Second planning meeting compounds rotten decision by RBKC planning committee opposite Royal Park (344 - 350 Old Brompton Road)( see original article Link : FTHN: From the Hornets Nest: THE DAME TARGET OF DIRTY TRICKS: A THREAT TO LOCAL DEMOCRACY )
There is a special place in hell reserved for the likes of Cllrs Husband (Con. Abingdon Ward); Bennett (Con. Redcliffe Ward); O'Connor (Con. Holland Ward); Idris (Con. West Brompton & Hans Town) and Woodger (Con. Queen’s Gate), all members, or recent members, of the RBKC planning committee.
Each of these individuals has been complicit in attempting to permit a nearly 120 ft tower in the middle of a conservation area, opposite a Grade I listed heritage site (Brompton Cemetery, one of the Royal Parks) and two to three times the height of its immediate neighbours in the borough.
At the same time, by doing so, they are delivering a very dangerous precedent to greater London.
Naively, I still expect those who run for public office to be held to a higher standard and actually represent their constituents.
As our representatives, they are guardians of our community identity and built heritage. But instead, this lot seem hell bent on leaving the world a worse place than when they found it.
I find myself wondering what inspired these lacklustre individuals to seek public office in the first place ? Certainly it is not to serve the community. Perhaps they have ambitions for the rewards of even higher office and perhaps their seeming lack of a moral compass is merely by way of aping the example set by those party members in loftier positions (step forward Messrs Johnson, Hancock and Gove and Lords Lister, Moylan and Bethell, who between them set a pretty low bar. See links here:
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But I digress……
Such was the collective eagerness of these Councillors to please a developer (Jamie Ritblat), whose political donations oil the national party machine, that not one scintilla of statecraft was demonstrated, even to pay lip service to the over 400 objections by residents to this scheme (there were only 6 letters of support and I am pretty sure that all 6 were generated by the developer’s PR department).
The decision to allow this ill favoured structure is partly based on a lie, disseminated by architect Fred Pilbrow, that his ecologically unsound building (they are buying carbon offsets) had the blessing of Historic England, which it most certainly did not.
It is also based on the misguided good intention that the building will partly deliver “affordable” (not social) housing to the Borough’s supply, but tell me that there isn’t space enough to do that in the 40+ acres site behind that the developer still has not published plans for…….
A second planning meeting on this subject was called because of a threat by the Kensington Society to take the local authority to judicial review over their original decision By passing the application the first time, Councillors demonstrated an ignorance of process, by passing it a second, they have made a bad situation worse.
A simple decision to delay would have saved council tax payers money defending the indefensible.
Only one member of the planning committee appeared fully cognisant of the implications of the decisions that were being made, Emma Dent Code (Lab. Golborne) rather succinctly surmised :
“this is the thin end of a very tall wedge”
Cllr Husband said if this proposal was anywhere else in the borough the council would not have allowed it - can he advise what more sensitive a site than this ?
Again RBKC residents are pitched against their supposed representatives and now there is an avoidable fight on
Robert Kensington
( Cousin of The Dame )
Husband looks like he likes a few bevies and what is that extraordinary jacket the fop Woodger is wearing
ReplyDeleteLeave Cllr Idris alone: she ain't too sharp!
ReplyDeleteCllr O'Connor doesn't like rocking boats especially since just becoming a partner in Ince, the vast City law firm with all sorts of different clients
ReplyDeleteDame, isn't Woodger a friend of bonkers Palmer?
ReplyDeleteAt the 1st planning application meeting, in April 2021, Cllr Bakhtiar (Lab) voted against it. All the 3 other Cllrs on the panel voted for it.
ReplyDeleteHow inept can they be, do they not know what the optics are?! A developer that donates to the party and overwhelming vote without declaring they're a donor. Just to add Local Election next year, too stupid to live.
ReplyDeleteHas Ritblat told perspective buyers that they will not be getting parking permits & there will be no underground car park so close to tube and railway lines!
ReplyDeleteLabour should not stand at Earls Court ward next year let the lib dems take the ward, it will put firework up the Conservatives proverbial!
ReplyDeleteLinda Wade is already ensconced in the ward; she received more votes than Adourian & Spalding in 2018.
Lib Dems & Labour made gains 2018 whilst Conservatives made losses; this would mean lib dems could spread 1,142 votes on top of an average 600 votes they may receive; so all three candidates would get over a thousand votes each at 2021 election.
A NOTE FROM ROBERT KENSINGTON
ReplyDeleteInteresting that the ONLY SUPPORTER the developers could rustle up at the second planing meeting was one:
ROBERT ADAMS
who owns a
"share of the freehold of Nos 1 & 3 Eardley Crescent"
and is apparently the
"DEP CHAIR OF EARDLEY CRESCENT RESIDENT'S ASSOCIATION"
(I wonder how many residents of Eardley Crescent are actually members or even aware of the association's existence, as Mr Adams said that it had, "until recently been moth-balled for 7 years" )
He stated:
"WE"
(by which I presume he means the residents of Eardley Crescent, rather than the Royal Prerogative)
"are supporters of the scheme"
Guess who also owns flats at Nos 1 & 3 Eardley Crescent ?????
Yes, you guess it.... THE DEVELOPER !!!
so ROBERT ADAMS you are HARDLY A CREDIBLE WITNESS
NOTES:
In April 2015, two of the flats are sold to Earls Court Partnership Ltd, of which Earls Court (London) LLp owns 63% and Ttl Earls Court Properties Ltd owns 37% since November 2019. Previously, the majority owner was Capital & Counties Properties Plc. It seems that one of the flats they bought belonged to one of the former directors, Kerstin Ingham, while the other was bought from another shareholder, Sally Ann Groenendijk-Trigues, as their 2 shares were transferred to new owner on the same day (2015-04-06).
CAPCO used to own these! It waS in their annual report.
Delete