Kim Taylor-Smith

Canalside: Ballymore Engaging, Council Unchanging

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International property developer Ballymore has met with community groups from Canalside House to address anxieties over what will come next if the historic building is demolished as part of the transformation of the Kensal Gas Works site. While Ballymore has shown willingness to explore ways to maintain and enhance the vital work done at Canalside House, the building’s owner, Kensington & Chelsea Council, has remained conspicuously silent.

Recap

In February, we revealed that Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC) had struck a secret deal with Ballymore to sell one of North Kensington’s last remaining community hubs, Canalside House. Decided without democratic oversight, consultation with the affected communities or engagement with tenant organisations, the deal, if completed, will fulfil a long-held wish of the council to rid itself of a centre that was built in 1929. Canalside House has been an integral part of North Kensington, hosting a diverse range of events, charities, community groups and businesses, including being the starting point for Innocent Smoothies, a company now worth over £2 billion but still located directly opposite Canalside House on Ladbroke Grove.

In 2017, following the Grenfell Tower fire, RBKC commissioned a publicly-funded review by the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny that produced policy recommendations that were adopted by the council and formed the basis of what was, in theory, to be a fundamental change of approach. Underpinning it all were the Twelve Principles of good Governance. The council’s leadership were to be held to account on their adherence to their 12 Principles by RBKC’s Executive and Corporate Services Scrutiny Committee.

During the same period, RBKC attempted to resurrect the plan of its disgraced former deputy-leader, Rock Feilding-Mellen, to sell Canalside House, but were forced into a U-turn by local residents. While Feilding-Mellen’s replacement, Cllr Kim Taylor-Smith then promised to invest in Canalside House, the building was kept in managed decline culminating in the residents being deprived of heat and hot water throughout last Winter.  At the same time as refusing to invest in Canalside House, the council did continue to invest in its ‘Change Programme’ at a cost to the public of £2 million a year, including £271,000 allocated to RBKC’s response to the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny review in 2019-20, and just under £200,000 allocated to it in 2020-21. Over half a million pounds had been spent on the Twelve Principles policy by the end of 2020-21.

RBKC & Canalside House

But the investment in the Twelve Principles has amounted to naught. Here are the principles in full:

  1. “Connecting with Residents”
  2. “Focusing on What Matters”
  3. “Listening to Many Voices”
  4. “Acting with Integrity”
  5. “Involving Before Deciding”
  6. “Communicating What We Are Doing”
  7. “Inviting Residents to Take Part”
  8. “Being Clearly Accountable”
  9. “Responding Fairly to Everyone’s Needs”
  10. “Working as Team”
  11. “Managing Responsibly”
  12. “Having the support we need”

RBKC has not bothered to engage meaningfully over Canalside House. Council emails to resident organisations have been vaguely worded, containing no offers to meet and feature almost identical wording despite being some being signed by Kim Taylor-Smith and some by Gary Lisney, RBKC’s Head of Property. The same wording was used by the council’s press department when responding to our article on the secret deal.

RBKC has not honoured a single one of its twelve principles in its dealings with the community over Canalside House, a fact that has passed without democratic scrutiny at the Town Hall.

Ballymore

Last week Ballymore met with a delegation from Canalside House. The developer displayed a willingness to listen and to learn about the work undertaken at the building, how it requires a mixed space offering privacy and storage alongside communal space for classes and events.

Ballymore’s plans include provision of a replacement for Canalside House; a four-storey community building that would remain in public ownership under a 999-year lease. Ballymore are keen to create a green space and a place to engage with local residents on the land currently occupied by Canalside House. This means the building is set to be demolished early in the process and Canalside residents face seven years in temporary accommodation, to be allocated by RBKC. Previously, Ballymore had taken the council at its word that the community groups would be appropriately catered for, even stating “RBKC will work with the charities currently based at Canalside House to relocate them to better, more modern accommodation.”

RBKC has not lived up to this expectation. Aside from the council’s disregard for its own ‘Twelve Principles’ policy, RBKC has actively sought to minimise the number of organisations at Canalside House to reduce their own duty of care when the deal with Ballymore is rubber stamped.

RBKC’s silence on Canalside is deafening. The affected communities still don’t reach the status of an afterthought to a council that vowed “change.” We heard that when Ballymore suggested involving the Canalside organisations in discussions in early 2023, the idea was met with scorn from council officials.

As we prepare to mark the sixth anniversary of the atrocity at Grenfell Tower next week, it is noteworthy that a council that vowed that it would learn its lessons and “change” now lags far behind a foreign property developer when it comes to working with and serving the interests of the people of North Kensington. 

by Tom Charles @tomhcharles

Canalside House: Ballymore Using Feilding-Mellen Playbook

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The international property developer set to profit handsomely from the transformation of the Gas Works site in North Kensington / Kensal Green has abandoned its offer to meet with the resident organisations of Canalside House. The historic community building on Ladbroke Grove has been pulled into plans for the ‘Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area’ despite sitting outside the site, and will be demolished by Ballymore once they complete the purchase. Instead of meeting with the Canalside organisations together, Ballymore is now offering individual drop-ins. For their part, Kensington & Chelsea council is pretending these public drop-ins are “consultations” – reprising the tactics and vocabulary of the discredited, disgraced Rock Feilding-Mellen, former deputy leader of the council. Let’s not fall for it again.

Offer

There is reason to suspect that Ballymore is ignorant about the work done at Canalside House and keen to avoid gaining knowledge of the problems that will be caused by the demolition of one of North Kensington’s last remaining community assets. To date the developer has offered only vague platitudes regarding their intentions towards the resident organisations – “our proposals incorporate all the community-focused activities of Canalside house” – that have increased suspicion in a local community that has endured it all before, including six years of public relations spin from its council.

At a public meeting in March, Ballymore’s PR representatives from Comm Comm (Community Communications) offered to meet Canalside House residents at Canalside House so that they could express their concerns about Ballymore’s plans. But Ballymore has now jettisoned this proposal and the collective of charities, community groups, care agencies, housing co-ops and small businesses are expected to content themselves with attending Ballymore’s public exhibition and drop-in hub on Kensal Road. Comm Comm told Urban Dandy “We have already met some people from the buildings at our consultation hub and hope to meet others over the coming weeks.”

Using “buildings” instead of “building” suggests Ballymore considers Canalside House and neighbouring Canalside Activity Centre to be one and the same. Ballymore can then claim that whatever green space and sports activities are included on the new development represent the “community-focused activities” of Canalside House.

2016

In 2016, at the height of Feilding-Mellen’s aggressive asset strip, the organisations of Canalside House were invited to ‘consultations’ at the Town Hall. To their surprise, no other resident organisations were present, and they were informed they would be moved to a converted industrial site on Latimer Road. Half the size of Canalside, the hot desking space offered zero privacy and no storage. I pointed out to the council’s Head of Property, Social Investment & Property (not a typo, real job title) that it was not a consultation and asked if there would be a consultation. He was emphatic that there would not be, telling the residents “take it or leave it.” The same person remains in the role today.

Are Ballymore aware that they are aping the divide-and-rule approach of the most hated politicians in North Kensington?

Hiding

Comm Comm also told us: “We understand that all tenants of the buildings have been contacted by their landlords to be updated.”

Most, but not all, Canalside House tenants, have received letters from the council that offer little to no reassurance, but plenty of carefully-worded vagueness. The same message sent to Urban Dandy by the council’s PR department in response to our reporting on the planned sale has been sent to Canalside House residents, sometimes signed by Fielding-Mellen’s replacement Kim Taylor-Smith; sometimes by the Head of Property, Social Investment & Property. Minor edits have been made to provide a friendlier tone to some organisations, but it is mainly copied and pasted from the PR statement.

Ballymore is hiding behind the ragged notion that Canalside House’s resident organisations are happy to passively receive updates this way, from the same institution that has repeatedly sought to deprive them of their building, thereby jeopardising their ability to deliver vital services in one of the most economically depressed areas of the country.

Kensington & Chelsea council tells Canalside House residents: “We would only sell the building if Ballymore were able to meet our proposed terms, including the reprovision of community space.”

But this is disingenuous, and not just because of the council’s managed decline of the building and past attempts to sell it. Multiple sources from multiple meetings with Ballymore have said that the developer told them that Taylor-Smith and the council insisted that Ballymore take Canalside House off their hands, hinting that the deal is contingent on the purchase of the building.

Play off

Ballymore and Kensington & Chelsea are attempting to play us off against each other; hiding behind each other’s statements when it is convenient and claiming ignorance of their partner’s intentions when that suits their interests. If they succeed and Canalside House is demolished, we won’t be able to say we didn’t see it coming.

by Tom Charles @tomhcharles

RBKC & Ballymore: Contradiction & Confusion at Canalside

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Numerous property developers are set to profit from the huge development of the Kensal Gas Works site. Sadly for North Kensington, one of these property developers has a side hustle as Deputy Leader of Kensington & Chelsea Council. Kim Taylor-Smith is attempting to fulfil the plan of his predecessor, Rock Feilding-Mellen, in selling Canalside House for demolition. Taylor-Smith denies that he has struck a secret deal to sell the historic building, but as you will read below, the council and the developer have yet to get their story straight.

Taylor-Smith

In February we exposed Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC)’s secret deal to sell one of North Kensington’s last surviving community assets, Canalside House. Councillor Taylor-Smith was unimpressed by our reporting, labelling it “misinformed” while admitting that secret talks had been held with Ballymore.

RBKC’s deputy leader, who is also Lead Member for Grenfell Housing and Social Investment, told Byline Times last month, “We would only sell the building if Ballymore were able to meet the proposed terms, including on reprovision of community space, and if they are also able to get planning permission from the council.”

Taken at face value, Councillor Taylor-Smith was suggesting that RBKC might reject Ballymore. However, we now know that it was the council who approached Ballymore about Canalside House, not the other way around. See the section below on Ballymore for evidence. Canalside House does not sit on the site of the Kensal Canalside Gas Works development, and therefore could be maintained and upgraded as a community asset, as Taylor-Smith has repeatedly promised since the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.

Under the watch of Councillor Taylor-Smith, Canalside House has been in managed decline. See our previous articles for details of his duplicitous dealings over the building.

Via a council press officer, the deputy council leader told Urban Dandy: “We recently wrote to all Canalside House tenants to provide them with the most up to date information about the future of the building and will continue to communicate directly with them and keep them informed of any developments.”

We have checked with several Canalside organisations, who all confirmed that they have received no such communication from the council.

One organisation showed us an email from Taylor-Smith himself, sent in response to our article, in which he claims “We’ve been open with you, the tenants in Canalside House about these discussion and I wanted to reassure you that no agreement has been reached with Ballymore.”

But RBKC’s dealings with Ballymore were kept entirely secret and were not subject to any democratic oversight at the Town Hall. Without us having reported on the deal, it is improbable that anybody in North Kensington, including the building’s residents, would know that Canalside House had been allocated to property developers to be added to the area for development.

RBKC’s response

Councillor Taylor-Smith’s response to our questions included a denial that a deal has been made with Ballymore, as well as a claim that the council had written to all Canalside organisations and a vow that RBKC will continue to communicate with all residents directly.

On Ballymore, Taylor-Smith conceded that the developer is putting its proposals together and these will include the land occupied by Canalside House since 1929.

In what could be interpreted as a contradiction of his denial of a secret deal, Taylor-Smith also told Urban Dandy “Should a time come when Canalside tenants may have to move out of the building, we would work closely with them to find them suitable alternative accommodation in the local area, with a view to them moving back on to the site once it is finished should they wish to do so.”

Public meeting

A chaotic public meeting hosted by Ballymore at Moberly Sports Centre a fortnight ago was surely a sign of things to come. With thousands of people across North Kensington and Kensal Green to be impacted by the Gas Works development, Ballymore’s Project Manager was ill-prepared for the wide range of questions from attendees.

Ballymore might be hoping that public confusion will enable their plans to proceed without too much input from the communities set to be impacted. Comm Comm UK, Ballymore’s communications consultancy for the project suggested to us that a meeting specifically about Canalside House could be held, at Canalside House. We haven’t heard from them since.

Questioned about Canalside House, Ballymore’s representative at Moberly confirmed that it was RBKC that had instigated the deal. He also said that the council had told Ballymore that they were looking into the possibility of moving the Canalside organisations into the Gramophone Works on Kensal Road. The building was purchased for £18 million by Resolution Property in 2015 and is marketed as a “contemporary workplace in the heart of creative West London” and “industrial style workspace.”

Screenshot 2023-04-13 at 21.02.57
 

For the care agencies, youth groups and housing co-ops of Canalside House, echoing around an open plan building that provides zero privacy for clients would be impossible. It seems highly unlikely that RBKC would dip into its famous reserves to pay the rent at the Gramophone Works for the displaced Canalside organisations. It does however seem likely that RBKC told Ballymore that the Gramophone Works is being considered as a way of allaying any concerns the developer might have about bulldozing a cherished community building.

RBKC’s vague reassurances about the fate of the community groups might be sufficient for Ballymore but Taylor-Smith’s characteristic chicanery is not convincing anybody locally and the deputy leader seems to have exhausted any lingering goodwill he had cultivated since 2017.

Ballymore’s response

Via Comm Comm, Ballymore told Urban Dandy that the purchase and demolition of Canalside House represents “an opportunity to work with RBKC to increase the already significant community, work, leisure and activity space we are planning within Kensal Canalside.”

They did not mention the specific groups or activities currently at Canalside House, but they stated “our proposals incorporate all the community-focused activities of Canalside house as part of what the wider development will offer, and including this additional land will allow it to be opened up as another area of public space for the community to use.”

This vague claim was repeated by Ballymore’s representative at the Moberly meeting.

The developer’s response to us also confirmed that the council is offering reassurances to Ballymore that the community might find difficult to stomach: “We understand RBKC is working closely with the remaining charities based at Canalside House to find them a new home in a more modern building with better facilities nearby.”

According to multiple sources who are based at Canalside House, this is categorically untrue.

by Tom Charles @tomhcharles

Canalside House, centre left, seen from the Gramophone Works. Image from thegramophoneworks.com

Grenfell Council Returns to ‘Business as Usual’ with Community Asset-Stripping Plans

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The following article was published by Byline Times on 27th March 2023.

When Grenfell Tower burned in June 2017, the building’s owner – the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea – was missing in action.

Among those to step into the breach to provide emergency relief and respite were community organisations based at Canalside House.

Less than a mile from the Tower, these groups have continued to support residents attempting to recover from the catastrophe which took 72 lives. But RBKC now plans to sell one of North Kensington’s last standing community spaces to an international property developer that will demolish the building.

It appears that RBKC is now back to business as usual.

In the years before the Grenfell fire, RBKC had been busy altering the demographics of one of Britain’s most vibrant and culturally diverse neighbourhoods. Its means of achieving this included asset-stripping North Kensington.

Entire estates, including Lancaster West, home of Grenfell Tower, were slated for demolition and community buildings were targeted by the then Council’s Deputy Leader – and property developer – Rock Feilding-Mellen.

Canalside House has long been home to groups providing social care, mental health support, youth work, sports, supplementary schooling, business start-ups, housing cooperatives and African Diaspora representation. In 2016, the council informed resident organisations that their time in the historic building on Ladbroke Grove was ending and that they would be moved to a hot desking space on a converted industrial site with poor transport links.

In Summer 2017, with then Communities Secretary Sajid Javid forcing Feilding-Mellen to resign, new RBKC Leader Elizabeth Campbell acceded to demands to pause the Canalside sale.

Under scrutiny from the media, Theresa May’s Grenfell Taskforce and long-suffering residents, the new leadership at Kensington town hall promised to change RBKC’s approach to the north of the borough, admitting it had been “a property developer masquerading as a local authority”.

The local community forced the council to abandon its planned sale of North Kensington Library, which Feilding-Mellen had planned to give – cut-price – to a private preparatory school that his children would attend. Campaigners saved the local college and Lancaster Youth Club. 

By Winter 2017, as the news cycle moved on, RBKC’s new Deputy Leader and lead member for Grenfell housing and social investment, Councillor Kim Taylor-Smith – also a property developer – issued an executive decision that Canalside House would be sold as part of the huge development on the Kensal Gas Works site. Zero social housing was to be included. Taylor-Smith branded Labour councillors’ objections as “a banal conversation”.

The move was slapped down by the Grenfell Taskforce and furious locals. A contrite RBKC publicly committed to upgrading the building, part of its post-Grenfell ‘change’ policy. 

But the threat to the Canalside organisations lingered.

In late 2018, RBKC tried again, claiming that Canalside House had to be demolished to facilitate the Gas Works development. Conservative councillors claimed that it offered poor disabled access and the building’s generally poor condition made refurbishment too costly.

But it was RBKC that had squandered a £100,000 grant secured by residents to install a lift. The Kensal-Canalside Development Team confirmed to residents that the building did not intrude on the planned development so could be retained alongside the planned new neighbourhood. 

Councillor Taylor-Smith stated that the council had “no plans whatsoever” to sell or demolish the community centre. Investment was promised. But RBKC’s managed decline continued while plans for the adjacent development progressed.

Late last year, RBKC stopped renting out Canalside House’s vacant offices and organisations were forced to deliver services without heating. Last month, the community’s fears came true, with the exposure of an agreement between Councillor Taylor-Smith and Ballymore that will see the building out of use by early 2024.

Without democratic oversight or consultation, this contradicts the post-Grenfell promises of council leaders.

A spokesperson for Ballymore’s Project Flourish told this newspaper that it was RBKC that had initiated the deal, asking the developer to include Canalside House in its plans. There are concerns about Ballymore’s suitability, a company that was among the last to sign the Government’s new building safety contract.  

On Ballymore, former Kensington MP and current leader of the Labour group at RBKC Councillor Emma Dent Coad, told Byline Times: “Their early designs had a single staircase – so shocking within sight of Grenfell Tower in its shroud. Will an outfit like this rehouse the Canalside tenants, or leave it to our slippery council?”

Ballymore’s spokesperson said: “Our proposals incorporate all the community-focused activities of Canalside House… including this additional land will allow it to be opened up as another area of public space for the community to use.”

Councillor Kim Taylor-Smith, RBKC’s Deputy Leader, told Byline Times: “We would only sell the building if Ballymore were able to meet the proposed terms, including on reprovision of community space, and if they are also able to get planning permission from the council.”   

“Community space” is a term that can be broadly applied and there has been no specific commitment to the tenant organisations, so integral to North Kensington’s recovery and culture, replicating their current shared space and its ideal location.

Ballymore added: “We understand RBKC is working closely with the remaining charities based at Canalside House to find them a new home in a more modern building with better facilities nearby.” But resident organisations believe Ballymore has been misinformed and have said that there is no equivalent space locally.

“RBKC is back to its old ways… Where is the transparency we were promised?” asked Councillor Dent Coad.

The horror of Grenfell awakened a spirit of defiance and democracy in North Kensington. But hopes for justice via the courts and redistribution of political power have been thwarted. If one of the community’s last remaining assets is demolished, it is likely to symbolise the end of the post-Grenfell era and a return to ‘business as usual’ in Kensington.

By Tom Charles @tomhcharles for Byline Times

https://bylinetimes.com/2023/03/27/grenfell-council-returns-to-business-as-usual-with-community-asset-stripping-plans/

RBKC’s Secret Deal to Sell Canalside House

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Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC) has struck a secret deal with an international property developer to sell the North Kensington community hub, Canalside House. There has been no democratic oversight of the deal, no consultation with the affected communities and the tenant organisations have not been informed. Information on the sale was provided by an unimpeachable source who told us that by this time next year “Canalside House will be gone”.  

Deal

RBKC’s deal follows years of uncertainty in which the council has swung between two polarities: imposing a sale against the wishes of the community and vowing to work with tenant organisations to upgrade Canalside House.  

The buyer, Ballymore, will demolish the building, which sits next to, but not on, the Kensal Canalside Opportunity Area site. Our source explained that ahead of making the deal public, the council is actively seeking to reduce the number of organisations utilising Canalside House. The terms of the sale will obligate RBKC to provide temporary space for the evicted organisations, so the fewer groups using the building, the less work there will be for the council.

This aspect of the deal is borne out in RBKC’s refusal to rent out the biggest and best offices in the building. Those enquiring about using the large first-floor office, rented until last year by Portobello Business Centre, have been informed they can use that space free of charge on an ad-hoc basis, but no long-term tenancy will be possible.  

The large ground floor office, vacated by the Volunteer Centre in 2016 during a previous move by the council to sell, was converted into a cheap hot-desking space but is barely advertised or used. Our source told us that RBKC has categorically ruled out any groups using that space for ongoing service provision to ensure the number of tenant organisations is kept to a minimum.

Following a period in temporary office space provided by RBKC, the deal sees the council hand responsibility for housing the Canalside organisations to Ballymore, a private company with no expertise in providing vital services such as the ones available at Canalside House.

Ballymore’s wish to own everything next to their Gas Works site is further evidenced by their offer for the converted water tower next to Canalside House. The tower’s owner turned down the offer.

image from ballymoregroup.com

History

Built in 1929, Canalside House sits at the top end of Ladbroke Grove. Less than a mile from Grenfell Tower, the centre was a hub of community support during and after the 2017 fire and is one of North Kensington’s last remaining spaces for charities, the voluntary sector, small businesses, and other local enterprises. Tenants include representatives of local African communities, housing cooperatives, care organisations and mental health charities. Continue reading →

Retrograde Borough of Kensington & Chelsea

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RBKC’s coat of arms. The motto means ‘What a good thing it is to dwell in unity’ – picture from rbkc.gov.uk

An outsider assessing Kensington and Chelsea Council (RBKC) from a distance can be forgiven for believing that the council has become a more progressive, liberal, and democratic institution since the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. This illusion is sustained by the local authority’s exhaustive public relations policy and an absence of political or media scrutiny. In this induced amnesia, RBKC keeps a firm grip on North Kensington. But the council’s approach to the north is arguably more regressive and undemocratic than at any time in its history. A study conducted in the early years of the borough sheds light on the dynamics at play.

Sixties London

In 1963, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea was formed by a merger of the separate K and C boroughs through the London Government Act. In 1967, Professor John Dearlove of the University of Sussex began researching the relationship between RBKC’s decision-makers and those seeking to influence policy, referred to as interest groups. For years, Professor Dearlove attended council meetings and learned about community issues, publishing his findings first in an academic journal[i] and later in a book[ii].

In the 1968 local elections, London turned blue, the Conservatives winning control of 28 councils to Labour’s three. The 2022 results reflect a changed city with just six councils controlled by the Tories and 21 by Labour. But RBKC stands apart from the wider city, remaining a Conservative safe seat throughout, and the only remaining Tory council in inner London. But it has been a divided borough, with North Kensington council wards tending to vote Labour, and two now-abolished parliamentary constituencies, Kensington North, and Regent’s Park & Kensington North, returning only Labour MPs to the Commons between 1945 and 2010.

The stark contrasts of the borough were present from its inception. The London Housing Survey in 1968 stated: “one of the most distinctive features about the Royal Borough […] the sharp contrast between North Kensington and the rest of the Borough”[iii]

Professor Dearlove noted the north’s higher number of manual labourers, its overcrowded homes, lack of open spaces, and higher proportion of children. Relating these disparities to his research, Dearlove saw the social, economic, cultural, and political divide between the north and the rest of the borough reflected in the contrasting interest groups interacting with council decision-makers, with northern residents inclined to seek innovation, change, and sometimes the reversal of the council’s policies. Continue reading →

RBKC has bins

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Norland Ward in Kensington & Chelsea is 0.2 miles from Grenfell Tower. In a rational political culture, local politicians seeking election in that ward on Thursday would express support for the victims of the Grenfell fire and solemnly vow to address the worsening economic and social inequality that characterises North Kensington. But in the Royal Borough, pushing policies of injustice and inequality can guarantee you a safe seat, as the Tory candidates make clear in their campaign literature.

We previously looked at Kensington & Chelsea News, the local Conservative Party’s main election propaganda, which sets out their key policies: bin collections, borough-wide parking permits, clean air, low council tax, saving the local police station and money for parks. While some of these pledges are contradictory and some are probably fibs, they are accompanied by the biggest profanity of all; council leader Elizabeth Campbell claiming that “continued support and meaningful recovery for the communities most affected by the Grenfell tragedy will be at the heart of everything we do.”

North Ken Censored

The election propaganda for Norland Ward is more of the same, talking up the threat of a Labour-run council, promoting absurd policies, and ignoring residents in the north of the borough. Even though Norland’s boundary reaches into North Kensington, there is no mention of Grenfell or the poverty that plagues the area.

The Conservative candidates, Stuart Graham and David Lindsay, have ultra-safe seats and plenty of political space to express any conscience or vision they possess. They instead follow the council strategy of studiously ignoring North Kensington. They state they are “committed to standing up for the residents of Holland Park and Notting Hill,” omitting North Kensington completely.

The Norland campaign literature is aimed squarely at those who already live in comfort. In the irrational borough, this group is attended to slavishly: “We need a council that has a record of standing up for residents and delivering more while costing less.” Continue reading →

RBKC: Flattening The Curve

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“We’re going to review the review” – Kensington & Chelsea Council, 15th February 2022.

Those were the words uttered by a council officer two minutes into last night’s public meeting on the imminent closure of North Kensington’s main recovery centre for victims of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire, The Curve Community Centre.

‘Reviewing the review’ was not what the assembled residents wanted to hear with the loss of a community asset only weeks away and no plan in place to rehouse The Curve’s services, delivered by around 20 local community groups.

A hundred meetings along the same lines have taken place since 14th June 2017: Council officers with no decision-making power try to play for both sides and fail; they nod in agreement at residents’ complaints; they say ‘we’ll take this back to the leadership team’ and they get out, another box ticked.

Some residents reassure them, ‘we know it’s not your fault…you’re just doing your job…we know you don’t have any real power…’

But if they don’t have real power, where does that place us in the hierarchy? Five years on from an atrocity that shocked the nation, North Kensington is stuck in trauma and the only thing that has enjoyed any “recovery” is the council’s power over us.

Loads of Buildings?

There are “loads of buildings available” in North Kensington to replace The Curve said the other council officer, without adding that there is little to no chance that a council renowned for its asset sweating will offer up a new community space. It was only political pragmatism on the council’s part that saved North Kensington Library from being turned into a private school and our college from being replaced by ‘luxury’ flats.

Under Kim Taylor-Smith, its property developer deputy leader responsible for Grenfell recovery, RBKC wanted to sell Canalside House, another community asset, months after the fire.

In terms of numbers of buildings, essential for local organisations to gain a foothold in both fundraising and recovery, the loss of The Curve next month will put North Kensington back to where it was in 2017. Bay20 was built on community (not council) land by the BBC, but Grenfell Tower was lost, with its playground, green space, boxing gym and nursery. In terms of increasing North Kensington’s community spaces, the council is in deficit.

But none of this was mentioned by the two council officers, typical of another feature of RBKC’s community meetings: the recent past goes down the memory hole, the focus is always ‘moving on’ with opportunities to ‘help decide,’ ‘influence,’ ‘co-design,’ ‘oversee’ and so on.

Steering Committee

Last night’s meeting was intended to be the start of setting up a steering group to then establish a Community Trust to “oversee” the £1.3 million that remains in the budget allocated to The Curve.

The Curve, rented from its private owner by RBKC in the aftermath of the fire, will close in March, with the council then having four months to return it to its original state before the lease expires.

Most questions put to the council officers went unanswered, including:

  • What will happen to the residents who currently use The Curve every day?
  • Will the council provide budget for a building that can then be run by the community as an independent base for recovery and income generation?
  • Can the survivors who attend The Curve every year on the anniversary come this year, the fifth anniversary?

One question that was answered was ‘Why wasn’t this all done last year if you knew it was closing in March?’ The answer: ‘Covid’.

All of these anxieties would have been avoided if RBKC had acted on a proposal from The Curve’s board of governors in 2019 setting out a vision for the centre’s future, which combined a community hub (akin to The Tabernacle), a world-class trauma recovery centre and training in industries of the future for young local residents, all at The Curve, which would have been secured on a 50-year lease on favourable terms. To say this detailed proposal by the supposed governors was rejected would be misleading; it simply wasn’t regarded as a real thing by the council, the words didn’t register.

It would have been popular and empowering; hence it could never see the light of day.

Image from Frost Meadowcroft’s brochure

Last Night’s Meeting

Eloquent exasperation and untreated trauma poured out of the attendees, every single intervention a valid, well thought out point. The council officers were forced to go rope-a-dope for the duration. As ever, they had not been sent to the northern outpost of the royal borough for a serious meeting between equals. The officers represented a council with a monopoly on power and has spent tens of millions in such a way as to guarantee no diluting of that mix. This level of chaos on RBKC’s part cannot be accidental.

The archaic council system does not work, with officers taking notes back to the Town Hall to legitimise decisions already made by politicians with no democratic mandate in North Kensington. It is a system that meets a common-sense suggestion like opening The Curve up for survivors on the Grenfell anniversary with a ‘computer says no’ response.

We continually look for creative ways to carve out some independence that would enable real recovery. The council has been assiduous and successful in blocking all our attempts so far.

The agenda of the meeting was ignored, except one item, ‘End of meeting’.

Behind a partition, a group of primary school aged children sat doing their homework as the meeting played out. They looked anxious, absorbing the trauma of their families and neighbours, a perfect snapshot of five years of RBKC’s approach to Grenfell recovery.

If this was the children’s lesson in how the world works, it could not have been any clearer. Ordinary people are abused and disempowered. Another, smaller group tries to soothe the people and “manage expectations” on behalf of a third group. This third group remains unseen by the children. But the children will surely know the third group as their enemy…the ones who shut the doors to their community centre and who blocked every attempt at real recovery for North Kensington.      

—

REST IN PEACE FRANCIS O’CONNOR – a true artist who exposed the con artists. Read a fitting tribute to Francis here.

By Tom Charles @tomhcharles

Colin Hall, Holland Park School, the Council, Power and the Media

~ Urban Dandy London ~ Leave a comment

Colin Hall, the Marmite headteacher of Holland Park School will retire at the end of this academic year having led the school for 21 years, a third of its history. Outstanding Ofsteds and the best-paid head in the country, but Hall leaves with a tarnished legacy. Just down the road from the school is Kensington Town Hall, where those who have overseen the council’s deficient response to the Grenfell Tower fire are still comfortably in positions of power. Hall’s reckoning contrasts with RBKC’s Taylor-Smith, Campbell, and Quirk, who have sailed through on a wave of spin with no media pushback against their running of the richest, most unequal local authority in the country.

HPS

News of resignations and appointments at Holland Park have been arriving in parents’ inboxes. The big one was provided, using death announcement vocabulary, by newly installed chair of governors Jane Farrell on 29th September: 

20210929031338686_LetterfromChairofTrusteesHollandParkSchool

Among the other resignations was former head of Lehman Brothers and major donor to the Conservative party, Michael Tory. Nominative determinism now exhausted, it seems that HPS will embrace a more centrist liberal inclusive philosophy with Farrell as chair of governors and the new New Labour-supporting Bercows representing the parents. The major turning point for the HPS old guard was an article in The Guardian last month by Fiona Millar, wife of Alistair Campbell.

There are obvious dots to be joined but there might be nothing more to this new centrist liberal power theme at HPS than coincidence. After all, the articles in The Guardian and The Times were served up by a highly organised campaign by former pupils and staff determined to expose what they call a “culture of humiliation.”

Strange

Two investigations are underway at the school, one independent and one by RBKC. Expect much to be added to the list of alleged abuses brought to the public’s knowledge by the Former HPS collective.

Yelling at children through a megaphone is both strange and abusive, as is sending the naughty children to the adventure playground on Southern Row so the mock Ofsted inspectors didn’t have to see them, and so is putting up ‘Wanted’ posters of unknowing children for their ‘Grade Ds in all subjects’.

The audio of a teacher screaming at children, recorded this month, is grim, but apparently the norm, and when this is considered alongside Mr Hall’s propensity to deliver long assemblies on the subject of himself, even to sixth formers on their final day, it suggests not just an abuse of power, but also an understanding among pupils and staff the power being abused is absolute and unchallengeable. From a distance HPS is surreal and eccentric, but if you’re there every day it’s real and normalised.

Still, these revelations alone, if they had happened in a more ‘normal’ comprehensive not on inner London billionaires’ row, would not have been enough to arouse the interest of The Guardian. Mr Hall is a complex headteacher, and plenty of parents like him and his approach, the way he sets about instilling high standards (at least aesthetically) for students. Will The Guardian follow the story as it moves on?

RBKC   

And what of The Guardian‘s silence on RBKC’s ongoing, very public failings? Holland Park is one of the schools that suffered from the entirely avoidable fire at Grenfell Tower, and Holland Park families continue to suffer under the local council also facing accusations of failure to meet its duty of care.

The difference? Perhaps RBKC’s 13-strong crack team of PR spinners pulling the wool, enabled by an establishment media staffed by journalists who consider the social order of Kensington, the haves and the have nots, as natural, or, at best, an opportunity for virtue signaling.

More detail on that another time, but it’s clear that The Guardian and the other establishment outlets have the power to tip the balance in certain situations, and there is enough evidence that RBKC has betrayed the Grenfell victims repeatedly and deliberately to justify serious analysis by the nation’s media.

£

Hall’s retirement was announced the same week that the Pandora Papers revealed that Kensington is home to billions of pounds worth of property owned by tax dodging members of the one percent. If I was aiming for power via Keir Starmer’s Labour party I probably wouldn’t want to piss off potential donors like Michael Tory by empowering North Kensington residents who might demand more democracy or even devolved power locally. 

The Guardian gave a platform to the once voiceless of Holland Park School. That is good. But they don’t challenge other unaccountable power nearby. 

The previous leadership of RBKC fell because they disrespected the mainstream media, trying to lock them out of a council meeting, something the government knew was a no-no. The despised social cleansers, Paget and Mellen, were made to resign and the pressure on the Tories eased. Their heirs at RBKC have been untroubled by an indifferent, ignorant media…

 

by Tom Charles @tomhcharles

Tower Block, Housing Stock & Two Double-Barreleds

~ Urban Dandy London ~ 1 Comment

Nicholas Paget-Brown (L) & Rock Feilding Mellen (R) flanking former KCTMO chief executive Robert Black in Grenfell Tower, 2016

The Tower Block is Grenfell Tower.

The Housing Stock is the 9,000 residential properties owned by Kensington and Chelsea council (RBKC).

And the two Double-Barrelleds are Nicholas Paget-Brown and Rock Feilding-Mellen, former leaders of RBKC and key players in North Kensington’s recent history.

Background

Until March 2018, RBKC managed its 9,000-strong housing stock through an arms-length subsidiary company misleadingly named Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) – read more about KCTMO here.

RBKC’s leaders had ultimate responsibility for KCTMO including scrutinising the company to ensure it met its duty of care to residents. Following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, RBKC folded KCTMO (and its 3,500 outstanding repair jobs) back into the council and increased the role of another council subsidiary company, Repairs Direct. RBKC gave Lancaster West, the site of Grenfell Tower, a separate estate management organisation, W11, although it remains in the gift of the council.

KCTMO claimed its number one aim was “Keeping our customers and residents centre stage.” Despite RBKC’s positive spin about its performance, KCTMO failed spectacularly.  

Those with lived experience of KCTMO, including me, know it behaved like a “mini mafia who pretend to be a proper functioning organisation,” going after “any residents who have the temerity to stand up to them.” RBKC’s leadership chose not to take action to improve the TMO’s approach to residents. 

In 2010 the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition took power with a zest for austerity that was taken up by RBKC. Since that election, life expectancy in Golborne ward, North Kensington, has dropped six years, one of many statistics to lay bare the inequality of Kensington.

RBKC and KCTMO used banal bureaucracy to victimise residents who opposed their policies in the years before the fire. At the head of this was Tory council leader, Nicholas Paget-Brown. 

  1. Nicholas Paget-Brown

Paget-Brown was a career politician, holding various roles in the Conservative party including local councillor from 1986 until 2018 and RBKC leader from 2013 until 2017.

His stated ambitions for North Kensington were modest: “I would like all residents to be proud of living in Kensington & Chelsea and I want to contribute towards the regeneration of parts of the Borough where there is still a need to ensure that people have opportunities that will give them the best start in life.” This, alongside platitudes about improving parks, gardens, and museums, indicated Paget-Brown’s comfortable position as leader of RBKC. His blog, his local newspaper columns, and his utterances in conversation could be reduced to one sentence: ‘Everything’s alright, you can trust the Tories.’

The most unequal borough in Britain? Paget-Brown was not a man intent on change. Continue reading →