A BUSINESSMAN WRITES....

Dear Dame,

May I correct your title ' A flawed good idea'?

This poorly thought through idea is stolen from Westminster City Council and like that council's idea it will have no legs.

I write as a small business owner with shops in and around the Royal Borough.

I wonder if any councillor or officer has any idea of the financial pain small business people are enduring? 
I doubt it. 
Most seem clueless about the real world and have nil business experience.

Let me put the leader straight....

Every year business has to contend with ever-rising rents and crippling business rates which the Council collects.
Yet, as you have mentioned in the past, the Council has been profligate with our tax splashing it about on Middle Eastern festivals and pointless road schemes like Exhibition Rd as well as Opera Holland Park!
It's all very well officers like Quirk coming up with begging bowl ideas: he's getting over £270,000 a year which is much more than my four shops generate in profit.
Better still, he gets a £100,000 a year pension: a risk free life.

So, no....count me out. I will not be giving my hard earned money to a council which has no idea of the value of money. 
If I am going to support a local school I will do so directly with fellow local businessmen. 

Kind regards

A local small businessman who wishes to be anonymous

A FLAWED GOOD IDEA

The Council leader has written to residents soliciting views on whether they would support a charitable trust funded by voluntary contributions from council taxpayers.
The aim of the trust would be to bridge the gap between the Borough's rich and poor

This is what the Dame thinks...

1. The Council leads the way by asking councillors to reduce their allowances by 10-15% and divert the saving to the fund. 
K&C councillors enjoy allowances far greater than boroughs of comparative size.
Officers, like Doc Quirk, might also be able to afford to throw in a few quid from his £250k a year salary.

2. Immediately cease the funding of Opera Holland Park-a luxury none of us can afford.

3. Ensure that Borough business runs the fund: councillors and officers have a haphazard record in relation to money management- vide Exhibitionist Rd

We live in a diverse borough ranging from some of the wealthiest households in the country to some of the most deprived areas of London.

All of us here at the council are determined that everyone has the opportunity to make a success of their lives, no matter their background.

This means pupils from all walks of life winning places at university.

It means apprenticeships, skills and routes into employment or entrepreneurship.

It means investing in the right provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, so they too can achieve their full potential.

This is why today, I am launching a consultation on whether you would like to contribute a little more to the borough.

I am asking if you can help us establish a new charitable fund that invests in young people who live in the borough and helps them build the skills and gain the employment that will improve their lives and the future prospects of those around them.

In our new Council Plan for the next four years, one of our main ambitions is to narrow the gap in our borough and in our society and we want to work with you to make this happen.

We are proposing a completely voluntary scheme with any money invested to be targeted for young people, skills, career progression and education.

At this stage, we are really keen to see what you think and how much you would like to be involved.

DOC QUIRK ATTACKS ALIEN VIBRATIONS IN LEWISHAM

Doctor Quirk and his partner have managed to stop their neighbour in Lewisham building an 'Alien Feature' which would lead to 'Vibrations' VIBRATORY

The Dame has been desperately trying to get her hapless nephew, Ludo into local government.
Barry and Katherine, between them, are pulling in over £500,000 a year plus platinum pension.
No wonder UK PLC is bust when non-wealth creators are creaming it off.....

COLE IN A HOLE

Here's a picture of Andrew (call me Andy) Cole the CEO of Kensington & Chelsea College.

Andy presides over a seething mass of mischief-makers. These malcontent troublemakers are whining about, amongst other more serious issues, the installation of a £10,000 'Executive Kitchen'.
The Dame is very keen on status and has a number of 'executive kitchens' scattered around her duplex in Holland Park. 
Time the envious naysayers zipped it up.
In Pooter Corbyn's brave new world the working classes will all have 'executive kitchens'

Can kind readers update her on the chaos that seems to be burgeoning under Andy's leadership?
On a serious note....nothing libelous, please. 

The college seems to spend a fortune on expensive 'advisers' and could easily take a legal potshot at the dear, decrepit old Dame. 

PUBLIC TO BE ALLOWED SPEAK AT FULL COUNCIL MEETINGS

If the Dame hears this correctly members of the public will be allowed to address the Council.

This is a first rate idea. Well done RBK&C

You can read about it HERE

MAKING A TOTAL EXHIBITION OF ITSELF

The White Elephant Road 

For years the Hornet and her Hornets have railed against the Council and especially ex Cllr Danny Boys Moylan for sanctioning the £30 million wasted on Exhibition Rd...sufficient for a couple of primary schools.

Now, recognising it's been a failure and lethal for pedestrians the Council plans to scrap it

Pontificating, the Hon Architect, visionary and 'road psychologist had this to say at the time.....

’The psychology of this scheme is fascinating. Experience seems to show that when you dedicate space to traffic and control it with signs and green traffic lights, motorists develop a claim on it. It becomes ‘my space.’ Drivers become annoyed if people move into it.

'They get angry if a mother pushing a buggy moves across the crossing just as the lights are about to change.’

‘This new scheme is more like the behaviour in a supermarket car park. Drivers know there are people around pushing shopping trolleys and so drive more cautiously. They are looking out.

They don’t feel that  pedestrians are invading their space. They don’t therefore get annoyed.’

Moylan, always a master of bovine excreta, was on top form with that little masterpiece of oratory!

Click to enlarge

One resident commented,

"The Council “only” spent £14.6m of our money on the original scheme – another £13.4m came from the Mayor of London (i.e. also our money) and only £1m from the City of Westminster, despite the fact that Exhibition Road is mostly on the border between the two boroughs – why the very unequal split?  The work took 3 years to complete.  Now they need to spend even more money and time undoing it…"

HAVE YOUR SAY ON FAT CAT PLANNING DEPARTMENT

Cllr Lari has shone a bright light on the income received by the Planning Department and he raises some interesting ideas in the letter below.

It seems Cllr Lari forced Graham Stallwood to reveal that the Planning Department received almost £1,000,000 in fees from developers in 2017/2018 in return for the pre-planning advice given to development corporations including those developing Newcombe House and Kensington Forum Hotel. 
The payback for developers is the advice leads to a recommendation to grant permission at Committee. This figure is separate from the planning administrative fees that are charged to all applicants and does include any declared hospitality which Planning Officers received from the relevant developers.

Lari argued in his alternative planning budget that:

 1) the planning department should become more self-sufficient - why spend £12m of taxpayer's money on it if it already has the capacity to receive so much funding from developers? 

He suggests that residents should not be paying council tax to fund a department that acts as a consultant for large corporations as opposed to local taxpayers. If anything, he argues, there should be an increase the advice fees charged to corporations. 

2) He makes the further point that if the planning department can spend energy and intelligence advising developers it also has the capacity to provide expert advice to residents wishing to challenge applications and who are of course fund the department through their taxes.

On Monday 8 April, between 6:00pm-8:30pm in Kensington Town Hall, we are holding an event to discuss the planning pre-application advice service. This meeting will let a range of independent experts and planning professionals have an open discussion with you, our residents, about the planning pre-application advice service. We want to talk about how we can make sure all our planning processes are clear, effective, transparent and fair to everyone. The discussions at this meeting will feed into Scrutiny’s review of the service and potentially help shape our future approach. For more information and to confirm you will be attending the meeting, please email scrutiny@rbkc.gov.uk. For information on how you can get involved with Scrutiny's work of holding decision-makers to account on behalf of residents and further information on this meeting, please visit: https://bit.ly/2u9gdZ8 If you'd like to know more about the planning pre-application advice service, please visit: https://bit.ly/2T8vaFb

ANOTHER YEAR OF SUBSIDY FOR S.AFRICAN BANK, INVESTEC & OPERA HOLLAND PARK

COUNCIL TAX MONEY PIT

Dear Dame,

A pity Doctor Quirk did not prescribe some harsh medicine....

OHP has just announced that erection of the tent and associated buildings for the summer season starts this week. The new sitting out area outside Holland House, opened last year after spending £1 million from Council Tax to create a scenic arena, will be out of use to residents until October when the opera tent is dismantled again.

OPERA BUFFS?

Hornets will remember that the £1 million expenditure was approved by the Planning Committee to provide an elevated "seating out area" in the park to be enjoyed by park users. There was no mention of Opera Holland Park.

In fact, the “sitting out area” is a purpose designed foundation for the opera tent, associated buildings, tent anchor points, and seating for opera patrons. Council Taxpayers can only “sit out” in the Winter months. Investec sponsors the opera and uses the facilities to entertain, wine and dine clients. And Investec makes a fat profit for themselves on the back of Council Tax.

The Council has just published the budget for the coming year. Spending of £473 million is announced including £173m for Children's Services and Schools, £78m for “Central Services”, £72m for Adult Care and £58m for Housing. And then the bogies: £29m for Grenfell and £12m for Planning. How on earth can the Council justify spending more on Central Services than Adult Care? And with the squeeze on funding, how can the Council justify ANOTHER £1m bung to Opera Holland Park?

And then there are the 3300 sq feet of Office space given to Opera Holland Park in Council premises. 
Officers are still “considering” whether rent should be paid for this office space. 
And free storage for the tent in Winter months.

Off with their heads!

A fed to the back teeth and overtaxed resident

THEY DON'T STAY LONG.....

If the rumour mill is correct Graham Stallwood is off to the bucolic West Country there to join the Planning Inspectorate.

The Dame hopes that he will still be available to assist in any issues around Grenfell...

MORE BARBARIANS AT THE 'GATE'?

Dear Members, Frogmore, which owns most of the north side of Notting Hill Gate  and the David Game site on the south, is proposing a  redevelopment of the block which goes from M&S  down to the sportswear shop at the western end.   The whole site is retail on the ground level with  eight residential units above.  Frogmore and  their consultants presented a fully developed scheme to the  trustees of the society for the first time last week.   The proposal is for: A 175-room hotel – aimed at the “mid-market urban traveller” – covering the whole site, with food and beverage offer in the hotel on ground floor but no shops; No replacement of the eight housing units. The building would be 7 storeys, several floors taller than the current building housing M&S and two storeys taller than the buildings on either side (although the floors would be less high than the present ones), and it  would also extend further at the back; and loss of the protective canopy along Notting Hill Gate. Frogmore has informed us that the RBKC planners support the  scheme.   The Kensington Society will be commenting directly to  both Frogmore and  the planners.  We suggest, however,  that interested members  should go along to the public exhibition on Wednesday 27 March  (6 pm -9 pm) and Saturday 30thMarch ((10 am to 2 pm)  at St John’s Church, on the corner of Ladbroke Grove and  Lansdowne Crescent, W11 2NN, and let Frogmore know  what you think as there may still be time for changes to be made.   Even though there is not yet any formal planning application,  you could also send comments to the planning officer  at RBKC, Stephanie Malik at  stephanie.malik@rbkc.gov.uk . Also please tell us what your opinion is. Yours sincerely Amanda Frame Chairman The Kensington Society www.kensingtonsociety.org

THE DAME OVERWHELMED BY LA NOSTALGIE DE L'EPOQUE

Blot on the landscape

The Middle Eastern owner of the vile and vulgar Caramel that replaced the much loved La Brasserie in Brompton Rd seems to be taking his time to repair the damage caused by a couple of furtive firebombers.

So loved and much lamented

The other day the Dame was at the perfect Le Colombier and her aged mind was taken back to those far off days when its charming owner, Didier, ran La Brasserie.

Time the council kicked the bottom of the ghastly owner of Caramel and told him to get on with tidying up the site.

How wonderful if Didier announced that he would return to his old haunt......

OH WEAK AND INEFFECTUAL DON....

Why do silly old Oxbridge dons lavish praise on students going on to political high office?
Don't they realise that politics is probably all they are fit for? Take the case of George Osborne now forced to take the shilling of the ex Russian spy, Lebedev.

Click on image for some commonsense

These unworldly old dons deluge their former charges with paeans of praise in the forlorn hope they might collect some juicy sinecure like a quango job or a free holiday.
The foolish, unworldly old don in charge of Osborne was over young George like a cheap suit little suit praising his Einstein-like subtle mind!
Well, there was nothing subtle about Osborne's clumsy muddling with the London property market. 
The hike in Stamp Duty reduced tax revenues and rather than cooling the market put it into deep freeze with a huge impact on the local economy as Borwick's letter to the Telegraph explains.
Still, Osborne is OK: he collecting a million a year and has just bought a £3.5 m chalet in Courchevel to entertain his Russian friends. 
Our political class is a bunch of spivs.....

LAURA DRUMMOND-MURRAY-RED TOFF UNDER THE BED

If the Dame was not about to get a birthday card from Her Majesty she would have become a journalist. 
A few weeks ago she scribbled a bit about Andy Murray(aka Worth educated Andrew Drummond-Murray) and his gorgeous, pouting daughter, Laura.

Both are of a rare breed....mega-rich, aristocratic Stalinists. 
Both are firm friends and advisers to Pooter Corbyn and Provo loving John McDonnell.

So why has it taken the Sunday Times and Daily Mail until today to reveal Laura's frightfully grand lineage! Through papa, Laura is a cousin of the Earl of Perth and through mummy, the Aberconway and Onslow families. 
Still, the Dame believes it's important the upper classes lead the proletariat to the sunlit uplands...one has to set an example to the lower orders.

Laura and her posh papa are also 'full on' anti-semites so one wonders what her great aunt, the Dowager Lady Ann Lindsay Aberconway would think of her views.....
Lady Aberconway is Jewish and her grandfather a staunch Zionist. 

THE DEGRADING OF BEAUCHAMP PLACE & BROMPTON RD

This part of Knightsbridge was once a serene and beautiful place but today you feel have been transported to the worst and most squalid parts of Edgware Road.

 Charming family-run restaurants have been replaced by shisha bars and dreary 'tea shops' catering for Middle Eastern visitors.
The pavements are filthy with rubbish and spilled food.

Some reasons that explain how this has been allowed to happen

1. RBK&C and Westminster City Council share responsibly for this prime part of London so it's a case of the area falling between two stools
2. Only establishments catering for Middle Eastern tastes can afford the massive rents and business rates
3. There is no one landlord with over-arching responsibility for the area.

The major London estates such as Cadogan, Grosvenor, De Walden, and Portman jealously guard the appearance of their properties and demand the highest standards from tenants. This works to all our advantage if we live in the area. 

One local property expert commented, " A landlord like Cadogan may be very demanding but they do keep the area looking smart: their view is very long term"

This area of Brompton Rd and Beauchamp Place has a multiplicity of owners with no coherent view on the preservation of the environment: their drive seems to be to achieve the highest short term returns on capital and the result is the mess that we now see.

POLICE & CRIME COMMISSIONERS COST BILLIONS OF £

The two dimwits, Clegg and Cameron came up with the idea of Police and Crime Commissioners. 
Servicing these people is costing well over £4 billion a year-money that could be spent on frontline police officers

There are 41 Police and Crime Commissioners in the UK: a sundry bunch of troughers and political 'has been's' and treated with utter contempt by the Police Superintendents Association and anyone else who has ever had dealings with them. 
The Dame wrote to one, Sue Mountstevens, the £85,000 Police & Crime Commissioner for Avon & Somerset who has this multi-million-pound bureaucracy under her!
BILLION £ MONEY WASTE
Sue is an ex baker and her letter to the Dame is so half baked that one wonders whether she should be in a padded cell.... Her justification for her role is offering old things like the Dame rides in police cars!

£85,000 a year dimwit baker with a lot of dough

As a slight aside, if you would like to join and experience the daily work of a serving Police Officer on the beat (in their police vehicle and responding to incidents or observing staff in the Communications Department) then please view the Police website at: https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/s ... ng-scheme/ . This scheme gives members of the public the chance to ask questions to Police Officers and Staff, which you may find of interest. I consider this to be one of the best ways of allowing the public to see Police work first hand, the demand placed on Officers’ time and how they target their efforts in the most productive way. You may find the Friday and Saturday evening period between 5p.m. to 2a.m. the most varied but you don’t have to complete the whole shift and the Constabulary is happy to accommodate you whenever is suitable for you.



I realise that participating in the Ride-Along Scheme involves an amount of your time but I thoroughly recommend it and I would also welcome your feedback on the experience.

TURN BACK ON THOSE CCTV CAMERAS NOW!

Dear Dame,








Where there's graffiti there's crime: the two go together. 
That has been the experience in New York. 
The Mayor's Policing Adviser found that when you had a Zero Tolerance attitude to graffiti there was a clear drop in street crime.





There has been a spate of graffiti in recent weeks in my neighbourhood

There are often groups of young people hanging around both ends of the mews where I live late at night and I notice that the council are not replacing lights and there are no cameras. 

I feel that this may lead to increased opportunistic petty crime, certainly, there has been a rise in the number of vehicles that have smashed window screens.

An immediate deterrent may be to post signage about fines for committing graffiti in the same way there are signs about not allowing dogs to foul the footpath. I wonder even if there is a local bylaw about this?  

But also, and as a priority, there needs to be a scheme for CCTV in vulnerable areas. When my own car was broken into recently by the Royal Albert Hall, it was parked outside a property belonging to the Royal College of Music under 
what I assumed was a working camera. 

When I spoke to the local caretakers and residents after my car was broken into they told me that there were break ins there every week because the Council had turned off the CCTV, something that the criminals are clearly aware of.

A friend had his car broken into by the Fulham road cinema and ironically he was able to track the thieves with each of their attempted uses of a stolen credit card
as they used if for contactless purchases....

I also saw a pair on a moped off Kensington High Street break into a car and steal a bag, I chased them but by the time they reached the high street they disappeared into the
traffic. This is not a large geographical area - surely there could be an intelligent CCTV system installed in key locations.

Sincerely ,

anon

BLACK CABS, BLACK SMOKE AND BLACKENED LUNGS

Black cabs drivers have been told by Civil Enforcement Officers, aka as traffic wardens, that they may park on double yellow lines in Hans Road without fear of a ticket or being asked to move on! Extraordinary but true.

They are even allowed to run their engines whilst stationary despite it being illegal in addition to creating massive congestion.

If you are a resident living in Hans Rd you not only have to endure the toxifying smoke from their beat up old diesel engines but the racket of their engines day and night.

LORD ABERCONWAY'S GT-GRAND DAUGHTER & POOTER CORBYN

Soon, it won't be 'reds under the beds' but 'bluebloods under the beds'.....
Pooter Corbyn likes to surround himself with sprigs of the Highland and industrial aristocracy....nothing wrong with that: the Dame is a ferocious old snob and understands the lower orders need ordering about.
Pooter appointed Worth School 'sort of' educated Andrew Murray-Drummond of Mastrick, a cousin of the Earl of Perth, as his political adviser. Andrew dropped the Drummond bit and poses as a working-class trades unionist. 

Laura and Pooter

In short order, Andy, (as he prefers to be known) had persuaded Pooter to take on his daughter, Laura, on £40k a year! Laura, fresh out of finishing school, is very excited by her new job but sadly one of her tweets has caused a bit of a storm and an imminent action for libel. You can read all about it HERE

Laura is the great-granddaughter of the second Lord Aberconway, the enormously rich industrialist whose family interests included John Brown Shipbuilders and English China Clays. She is also a cousin of the Earl of Onslow.
So rich was Aberconway that he was able to build a Mayfair townhouse, Aberconway House.

ABERCONWAY HOUSE, MAYFAIR

One wonders what the third Lord Aberconway would think of this unholy alliance: after all, he blamed the unions for the demise of John Brown!

Anyway with all that Aberconway money behind her young Laura can afford a very expensive man in a wig.
But being so rich why does she not work for the party for nothing?