisation of The Orangery is bringing all sorts of oddities out of the woodwork.
Jimbo Leavesley runs a group of companies in the Midlands so why would he write in support of a double basement under Kensington Palace? Milord Leavesley? Sir Jimbo?
The odd thing is that he writes from his office in the Midlands!

JIMBO LEAVESLEY
AN AESTHETE PROPERTY DEVELOPER!

Jimbo's dad started off flogging ex-military surplus junk but has moved on. Now he's a property developer.
Jimbo is a sensitive soul. 
He believes horrible old fashioned buildings like the Orangery need to move with the times.In fact, he would like to knock it down and put up one of his very popular out of town style offices! He thinks he could make a bit of dough flogging orf bits and pieces.

This is the weird comment he posted on the planning portal!

EXCELLENT PIECE ON THE ORANGERY

This well-written piece in the Daily Telegraph 

LINK

and yet another in the Times! 

LINK

and in the Daily Mail and Sun

LINK

IS SANDELSON KNOWN TO FEILDING MELLEN?

Jonny Sandelson, the man behind bust Guestinvest which left investors up Excreta Creek without a Paddle LINK

Odd his autobiographical Wilki entry omits such important information.

But leaving investors high and dry has not stopped RBK&C dealing with him and his gang.

Sandelson and team have got their hands on the much loved Thamesbrook Home in Dovehouse Street. They plan to demolish it and replace this much-loved community asset with extraordinarily expensive and vulgar retirement homes for super- rich old bags like the awful Dame.

So, the hideous Stella Baillie, purportedly in charge of the welfare of the old, has struck yet another blow against the very people whose welfare she has responsibility for!

A home that could have continued to serve local people has been hijacked for the benefit of the ultra rich....most will have had no connection to the Royal Borough.

MR STALLWOOD SPRINGS AN EASTER SURPRISE!

Dear Dame

Please help us!

Cllr Coleridge tells us that we have to put up the money-making scheme to sell a street sweepers' depot to a developer "because the council is short of money". 

How can this be when it sits on over £300 million in reserves from over taxing us?

Having cleared £30 million flogging the site the street cleaning facility has been dumped on the Wiltshire Close housing estate - ignoring residents' concerns over noise, pollution and the disruption this will cause.  

Street sweepers currently have been caught on camera urinating in the Close. They congregate - very noisily - at 0600 each morning, using foul language as they shout to each other, and sweep through the area taking no care for elderly residents.  

The scheme is been rushed through by RBKC's Planning Dept. 
The Evening Standard have written this LINK

On Good Friday residents were informed by email only, of a Planning Meeting on April 25th to discuss this development, giving those with email access five working days in which to gather objections.    

Residents' store sheds will be demolished; they will lose cherished green space, and have to put up with noise and pollution in their open space.

With kind regards

A group of residents

BREAKING NEWS! STALLWOOD SIDES WITH RESIDENTS.....

It seems Mr. Stallwood, our planning boss, has had a Damascene conversion. 
He is beginning to understand, being paid more than the PM, plus a gigantic pension pot, he needs to defend the interests of residents. 
The Evening Standard reports this LINK
His past record gave the impression residents were a bit of a nuisance and he preferred dealing with rich and powerful developers....
Maybe he fell for the charms of Miss Trollope?

DAILY MAIL SLAMS K&C'S TREATMENT OF THE LIKES OF THE DAME

The Mail has written a major piece castigating RBK&C over the standard of care for the elderly. See LINK

Predictably, our useless PR department, headed by Mr 'Fizzy' Fitzpatrick, and costing close to £500,000 a year, was impotent in protecting the Council's reputation.

The Dame has for many years recommended closing the PR department down and replacing it with a small, but efficient, external consultancy to handle communications. 

In doing so savings of 80% could be achieved with no liability for pensions or redundancy costs.

But back to the core topic. 

One disgraceful aspect of care for the elderly was the closure of Thamesbrook orchestrated by the dreadful Stella Baillie, the director responsible for care of the elderly.
The Hornet wrote a piece about Thamesbrook some time back. 

LAZY WHEALE

It gave the vile Baillie a real roasting over the shabby treatment of the residents of this much loved 'local' home.
You can catch up here LINK

And which Cabinet member is responsible for care of the elderly? Yes, you guessed: the utterly lazy Cllr Weale

A ROBUST OBJECTION TO THE DESECRATION OF THE ORANGERY

The old Dame, perusing comments, will often alight upon one succinctly summing up a situation.
This letter of objection does exactly that: unlike the silly nonsense produced by the Science Museum.....



"I can hardly believe the amount of PUBLIC money which has been spent on preparing this application. 
It is made worse by the sloppy, illiterate and inconsistent reporting of the benefits supposedly of the scheme. 
Is everyone cowed by the involvement of a Royal Palace? 
No one is above the law. 
And the law in RBKC is subject to CL7 and the latest SPD on basements. Only if the planning department and LPA want to drive a coach and horses through their own regulations and guidelines, should this application be allowed to go any further. 
It would be a traumatic development to a Listed Building and a blatant defiance of the 2 storey rule to allow it. 
Please refuse the application at the earliest opportunity and stop this haemorrhage of public funds. 

Sent by: Patrick Hope-Falkner

GRAHAM STALLWOOD'S NEWBY FRIEND WRITES A 'DEAR GRAHAM' LETTER!

Graham Stallwood must be desperately canvassing support for the mega basement proposed under Kensington Palace's Grade 1 listed Orangery.

His mate, Jonathan Newby of the Science Museum, has written this nonsense of a support letter on the spurious gounds that the Palace is a neighbour of the Science Museum!

LINK  

Newby, deputy director of the Musum, clearly has hopes of an OBE for this grovelling piece of sycophancy

The Dame, ever aware of chicanery, notices the, "I confirm my support". 

Clearly, 'Jonathan' and 'Graham' have been having discussions on how best 'Jonathan' should couch his support.

There are reports staff are most unhappy with the idea of the subterranean area being a restroom for the fifteen minutes of R&R they are allowed. 

They have been forbidden to object.

Could the works also have something to do with freeing up space in KP to allow Princess Eugenie a pied de terre?

The building work will about take two years. 

Another reason for this destructive scheme is to intensify the commercialisation of the Orangery - so that more profitable private events can be held. 

Two years ago the Orangery and surrounding grounds was fenced off and closed to the public because a celebrity (sister of Paris Hilton) wanted her marriage celebrations to be held there.

To the north side of the Orangery (the rear) there is a 'wild life' area with mature trees, shrubs and many birds. 

This area would be destroyed.

EX SPY BOSS INTERROGATES SAVILLS

Following massive resident protest, David Graham's plan to build a mega basement under his Walton Street mansion was refused. It's all here LINK

Another Dame....

However, heads are now beginning to roll....
It seems that one planning officer, centrally involved in the entire sorry debacle, has been dismissed.



The Dame also hears the other formidable Dame, and former head of MI5, has called in Savills for some heavy interrogation.

Baroness Manningham-Buller is chair of Wellcome Trust. 
She is most horribly displeased with slimeball Savills for promoting Graham's horrendous scheme knowing it would damage Wellcome's local property portfolio. 
As she puts it to the Dame, over a cuppa, " Savills advises Wellcome so how on earth do they think they could operate in such a conflicted way?"

The lesson to be learned is this...one needs a long spoon to sup with Mr. Graham.
He brings trouble wherever he goes....

QUENTIN MARSHALL ESTABLISHES REPUTATION AS A BULLYBOY

As Mr. Emerson might have said of Cllr. Paget-Brown, "the more our leader talks of listening to residents the faster we count our spoons...."

New school for the Rock kids!

At the last planning committee meeting oleaginous chairman, Quentin Marshall, was overheard observing to a colleague, with an unpleasant smirk, "Well, that went rather well, didn't it".

Is that a Burberry scarf? So common!

What could Quent, whose other job is greasing up to clients at Weatherbys Private Bank, mean?






At theTown Hall planning meeting to discuss Ladbroke Library Quent decided objectors were a real and present danger to his safety. 
So several Town Hall security staff, supported by twelve burly members of the Constabulary, were drafted in to give Quent 'close protection'!  
How much did this show of force cost? 
Experts suggest several thousand pounds in overtime.

And, for what purpose? 
Presumably, to eject objectors objecting to Marshall's crude and boorish attempts to silence them. 
When those rather genteel objectors voiced their concerns the bullying and deeply useless Marshall told them they had just a minute to make their point!
What a cavalier way to treat residents paying his 'allowance' of £40,000 plus!
But how different was his attitude to those supporting the scheme-architects and the Director of Libraries.
They were treated with the greatest sycophancy. 
Each of the five-man team was given three minutes to make their case.

The Dame also demands to know why no documents outlining this application, and other major applications, were available offline as the Council is legally obliged to do. It might have helped Cllr. Rinker as he engaged in a last minute struggle to find out what was being discussed!
It's pointless Nick Paget-Brown running around the Borough asking those who put him in power to 'talk to him' when the likes of Marshall undermine all his good work by insulting residents.

Marshall's bullying and bombastic manner bode badly for those objecting to other upcoming major applications.