For years rumours of corrupt practices have swirled around the Environmental Health Dept chiefly in relation to waste disposal and noise and nuisance. Let's hope Tim Davis can clean up a tarnished reputation
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Dear Dame
Some of our councillors are aware that RBKC has something of an integrity problem within certain council departments. One of the contributing factors to this integrity problem is that the overwhelming majority of RBKC officers live outside the borough. With no “skin in the game” these officers may be more inclined to take a self-interested and exploitative view of the residents for whom they supposedly work. Once officers are appointed it is extremely difficult to remove them. Officers don't leave, they cannot be removed for being incompetent or lazy, and they have the full protection of the council unless serious wrongdoing can be proven.
One of the interesting initiatives that have been introduced to deal with this problem is a policy requiring that the council hire RBKC residents wherever possible to fill vacancies as they arise.
Our borough has many good and talented people looking for work and willing to be trained. We should, as a community, support this initiative in an attempt to try to take back control of our council so that it works on behalf of residents, not for the benefit of council officers!
With this initiative in mind, I would like to bring to the attention of possible candidates who reside in our borough, a job opportunity within the RBKC Environmental Health Department.
Tim Davis, the Head of Public Protection, is looking for a Senior Area Noise and Nuisance Officer. This is a rare opportunity to inject some competence and integrity into a department sorely lacking in both. To date, RBKC residents have been poorly served by the noise and nuisance team, and once an officer is appointed, he will likely be there for a very long time. Take, for example, the current Senior Area Noise and Nuisance Officer, Keith Mehaffy, who proudly boasts that he has been an environmental officer at RBKC for more than thirty years!
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Tim Davis, the Head of Public Protection, is looking for a Senior Area Noise and Nuisance Officer. This is a rare opportunity to inject some competence and integrity into a department sorely lacking in both. To date, RBKC residents have been poorly served by the noise and nuisance team, and once an officer is appointed, he will likely be there for a very long time. Take, for example, the current Senior Area Noise and Nuisance Officer, Keith Mehaffy, who proudly boasts that he has been an environmental officer at RBKC for more than thirty years!
Mr Davis would be well-advised to appoint to this position a competent officer who understands the law he or she is supposed to uphold (currently lacking in the noise and nuisance team), who understands that his or her duties are to all residents, not just the wealthy ones, and who has integrity and a good dose of common sense to go along with it.
If you know someone who lives in the borough who meets these requirements, please encourage them to apply for this position, to raise the standards of this very flawed department, and who will support our community with honesty and integrity. The closing date for applying for this position is 16th June!
Please spread the word!
Yours sincerely
Engaged Resident
Mr Mehaffy when attending a noise nuisance advised he lives in the countryside and all he hears are cows mooing - suggested if irritated by noise, we move to the country, he continued for much of the visit talking about his personal life. Very strange and unprofessional!
ReplyDeleteRBKC, you are letting down your residents across the piece - you must do better!
I've danced with EH staff for some years in the past. They'd come around @3 o'clock in the morning and we'd guess the tune coming out of our neighbour's radio. There was always a talk of noise monitoring equipment which is either on loan or broken. I take it noise and nuisance department hasn' changed much then! lol
ReplyDeleteFancy that! Why didn't Mr Mehaffy tell the wealthy Mr and Mrs Baptista to move to the country when they complained they were tortured by the piano playing school children next door. Mr Mehaffy visited them too after the council lost its case in court. Instead of telling them to move to the country though, the council hired a QC and two days later appealed the judgment on their behalf! What did you do differently 12.50?
ReplyDeleteJoao Baptista was on the Board of Trustees of the V&A Museum at the time. So too was Nicholas Coleridge (Cllr Tim Coleridge's brother). They are both still on the committee of the V&A Museum of Childhood.
DeleteAnd 15.56, what did you do differently? Broken equipment did not stop officers serving a notice on the Baptistas' neighbours. Officers didn't let a silly matter like malfunctioning equipment stop them - they simply destroyed the supposedly corrupted recordings and served a notice anyway!
ReplyDelete@16:10 There is no logic. Only corruption and they'll do whatever it suits them!! Make sense now?!
DeleteFrankly, compared to H&F RBK&C Noise Nuisance Team seems quite unfit for purpose. There are too many complaints about Mr. Mehaffy to be ignored. My own dealings with the Noise Team have been non existent as they seem only to exist on paper.
ReplyDeleteThe RBKC Leadership Team was asked at the council meeting in March what it was doing to address the judge’s findings in the piano dispute that environmental health officers (Keith Mehaffy and Georgina Seraphim) had a flawed approach to noise nuisance and that they behaved unreasonably.
ReplyDeleteThe council’s written response:
“The council did not agree with both the findings of DJ Roscoe ….”
Council officers consider themselves a higher authority than our courts, and this view is supported at the highest levels of the council. They will not likely be too concerned about complaints from residents!
Mr Mehaffy was nonchalant in the extreme, why on earth would he do that job if he liked to live in the country away from any noise and nuisance?
ReplyDeleteThe personal family talk was a concern, I mean who opens up like that on a professional visit - most of the visit consisted of listening to him talking about his life and family, very embarrassing!
Kensington residents are wealthier and more grateful than country folk.
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