Yesterday evening there was a considerable flutter in the RBKC hencoop.
The Dame’s many readers may remember that RBKC has shown clear signs of wishing to see the end of the world famous Portobello Market.
Cllr Faulks even managed to exclude all mention of the Market from RBKC’s recent Report: “Live Learn & Work: The Future of the Local Economy."
Cllr Kim TS - deputy leader of the council - took over the project. He has masterminded a 'top secret' plan to sweep away the glorious, chaotic and life-enhancing Portobello Market. This was to be achieved by stealth, cunningly hidden within the complexity of RBKC’s current plans to ‘improve’ the local public realm.
Towards the end of one of the seemingly endless discussions on the supposed issues, a mere resident so far forgot her place as to announce RBKC’s true intention - to get rid of the street traders.
Cllr Kim TS - deputy leader of the council - took over the project. He has masterminded a 'top secret' plan to sweep away the glorious, chaotic and life-enhancing Portobello Market. This was to be achieved by stealth, cunningly hidden within the complexity of RBKC’s current plans to ‘improve’ the local public realm.
Towards the end of one of the seemingly endless discussions on the supposed issues, a mere resident so far forgot her place as to announce RBKC’s true intention - to get rid of the street traders.
This end was to be fiendishly cleverly achieved by banning street traders' vans from parking in the Market. This will work because over the years RBKC has systematically sold off almost all the traders’ traditional storage. So it’s simple. No vans; no Market. Job done.
KTS’s “Covent Garden’ style Nirvana of scores of expensive restaurants etc replacing real businesses for real local people, is within touching distance. Five hundred to a thousand working people will of course, lose their livelihoods. But their sacrifice will be worthwhile. The local commercial landlords will be happy. So KTS is happy. Job done.
The pesky resident hadn’t finished. She further pointed out that for RBKC to suddenly demand and additional £250,000 a year from the street traders, is simply unreasonable. This renders it unlawful under the Market's legislation.
The meeting broke up and poor old KTS retreated to plan his next assault on working people and the wider N. Kensington community.
Yours ever so 'umbly
Mrs A. Peasant
KTS’s “Covent Garden’ style Nirvana of scores of expensive restaurants etc replacing real businesses for real local people, is within touching distance. Five hundred to a thousand working people will of course, lose their livelihoods. But their sacrifice will be worthwhile. The local commercial landlords will be happy. So KTS is happy. Job done.
The pesky resident hadn’t finished. She further pointed out that for RBKC to suddenly demand and additional £250,000 a year from the street traders, is simply unreasonable. This renders it unlawful under the Market's legislation.
The meeting broke up and poor old KTS retreated to plan his next assault on working people and the wider N. Kensington community.
Yours ever so 'umbly
Mrs A. Peasant
Absolutely true. I was there.
ReplyDeleteRBKC can't bear to let working class people conduct their lives and earn their living without doing its very best to ruin them. Anything that's not megabucks, doesn't deserve to survive.
It's asset stripping. The market made the area a world famous destination; so RBKC automatically intends to grab it in order to flog it off to the deserving rich.
Outrageous! And there I was thinking KTS was a good egg.
ReplyDeleteSo did I; but he's clearly not. When the council 'sold' Morely College to a 'private' school/developer, he came apparently riding to the rescue of a much loved and needed local asset. He promised to protect the College; but only after about 500 local people jammed into the building to protest the sale. KTS didn't protect Morely College. Local residents gathered to protect it. He simply announced that the council had accepted the inevitable.
DeleteTypical RBKC. They can't see a publicly owned asset without seeking to steal it. Then they hand it over to the friendly local asset strippers. It's a pattern that's been repeated so many times over the years, particularly in north Kensington. They tried and failed to sell off Morely College; the local library and part of Colville School.
ReplyDeleteThey succeeded with the Isaac Newton school and others, but they must be made to fail in Portobello Market. It belongs to the people of north Kensington.
An example of over gentrification, sucking the very being out of what they desire. Gentrify the market , then the rich shop owners protest about Carnival and thats the final nail in the coffin for 'the community'. We like what you have,now toddle off, its ours now. Portobello beware !
ReplyDeleteWhat can we do to protest?
ReplyDeleteAt this point, just be aware, and tell your friends and neighbours about KTS's masterplan.
DeleteBTW I just walked along the bit of Ken Pk Rd that's lined with outdoor restaurant tables & chairs. Of say 60 tables, precisely 3 had anyone sitting down and hardly anyone indoors. No one is suggesting that no one ever sits down; but it shows how risky the restaurant business can be. Waiters were sitting on the ground, waiting for someone to serve.
I will be rejoicing in the streets if the market gets destroyed. It’s absolutely brilliant news. It’s a filthy dump heaving with dumb tourists who have ruined the entire area. Take the market away, and all the stupid tourists disappear with it. Then I’ll be able to park where I like and drive down the road without having to dodge silly pedestrians. I will PERSONALLY hand Kim Taylor-Smith a cheque for £1,000,000 if he manages to pull this amazing stunt off.
ReplyDeleteYou clearly write from a position of total ignorance. The Market is a filthy dump because for years, the Market Office has organised it to be a filthy dump. All loose waste is unlawful; yet there are NO public waste bins to collect it. So every single piece of resulting litter is unlawful. For decades RBKC has done nothing but encourage ever more tourists (in 2009 apparently 7 million pa) not to buy stuff; but to take photos. RBKC has organised 100+ oversized gazebos to block up the roadway. RBKC fails to provide decent public loos. The pavements are a disgrace and the lighting virtually non-existent. All this is carefully organised by RBKC.
DeleteThe trick KTS is trying pull off is of highly dubious legality. Perhaps you would be better off handing your £1million to the Grenfell survivors; or even the taxman.
The offer from 10,20 sounds rather close to an attempt at bribery and corruption.
DeleteNot a bribe. Just a simple offer of payment for getting the bloody job done for once. Give me back the Portobello Road I once knew and you will be handsomely rewarded. If he’s not up to the job he doesn’t get the money.
DeleteIt's not your Portobello Road, it belongs to the community.And guess what? Offering to pay an elected representative of the public to carry out your wish to destroy the livelihoods of your fellow citizens is very likely a criminal offence.
DeleteExactly. The idea is to line the street with endless outdoor tables & chairs for restaurants. Yet Portobello is in a residential area. There are thousands of housing trust and council homes, full of people who watch every penny.
ReplyDeleteWhere are the customers for scores of new restaurants? Several existing ones have closed recently. For example,
E & O, the enormous Gin Palace plus Buvette, Hiya etc. New restaurants do not find it easy. Tourists mostly buy falafel or a sandwich. If the market goes, Portobello Road is just an ugly back street off Ladbroke Grove.
There will be no reason for tourists to visit Portobello for rows of nothing but overpriced restaurants and bars; the West End is already full of them.
Does anyone know whether or not this project has been sanctioned by the Council as a whole? Or is it simply something dreamed up by a single councillor with a severe case of megalomania?
ReplyDeleteThe Leader of the council should take away the Deputy Leader of the council's toys and put him in charge of something useful like birdbaths or window boxes.
DeleteHe's done more than enough damage to the lives of people who are entitled to earn a living in without constant threats from those whose duty is to support them and their rights.
https://fromthehornetsnest.blogspot.com/2022/12/rbkc-threatens-to-modernise-portobello.html
ReplyDeleteHugely disappointed in Kim Taylor-Smith and would have expected better from someone who has a business background, but he's turned out to be another golden goose killer, just like Catherine 'Lady False' Faulks.
ReplyDeleteThe reason Faulks & KTS are so keen to destroy our world famous market, is simple. A handful of large, local, commercial landlords don't feel rich enough. They have long planned to extract yet more cash from their Portobello properties. They have done a deal with Hornton St.
ReplyDeleteExisting restaurants close almost weekly; while crazily unsuitable new ones open. The new eateries have been promised that RBKC will destroy the Market to make room for their scores of planned, summer, outdoor tables & chairs for wealthy diners. Commercial rents will hugely increase. Most of the new restaurants lose money and close. But the landlords will have become even richer - robber baron style.
Expendable market people will become unemployed, but will receive no unemployment benefits.
RBKC literally doesn't give a damn. The fewer working class people contaminating N. Kensington; the better. That's the policy. Simple but effective.
Faulks mistakenly believed the locals were as dumb as she is. KTS & has the same problem. It's that the working classes and other locals will fight him and the rest of the Hornton St.
This is scaremongering and lies... based on what evidence? Ofcourse noone trusts the council but why try to block what they do before they start? This feels very conspiracy theorist and your words do harm. It would be interesting to hear what you do for the community.
ReplyDeleteAnd how many Market meetings have you attended? What? None? I suggest you study your subject before claiming that the knowledgable are lying.
DeleteA basic issue that's already been mentioned: over the years RBKC has sold off almost all the traders' storage spaces. So KTS's plan to ban the now vital street traders' parking will destroy the Market. BECAUSE at the end of each day, it will take up to an hour for traders bring their van round the one way streets and wait for every other trader on their block to pack up and go. Only then will the trader be able to park near their own stall to pack up - stock that during the hour it was left, is likely to have been STOLEN! Similar risks will attend the morning rush to park. Street traders cannot afford to lose stock. This will also add up to 2 hours to each street trader's already long working days. All this, so a few wealthy property owners can make yet more money - from stolen public assets -
a favourite RBKC policy.
This is just one issue of many and it's the plan.
Once Portobello Market is lost; it's lost forever!
P.S. By any chance, are your initials KTS?
Visit Portobello Road and take a good look around you & ask yourself whose interests RBKC is serving. Look what's been happening to the market over recent years. Look what's been happening at planning.
ReplyDelete