Related to Simon Jenkins's 'Pocket Park' is Cadogan's 'Pocket Forest'
The Pont Street 'forest' is springing up thanks to a Cadogan and Louis Vuitton collaboration.
Comprising over 600 different species of trees it replaces the arid, dusty and very ugly 'desert' that blighted Pont Street for so long.
You can read about it HERE
Sir Simon Jenkins, the author and Kensington resident has come up with a dynamic proposal to revitalise the area surrounding St Mary Abbotts.
A proposal is put forward today to revitalise the setting of Kensington’s parish church, St Mary Abbots.
It would remove railings and open up open space around the church and create a new pocket park, Vestry Gardens, in the churchyard behind it. The effect would be to create a new piazza and visual focus at the foot of Kensington Church Street, bringing the church into greater prominence at the heart of the old village. It would also double the amount of open grass and public space round Kensington Church Walk, much of it little used at present.
The proposal prepared by urban designers Publica and is the initiative of local resident, the author, Simon Jenkins, and supported by others living in the neighbourhood.
‘The church needs to be freed from its hostile cage of railings,’ says Jenkins, ‘and the gardens from a forest of dark vegetation and yet more railings. This is the last historic vestry enclave in London and should be celebrated as such. There is room for more open space and play areas, as well as for café tables and stalls.’
The proposal is being submitted to the church, school, neighbours and local council for their consideration.
Jenkins has undertaken to help raise money for the scheme should any progress be made with it.
If anyone wants to know more or contact Simon Jenkins please drop the Dame an email and she will provide his contact details: dameathome@gmail.com
Stephen Taylor above set up a new company to grab a loan
So £17 billion of the £47 Billion paid out in loans during COVID will never be returned to the taxpayer.
Felicity Buchan is a member of the Treasury Committee.
She is in a perfect position to find out how the hell this was allowed to happen.
Conservatives are supposed to be the party of fiscal prudence instead the Government's behaviour is as criminal as the criminals it has supported during COVID.
So, Felicity, when next updating us on your weekly diary tell us what you think of this appalling mismanagement of our taxes.
According to reports, vast amounts of cash have been seized by border guards as fraudsters took out the money in suitcases.
We also should bear in mind that Latham once worked for TW
"I was a member of the team ensuring the limitation of damage to Thames Water supply and sewerage assets by works associated with Crossrail, the largest construction project in Europe. I was mainly focussed on the prediction of ground movements around tunnels and deep excavation and their corresponding impact on the utilities, in order to validate the assessments carried out by Crossrail."
Dear Dame
As ever, the Dame is correct. The severity of the July floods was NOT a natural event, but due to Thames Water’s systemic failures and total negligence on the day.
a pair of hypocrites celebrating Easter at Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow
The Russian Orthodox Church in Ennismore Gardens is directly funded by the ex-KGB agent, Patriarch Kirill. Kirill is a 'spiritual advisor' to Putin and as a result, is now worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Some of those millions support his outpost in London here in the Royal Borough.
The Dame has written to the Leader of our council expressing her disgust that this church is exempted from Business Rates...so far, no response.
It's a shame that the Council cannot have the same resolution in dealing with this pariah church in our midst.
There needs to be an investigation by the Council's Finance Department to ensure this church is entitled to Business Rates exemption and is not laundering Russian money.
Oh, Dear, Dame.....
We hear all is not well with the Labour campaign in Dalgarno ward.
For two years Cllr Kasmin Ali refused to work or communicate with his former colleague Cllr Pat Healy.
Having finally succeeded in getting her deselected now senior Councillor Kasim Ali appears to be having the same problems with his new 'rookie partner', Eva Jedut.
They are never seen canvassing together & poor 'Eva No Friends' has been left all alone to deliver Labour's literature in the ward.
Meanwhile, Cllr Ali focuses on the important stuff of promoting himself to any (male) he thinks can advance his political career beyond RBKC.
To put it mildly, Ali & Jedut are not natural bedmates but at least Eva has the two requirements deemed vital for this election
THIS IS REQUIRED READING for any victim struggling to understand what happened to cause them such misery
Thames Water has always tried to wriggle out of the blame by making two claims:
1. That the rainfall was unprecedented.
2. That surcharge into the Thames was not possible because of river levels.
We now know that surcharge was possible. Tidal levels at 5.00pm, the time of the flooding, had fallen to near-normal levels.
Alex Nickson of Thames Water has more or less admitted his company was to blame by saying that once the severity of the storm was known 'a technician was despatched' to open the Lots Road gates and activate the pumps.
As soon as the pumps were turned on water drained from people's basements almost immediately.
The site in Tite St is D1 class so greedy developers will be scrambling around to see if they can get a change of use to put up houses and flats for the international super filthy rich.
St Wilfred's is a '70's horror covering at least three acres so its demolition would certainly improve Tite St. But the big question is what could go in its place....probably not more ridiculously expensive flats/houses.
Campden Ward Conservative Committee members are certainly a racy lot and take 'inclusiveness' to new heights.
The Dame hopes we won't be seeing a 'Cllr Galojan' any time soon.
Dear Dame
I understand that Ross has been deselected from Riverside and is no longer standing to be a Councillor: bullying apparently. Such a thing has never happened before in RBKC to a candidate selected to stand for election.
Best wishes
Could 6 legal luminaries possibly inhabiting our Royal Borough be barred from the USA?
According to Congressman Steve Cohen, the answer is a solid YES.
Though fiercely denied by the accused Cohen claims they have actively assisted certain Russians.
The Dame will say no more for those mentioned by Cohen are quick on the legal draw!
If you want a good old belly laugh the denials HERE (you can just click 'I'll do it later' to access)from Harbottle & Lewis; Carter Ruck; Schillings and Hugh Tomlinson of Matrix Chambers are hilarious.
Other firms mentioned as being targets for Congressman Cohen are Keith Schilling and Geraldine Proudler of CMS
The CMS statement is interesting.... "since the invasion of Ukraine, we have not accepted new instructions from Russia-based entities or individuals with connections to the Russian government". In other words, before the invasion they did!
The £1million a year PR Department?
Council employees haven't a clue about selling a 'product'.
If this prank is the best they can come up with it's easy to see why Council Tax is sky-high.
This particular idea is to try to con shops into believing the Council is promoting their interests but it is more profligate spending by expensive Quirk Officers with not enough to do.
Shopkeepers know that the best promotion would be for the Council to fiercely campaign for a drastic overhaul of Business Rates. That won't happen: the Council gets 25% of Business Rates.
Yours
Resident in despair
Dearest Dame
I wonder what your blog thinks of RBKC councillors who do not declare when their immediate family members receive public money allocated for Grenfell Recovery ?
Here is the list of successful projects receiving grants from the latest round of the Grenfell Projects Fund.
One of the successful organisations is "Homemade Teachers CIC" who received just under £10K.
Cllr Elnaghi has omitted to declare ANYWHERE that Homemade Teachers" is run by his wife and daughter!
Link to Companies House
This might be peanuts but it has residents asking the much bigger question of how many other councillors are not declaring their interests properly?
Yours in shock
A taxpayer
Edward Lucas, author, and European and transatlantic security consultant has been selected as the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster: an excellent choice!
With Bill Browder Lucas has for years been a voice crying in the wilderness over the dangers of Putin's neo imperialistic Russia.
Lucas has consistently warned of penetration by Putin's people into the heart of the British Establishment.
In these dangerous times, we need to ensure we don't put a foot wrong in dealing with this existential menace and that is why we need Lucas in the Commons.
Dr. Fiona Hill, a former White House Russian Expert is the star guest HERE at an event in support of Edward.
This a superlative opportunity to hear Dr. Hill's take on the 'Russia Problem'
Tickets are going fast so you need to book now.
The Dame loves to catch up with that greedy old bounder, Sir Merrick 'Pooter' Cockell.
Pooter has managed to get himself made Hon. Colonel!
He even has a regimental blazer and medals!
One of Pooter's medals should memorialise the many articles in the national press dealing with his greedy expense claims.
Simon Heffer reported to the Dame that Pooter has called him up on Sunday. He was sniveling about a piece in the Telegraph the Dame had given him.
The Dame asked Heffer how he responded.... The great man said, "I told the bugger to call me at my office"
It seems that some obscure consultancy called The Means(pictured above) has managed to inveigle its way into Cllr Faulks's confidence and an opportunity to collect a vast fee.
There are many ways to rip off councils and 'placemaking' is a new and highly lucrative one.
High Street Kensington is an awful bloody mess for two major reasons....High Rents and Business Rates.
No shop can survive when paying £80 a square foot and then nearly half of that again in Business Rates....and that is before all other overheads.
The idea that this bunch in the picture can change anything is another expensive Faulks delusion.
We should be told what these 'placemakers' will be charging the Council/ business.
It is about time local businesses turned to a Conservative council and said, "get this Conservative Government to slash Business Rates".
This High Street Kensington placemaking nonsense is just an excuse for not tackling the root problem.
According to Taxpayers Alliance Robyn Fairman, the deputy chief executive was paid close to £500,000 in redundancy to go away.
This happened under the watch of Cllr Elizabeth Campbell. Campbell has never run a business in her life so this sort of profligate wasting of our money is unsurprising.
The usual mantra is that we have to pay these people vast sums of money to stop them from being hired by the private sector.
This is a blatant lie.
The only senior officers lured into the private sector are planners whose inside knowledge is helpful to developers.
No private sector company would have any use for these people.
It is astonishing that Campbell has not explained to residents why so much money was spent on Fairman.
It seems Labour is now the party of small business!
Cllr Faulks is supposed to be responsible for stimulating local business.
Instead of bashing away to get radical reform we are fed silly PR gimmicks to supposedly support struggling businesses.
The Council does nothing to get rid of this confiscatory tax.
The reason why councils don't want change has to do with two factors.
The Chancellor must overhaul business rates levied on high street firms if he is serious about tackling the cost of living crisis, the shadow business secretary said on Sunday.
Jonathan Reynolds warned that workers’ pay was likely to be hit as a result of joint pressure businesses were facing from the levy and this week’s National Insurance rise.
Reynolds told The Telegraph that the current system of business rates was “acting as a tax on growth”.
Under the current system of small business rate relief, the bill for a typical hairdresser that expands from one to two sites would increase from £0 to £5,000, while an average shop would go from paying £0 now to £10,000, according to Labour analysis.
Here is the lineup of putative Conservative councillors.
There is one glaring admission and the fault lies with the lady in the front...Cllr Campbell.
It seems that Cllr Campbell has given herself powers of veto over a ward's ability to select who they want.
Key Association members tell of pressure upon them.
This is not how democracy should work.
It is more redolent of autocratic states.
"All power corrupts: absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely"
Wild rumours suggest Cllr Campbell is desperate for a peerage and a local government ministerial role.
It is time this woman 'wised up'.
Two reasons explain why this would not happen.
