This intelligent reader talks about 'in vogue' campaigning groups.
These groups who pretend to 'spiritually enlightenment' are carrying a vicious vendetta against Georges Assi for doing no more than sounding out public opinion.
Assi represented a huge number of residents and businesses who understood that the experiment in Kensington High Street was an utter disaster.
It now seems the staff of Fox Primary School are getting in on the act despite never needing to use the Ken High St cycle lane.
The staff should be getting on with teaching instead of joining demos.
Dear Dame,
Thank Heavens the sordid cycle lane is being torn down from High Street Kensington. Cars were backing up to the Albert Hall, like the queues of a Soviet breadline. Credit to RBKC council for listening to the residents and reversing the decision.
Call me ungrateful, but I am still not content. According to an article in the Evening Standard, the cost of construction was £300,000. How can painting a white line on the road and installing some plastic bollards cost so much?
If RBKC council had properly consulted residents before building the cycle lane, taxpayers money could have been saved.
I am not opposed to measures improving conditions for cyclists on the road. However, some creativity is needed from our leaders. We all saw how popular cycling was around Hyde Park in the summer. Perhaps the council could introduce a temporary cycle lane, operational during the summer months but reverting back to a normal road for most of the year. This common-sense policy should be seriously considered - it would be good for both drivers and cyclists.
Drivers are currently being treated as some sort of embarrassing remnants of an antiquated age. Most London politicians would prefer to leave us in the lurch while they go ahead building their lovely, cycling, car-free utopia.
Thus, I applaud Councillor Thassalties for standing up to the in-vogue campaigning groups and urge other councillors to represent the interests of almost 50% of constituents who own and operate cars in our great borough.
Some very strange things are happening. The Headteacher of Fox School leading a political rally in Kensington High Street to protest against the RBKC decision to remove the cycle lanes!!
ReplyDeleteIn my fathers day, the teachers taught. They understood that organising political protests is not compatible with their job or employment contract. My father, the Earl, was very strict about these matters when he was Governor of a famous school.
I believe that the employer of the Headmistress is the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. She should be dismissed immediately. Discipline and wokery are sad bedfellows.
The Dame's followers will know that I am rarely so outspoken.
This whole fiasco is a self inflicted wound by the hopeless Leader, Cllr Campbell. She should have had the balls to say "no" at the outset. The Mayors threat of going to Court should have been met with a robust "bring it on". Public opinion would have seen him off.
ReplyDeleteLeadership is about political judgement and political choice and robust positioning. All of this is beyond the hopeless Campbell. Now we have the wokes spiraling out of control, the Ombudsman reclaiming £300 million cost of the cycle lanes (another quango funded by hard pressed tax payers) and Campbell nowhere to be seen.
Even the Kensington MP stood up to be counted. No sign of the Fulham and Chelsea MP who is fast becoming a poodle. What a mess
This is a message for the "new" group of 19 Conservative Councillors. Elizabeth Campbell is preparing to stand down as Leader. She has been running the Borough with her kitchen Cabinet of Cllr Weale and Cllr Lady Faulks. Weale and Faulks both want to take over as Leader. For all the wrong reasons. They want to puff and feel self important. And unfortunately they are both thick.
DeleteThe "new" group needs to organise and figure out what kind of Leader is right for Kensington and Chelsea. And remember, the big strategic move of the near future is the plan to merge the Royal Borough with Hammersmith
There is no-one in that leadership team fit to actually lead it, and the last thing we need at the helm is one of the over-promoted under-experienced juveniles. The one person who actually seems to know what they're doing is Julie Mills. Now that would be a safe pair of hands.
DeleteWhy is the writer surprised that RBKC spent £300 million of tax payers money to fence off some cycle lanes? Too many Town Hall staff, too many Councillors, not enough to do and too much money to spend. No accountability and no competition.
ReplyDeleteThink what £300 million could do for our Children and Families budget
DeleteThe failure of Leadership is breathtaking. And the administrative apparatus under the Chief Clerk, Barry Quirk, is clearly not functioning when £300 million is signed out of the piggy bank to install cycle lanes
DeleteI hate to disillusion poor Anonymous and Swampy, but it didn't cost £300 million. Read the post. Also, think it through. Three hundred million is more than the entire sum total of the reserves. The Leadership of this council may be stupid, but they are far too tight to spaff it all in one go on a cycle lane.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the cost of painting a white line and installing some bollards in the road should not cost £300, 000. This eye watering sum does seem especially profligate.
ReplyDeleteThe Council has form for profligacy. Just before the introduction of the Congestion Charge Western Extension Zone in 2003, the road junction at Fulham Road and Sydney Street was altered along with the road junction at Sydney Street and King's Road so that bus 210 could be re-routed. These works cost £400,000 seventeen years ago.
£300, 000 was paid by the Greater London Assembly and the other £100, 000 was stumped by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Public funds should be carefully husbanded by the bureaucrats to whom they are entrusted.