Ahead of the ninth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire, Kim Taylor-Smith stood down as Deputy Leader of Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC). He did a great job for the Council, helping it to survive and recover. In doing so, he ensured North Kensington remained stuck in time, unable to move on from Grenfell.

2017

Councillor Taylor-Smith rose to the position of Deputy Leader when his predecessor, Rock Feilding -Mellen, resigned in disgrace two weeks after the fire. Along with RBKC’s Leader, Nick Paget-Brown, Feilding-Mellen was forced out by the Communities & Local Government Minister, Sajid Javid. In Summer 2017, RBKC appeared to be on the ropes, incapable of dealing with the chaos it had created. Javid’s move enabled the Council to survive, and there were no further meaningful government interventions. RBKC was fortunate to have Kim Taylor-Smith on hand, a newly elected Councillor, not part of the cabinet in the years before the fire.  

With Taylor-Smith and Elizabeth Campbell in place as their leadership team, the Kensington Tories promised change. Although the promises proved largely empty, they repeated them often enough to avoid being ousted or put into special measures by the government. The media moved on from the RBKC story, and the government’s Taskforce was toothless. The reinforcement of the status quo was not inevitable, with RBKC having to make their promises of “change” to stay in power, then having to break the promises to prevent any redistribution of power to the north of the borough.

The Tory Councillors’ future careers as property developers, consultants (to property developers) and politicians (representing big capital – including property developers) hinged on their loyalty to one class at the expense of another. The horror at Grenfell Tower did not change that equation.

Feilding-Mellen

Taylor-Smith had plenty in common with his predecessor, Rock Feilding-Mellen, a fellow double-barrelled property developer Conservative. Feilding-Mellen had aimed to destroy North Kensington’s community spaces and radically change its demographics. Taylor-Smith inherited a raft of part-finished social cleansing projects, and with responsibility for Grenfell recovery and housing in North Kensington, became the key political figure as the north of the borough reeled from the shock of Grenfell.

Unlike Feilding-Mellen, Taylor-Smith brought some diplomatic skills and social nuance to the role. He was ideal for the Tories and the wider establishment, exemplified by his performance when put on the spot by Sky News:

Trigger warning: video contains distressing scenes

Taylor-Smith presented change and status quo at the same time, probably the only Kensington Tory who could have pulled of that trick. “Change” to pacify the Sky journalist, who didn’t really challenge him, and reassurances that he would shore things up for those worried that Grenfell was unleashing demands for social and economic justice. 

Deputy Leader Taylor-Smith functioned as the colonial governor of North Kensington – he navigated the role skilfully and, from RBKC’s point of view, the results speak for themselves. A closer look at his dealings with the north of the borough reveals a politician who knew when to keep his mouth shut to secure a happy outcome for the establishment.

Lancaster West

When residents of Lancaster West estate, site of Grenfell Tower, laid out their criticisms of RBKC over its failure to transform the estate, Taylor-Smith stayed quiet. Residents told Urban Dandy that RBKC had not committed enough money to the estate’s recovery; the Council was not genuinely collaborating with elected resident representatives, who RBKC were excluding from decision-making and that these criticisms reflected RBKC’s wider performance in North Kensington after the fire.

When we asked Cllr Taylor-Smith to comment, he didn’t respond directly. Instead, as became standard practice, a Council spokesman emailed us: “We are sensitive to the special circumstances of Lancaster West residents and that is reflected in a scope and specification of work which is far beyond that of other estates…We remain confident that this will be a model 21st century improvement programme.”

Grenfell Scrutiny

In Summer 2019, despite strong local opposition, Taylor-Smith and his colleagues used their permanent and decisive Conservative majority in the Town Hall to scrap their Grenfell Scrutiny Committee, the only means for the public to hold them to account for their failures. RBKC justified their decision by citing a “residents’ conference” attended by 15 people. Despite scores of residents protesting the decision in the committee room, Taylor-Smith, filling in for the absent Council Leader Campbell that night, said he saw no reason to delay the decision. When he could have taken a stand, he had no view.

Campaigners

When Taylor-Smith broke with his habits of ignoring demands and hiding behind press officers and chose to engage with local people over the scrapping of Grenfell Scrutiny, it was to dismiss the validity of their views. In 2022, responding to the critique that the Council’s Grenfell Assembly was tokenistic and had little or nothing to do with Grenfell, Taylor-Smith claimed: “It is often one of a small, but very vocal group, who are very much against any Council initiatives, but do not represent popular opinion.”

Racism

In 2021, Cllr Taylor-Smith stated that RBKC “acknowledges the part it has played in the Tutu findings,” referring to the Council’s role in the institutional racism detailed in the Tutu Foundation’s scathing report on the Westway Trust. The Tutu report was just “the beginning” of RBKC changing its ways, said Elizabeth Campbell. Yet when Taylor-Smith’s colleague, the Mayor David Lindsay, was caught making racist remarks at a Black History Month event in 2022, RBKC’s leaders hushed it up for as long as they could. When the story finally broke in 2024, Lindsay’s punishment was that he would stand down in 2026, and not because of his racism, but because of “Grenfell” – Lindsay had not been a cabinet member before the fire, and his supposed punishment came nine years after the atrocity. Taylor-Smith had no view.

Project Flourish & Canalside House

Rock Feilding-Mellen’s unfinished gentrification projects included the demolition of Canalside House, one of North Kensington’s last remaining community spaces. In the aftermath of the fire, with the building a key site for emergency relief, RBKC agreed to halt the sale of the much-neglected charity hub. But in 2018, without consultation, the Council revived its plans to sell, revealed in an executive decision document during a scrutiny committee meeting at the Town Hall at which Taylor-Smith labelled Labour’s attempts to discuss the sale “a banal conversation.”

Community pressure forced an initial U-turn, with Taylor-Smith promising to work with residents to upgrade the building. But this was a lie and RBKC continued its managed decline of Canalside House. In 2023, we revealed that Taylor-Smith and his colleagues had done a secret deal with the international property developer, Ballymore, to sell the building for demolition. Ballymore told us that RBKC, and Taylor-Smith specifically, had insisted the wider development was contingent on them buying Canalside House at an above-market rate.

Via the RBKC press office, Taylor-Smith denied the story and claimed Urban Dandy had been “misinformed” although he did admit “discussions are taking place.” When we asked what his engagement plan was for the Canalside groups and wider community, the Deputy Leader again went mute.

Canalside House residents and local campaigners tried for years to speak with Taylor-Smith officers about the plans for the building, but he had nothing to say to them and did not to listen, despite being duty-bound to do so. As with the residents of Grenfell Tower, RBKC’s leaders chose to ignore the 15 charities and businesses in Canalside House, all of whom come from African Diaspora communities.

Grenfell Inquiry

RBKC’s response to the 2024 Grenfell Tower Inquiry Report featured a section titled “Areas for improvement – Resident engagement” – in it, the Council admitted it only engages in consultations after decisions have been made. The continuation of this system of neglect and abuse was Cllr Taylor-Smith’s underlying goal and is his real achievement after nine years in power. The rest was window dressing.  

Legacy

Taylor-Smith’s stepping down coincides with RBKC quietly dropping its ambition to become the “Best Council;” being handed a “C3” grade by the Social Housing Regulator because nearly one-third of council homes did not meet the Decent Homes standard, and with three North Kensington Wards (Dalgarno, Golborne and Notting Dale) among the ten most deprived in London.

Kim Taylor-Smith was part of the leadership team that should take collective responsibility for its role in those injustices. He should also take individual responsibility because, more than anyone else, he reinforced the local power imbalance that played such a decisive role in the atrocity at Grenfell Tower. Don’t expect him to have any views on that inconvenient truth, though.

 

By Tom Charles

@urbandandyldn @tomhcharles