NO ANSWER CAME THE STERN REPLY....

Recently, a resident businessman posed a question to Cllrs Atkinson and Dent Coad, our MP.
There has been a deafening silence...
Come on, you two...answer the question!

And, on the same subject, the Dame expects an answer to the issue of the inept noise nuisance team. 
A resident has taken the Dame and the Council to task so come on Leader, can we have an answer, please?

Dear Dame

You appear to be ignorant of the antics of the noise nuisance team in recent years - inefficiency and lack of funding is not the problem, ignorance and incompetence is!

Take for example the squandering of hundreds of thousands of pounds of our RBKC taxpayers’ money attempting to ban two school children from playing the piano in after school hours on behalf of one well-connected multimillionaire resident (complaining about 1.5 hours per day of piano playing!). The children’s other neighbours said there was no problem! 

Also, take for example the experience of Mr Mustafa Karim and his neighbours in the north of the borough - Mr Karim spoke at the Full Council Meeting on the 23rd January (available to view on the RBKC webcast of this meeting), and explained that for the past four years, he and his neighbours have made hundreds of complaints to the RBKC noise team about Tesco Express trolleys crashing into the walls of his home every day from 6am until 11pm. Mr Karim and his neighbours were told that the noise nuisance officers could not / would not take any action on residents’ behalf because, “Tesco is a giant company and the council cannot fight giant companies”! 

You are wrong and misguided to think that even more taxpayers’ funds should be diverted into an incompetent, poorly trained, unreasonable and unaccountable noise team who consider that it is worth spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on attempting to ban school children’s piano-playing. Unsurprisingly, they failed! AND had to pay all legal costs at taxpayer expense!

Noise nuisance officers have the option to direct residents to take private action as they did in the recent high profile “El Kerrami vs Fouladi” dispute. It begs the question why they did not take this approach with the well-connected Mr Baptista and his now ex-wife Ms Allen who were complaining about 1.5 hours of piano-playing per day! As for the poor residents in the north of the borough with genuine noise nuisance complaints, they are victims of an ill-equipped noise nuisance team with a perverted misunderstanding of their duties and the law on statutory nuisance.

This department has become totally useless. If the best they can do is target piano-playing children on behalf of wealthy residents, whilst ignoring genuine serious complaints about real nuisances, then all funding should be withdrawn.