Dent Coad Parachutes Into Notting Dale Air Quality Debate

Until recently it was our intention to congratulate Councillor Dent Coad, the new Leader of the RBKC Group, on her recent receipt of the Clean Air for London Award 2014. We were given pause for thought, however, on seeing how self-congratulatory was her own recent blog on the subject (no false modesty there Emma).           Dent Coad Blog

We also found it more than a little ironic that she chose to receive the award on a football pitch at the Westway Sports Centre, and without so much as a nod of acknowledgement to the efforts of the Grenfell Action Group, which has campaigned vigorously for the past three years on the dangers to public health of relocating the five a side pitches from Lancaster Green to this same site – under  the slip roads of the highly polluted Westway.

On her blog Councillor Dent Coad quotes Simon Birkett, Founder and Director of Clean Air in London, who said:

“Kensington and Chelsea joins Westminster as the two most-polluted boroughs in the UK.  I witnessed the human side of this crisis when Emma showed me sports fields under some of London’s busiest elevated roads and described many other local policy failures.  Hearty congratulations therefore to Emma on winning the Clean Air in Cities Award after leading, over many years, calls for action to tackle air pollution.”

She then continues:

“We urgently need a fresh approach from the Council that puts air pollution at the top of the policy and political agendas in planning, road transport and public health.  Vote for Clean Air on 22 May.”

Maybe her failure to mention the Grenfell Action Group’s ongoing role in this controversy is not the sole fault of Councillor Dent Coad, who is normally more switched on and well mannered. She is possibly under strict orders from the new Labour Group Whip, the recently demoted Councillor Blakeman, to avoid any mention of the ex-Labour leader’s nemesis in any favourable light.

Anyway, as anyone who is a regular reader of this blog will know, the Westway Sports Centre has been a regular focus of our attempts to highlight  the poor air quality in the vicinity of the Westway generally, and the Sports Centre in particular, and we have spent many hours, and written many emails, lobbying our local MP, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Sport England, Councillor Blakeman and her poodles in the RBKC Labour Group, Councillor Professor Coates and other members of the Ruling Party at Hornton St, numerous RBKC Officers, local Press, etc highlighting this subject.

So, when Councillor Dent Coad decided to parachute into the controversy surrounding air quality in North Kensington she appears to have ignored the fact that, despite the award presented to her, the RBKC Labour Group seems to have done precious little to safeguard the health of the users of the Westway sports pitches. When we wrote to her seeking her support a couple of years ago she replied that:

“….despite the very clear commitment to pollution monitoring made at the KALC planning meeting, we are now told there is no legal obligation to do this. I was sitting on the committee and supported Cllr Prof Coates in his insistence this should be done…We have not forgotten and are still considering how to persuade the Council to honour its commitments. We will not give up.“

We have a major problem with the false promise in this statement, and with the 2014 Clean Air Award that was recently bestowed upon her. Our cynicism arises from our own recent enquiries into the activities of RBKC Labour councillors on this issue.

We wrote to  RBKC in July and requested, under Freedom of Information legislation, to see copies of:

“.. any correspondence, emails, minutes of meetings, etc concerning RBKC Labour Councillors and the issue of air pollution around the Westway Sports Centre that may have taken place since 11th December 2012.”

We particularly stressed our desire to see any communication with senior officers in the  RBKC Environment Dept requesting action to be taken over the siting of the Lancaster West football pitches at the Westway location.

The reply we received from Robin Yu at RBKC was concise and unequivocal. He said:

“The records have been searched…and no information is held in relation to your request.”

This strongly suggests that Labour councillors have done precisely nothing, and achieved precisely nothing, in pursuit of the much needed air quality monitoring at the Westway Sports Centre over the last two years.

If this is so, and we have no reason to doubt Mr Yu’s statement on this, then we are left wondering exactly what Emma Dent Coad did to merit her receipt of the 2014 Clean Air Award.

We also feel very strongly that  the entire Labour Group has got some serious explaining to do to the communities of North Kensington whose sporting youth continue to be poisoned by pollution from the Westway .

Perhaps Mr Birkett, at Clean Air in London, ought to explain his part also.  Was this award really about improving our air quality, or was it just politics as usual, designed to inflate the egos and reputations of the Great and the Good, of whatever party?

The Stairs of Shame and other abuses…………

It is maybe worth reflecting that if Grenfell Tower and the wider Lancaster West Estate was a child then it would have been taken into care by the Local Authority a long time ago for the abuses that it has received from those with responsibility for it’s well-being.

Unfortunately for the residents of Lancaster West Estate it is the Local Authority itself that has been at the forefront of carrying out the abuse of our community, notably Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Councillors from both the Conservative and Labour Groups, RBKC Officers and their quislings at the TMO, Leadbitter and Rydons.

We believe that those responsible for treating our community with such contempt should hold their heads in deep shame and the Grenfell Action Group will keep highlighting and fighting these abuses to our community until we expose this ill-treatment and receive justice for residents.

Current abuses against those living in Grenfell Tower and it’s environs are multiple and are causing deep upset among local residents. The TMO and their most recent lackeys Rydons still refuse to allow tenants and leaseholders in Grenfell Tower to form any kind of Resident Group to help us through the Grenfell Tower improvement works and seem intent on pursuing a policy of “divide and rule”.

This leaves residents without any power or influence and we believe that the TMO’s refusal to allow us a legitimate voice in the Grenfell Tower improvement works is totally oppressive and shows that the organisation has completely lost it’s moral compass and operates as some kind of mini Mafia. We should remember that this is the same TMO who have decided to stop consulting residents on Lancaster West Estate and who believe that they can act as they choose and with impunity. The recent closure of the EMB Community Rooms, without any consultation with local people, is a case in point and shows just how abusive, high-handed and un-democratic the TMO have become.

In addition, residents are very upset that the TMO and Rydons believe that they can treat us like cattle and simply herd us around Lancaster West by closing off our “rights of way” without providing any alternative routes. At present, if you happen to be a mother with pushchairs and children, a community elder, disabled or infirm and you cannot negotiate four flights of stairs (pictured above) then the TMO believe they have the right to force us on a half mile detour. We believe that this treatment of the vulnerable within our community is both illegal under Disability Legislation and is highly dis-respectful and immoral.

Residents are also upset that the Kensington Aldridge Academy (KAA) constructors’, Leadbitter, continue to abuse their planning regulation obligations by working before 8.00am and after 6.00pm and ignoring a ban on Saturday afternoon and Sunday working hours. They are reaping what they sow as it looks like the KAA project is well behind schedule and that children starting at the new Academy in September are going to be taught in a half finished building despite the promises made that the works would be completed on time.

Finally, residents have complained that the TMO have recently removed bicycles that were legitimately chained up outside the front of Grenfell Tower without warning and are not coming forward to recompense tenants whose transport was taken without authority.

We know that we cannot rely on our locally elected Notting Dale Labour Councillors to assist us with any of the above matters as we believe that they have an agenda towards residents of Grenfell Tower that supports punishing our community for the temerity of standing up for our rights and having the nerve to question the motives of those Labour Councillors with power in Hornton St.

Any changes will have to come from the actions of residents and we give fair warning to the RBKC Council, TMO and their quislings that when we push back it will be with far reaching consequences!

URGENT PETITION – SAVE EARLS COURT EXHIBITION CENTRE

We have an URGENT request for our readers to sign a NEW PETITION calling for an immediate halt of the implementation of the “Reserved Matters for the demolition of the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre”. The petition is addressed to Nick Paget-Brown, leader of Kensington and Chelsea council

Why is this important? The Earl’s Court Area Action Group explains…

This is the last legal opportunity local residents have to prevent an environmental planning catastrophe which if it were to proceed would cause massive and irreversible damage to the daily life of all those who live in Earls Court. The negative impact on the local population should rule it out from serious consideration.

The “Reserved Matter conditions to demolish the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre” in the first quarter of 2015 have been published and are to be decided by the borough of Kensington and Chelsea by 27 August 2014 – so time is of the essence!

The original planning applications required consent from both Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea and were jointly approved in November 2012.

In May 2014 the Labour Party overthrew the Conservative majority in Hammersmith and Fulham. This was a major game changer…

• Since that time Hammersmith and Fulham have commissioned a review of all agreements and transactions associated with the proposed development and have announced a ‘pause’ to all dealings with the developer.

• The District Valuer’s Report, determining the value of the planning gain is being questioned, with the potential for a re-valuation of the entire site.

• TfL’s feasibility study on the relocation of the Lillie Bridge Engineering Depot is inconclusive as to its future and further investment has been made at this Depot.

• Tesco’s have amended their application for 100 West Cromwell Road.

• The developers do not own all the land in Application 1.

It is rumoured that the developers, in light of the ‘pause’ in Hammersmith and Fulham, will concentrate on the RBKC Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre, Warwick Road as a standalone development. This is against RBKC core policy and the impact assessment studies supporting the original applications will become redundant—this should be resisted. If demolished this could be another Battersea Power Station—a ruin for years and a loss to the local, national and international economy.

Call for a halt to the process, SIGN THE NEW PETITION TODAY, and help save Earls Court Exhibition Centre!

Thank you for your support,

Earl’s Court Area Action Group

Please click on the link below and sign now……

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-earl-s-court

BLAKEMAN BOWS OUT – ONE LESS PROBLEM FOR LANCASTER WEST?

We were more than pleased recently to read of a change of leadership in the RBKC Labour Group with Councillor Emma Dent Coad replacing our old adversary Judith Blakeman at the helm. We would like to offer the new Labour Leader our best wishes and we hope that Councillor Dent Coad will continue the robust rhetoric, for which she is famous, to confront the Ruling Party at Hornton Street, particularly on the thorny issue of “social cleansing” in the Rotten Borough.

The Grenfell Action Group is delighted to see the back of the leadership of Councillor Blakeman whose collaborationist and defeatist political approach has seen the Labour Party become an insipid laughing stock, especially at Lancaster West. We believe that Blakeman’s open and ill-judged support for the KALC development at Lancaster Green, her undisguised contempt for the Grenfell Action Group and all other critics of KALC, and her policy of openly colluding with the Ruling Party at Hornton St, has brought great shame on the Labour Party and has not served the residents of North Kensington well.

It is worth recording for posterity that even while Councillor Tim Coleridge (Conservative) was busily drafting the Council’s much feared and hated “Decant Policy” Blakeman was working closely with him and his Neo-Con pals in Hornton Street to oppress anti-KALC activists on Lancaster West Estate.

We believe history will show that Councillor Blakeman would have been better served using her time as Leader of the Opposition in fighting tooth and nail against Coleridge and his fascist “Decant Policy” rather than working with him and the Ruling Party to oppress the legitimate concerns of her constituents, presumably in the vain hope of benefitting from whatever scraps might be offered from the Tory table.

Let us all hope that RBKC Labour can now begin to fulfill their proper function, wake up to the fact that they are THE RBKC OPPOSITION PARTY, and start to hold the Neo-Con monsters in Hornton St to account. We have had enough of seeing our community sold up the river and our well-being cheaply traded for political expediency.

EDWARD GEORGE AND THE GREAT RBKC PLANNING DEPARTMENT FOB OFF

The Grenfell Action Group first wrote to Edward George (Senior Planner) at RBKC Council on 4th July following the actions of the Grenfell Tower improvement works contractor, Rydons, in cutting down a tree that we believe was protected by planning legislation and to question why no alternative route had been provided for the disabled after the removal of additional “rights of way” across Lancaster West Estate.

Edward George has been fairly good at getting back to us with queries in the past but, for some reason, he decided not to reply to the legitimate questions that we posed to him in on this occasion. So, we decided to write to him again on 14th July and we publish this email below in full:

From: ***********
Sent: 14 July 2014 08:36:46
To: edward.george@rbkc.gov.uk

Dear Mr George,

You may be interested in reading the latest Grenfell Action Group blog that highlights some of the points that I have outlined to you in my email dated Friday 4th July.

https://grenfellactiongroup.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/welcome-to-hell/

Following publication of this blog and your receipt of the aforementioned email, please can you answer the following legitimate questions for our community without further delay:

Please confirm and provide an explanation as to why Rydons have cut down a tree to the West of Grenfell Tower that we believe was protected by the Grenfell Tower improvement works planning permission?

Please can you confirm that Leadbitters construction workers should not be working outside the hours of 8.00am to 6.00pm and 8.00am to 1.00pm on Saturdays? Please can you inform our community what action we should take and to who we should report any abuses of these “working hours” regulations? Attempts to bring these matters up with the constructor have just ended in humiliation for members of our community.

Please can you inform the Grenfell Action Group if the RBKC Council have returned to the Secretary of State in order to obtain an extension to keep Station Walk and other “rights of way” around Lancaster West closed? Please provide some evidence that the appropriate permission has been obtained?

Please confirm that Rydons have followed the proper procedure to remove “rights of way” around Grenfell Tower and explain what action they took to carry out these closures (advertising in local paper, notices on lamp-posts, etc)?

Please can you explain why planning regulations/disability legislation seems to be broken as Rydons have completely failed to provide an alternative route for the disabled, mothers with pushchairs, our community elders, the infirm, etc following the closure of Station Walk and other rights of way around Grenfell Tower? Do the RBKC Planning Dept. believe it is acceptable for vulnerable members of our community to be forced on a half to three-quarter of a mile hike just to reach Bramley Road?

Thank you for your assistance with providing answers to the above questions,
Regards,
Grenfell Action Group

It really would be a new low for the Rotten Borough if the RBKC Planning Dept. was seen to be colluding with the TMO and their latest contractors, Rydons, to facilitate the circumvention of planning Law. Our community deserves answers to the legitimate questions we have posed and we will not settle for Edward George’s fob off!

WELCOME TO HELL

The unrelenting and brutal assault by Leadbitters, the KALC building contractors, on the residents of Grenfell Tower and it’s environs continues unabated, bringing much misery and upset to anyone unfortunate enough to live within earshot or dust range of the Academy/Sports Centre construction site. We believe that things are only set to get worse for anyone living on Lancaster West Estate as the deadline for the Aldridge Kensington Academy opening looms.

Leadbitters seem to have given up any pretence of trying to work with the local community and now seem happy to use their overwhelming power and presence on Lancaster West to abuse with impunity. They seem to have chosen to ignore planning regulations with respect to working hours on the site, and residents of Grenfell Tower have reported construction routinely taking place before 8am and after 6pm as well as workers coming on site on Sunday’s.

Last week Leadbitters destroyed two more trees in the vicinity of the children’s playground which we believe should have been protected and local residents were repeatedly woken up in the early hours of the morning and subjected to the incessant wailing of the faulty new fire alarm system at the Kensington Aldridge Academy that kept on malfunctioning. Not happy to torment us during extensive waking hours, now even our night-time sleep is being denied us. Needless to say, we have not received any apology or explanation from Leadbitters for this intolerable disruption!

In fact, residents of Grenfell Tower have long since learnt that it is useless to try and raise concerns or complaints about this shabby and abusive treatment that has attacked our community and turned our homes and residential amenity into a massive, unsightly and uninhabitable building site. We, also, understand very well that our local Labour Ward Councillors are on the side of the Ruling Party and the KALC contractors and will not assist their constituents in Grenfell Tower and it’s environs to obtain the kind of justice that would allow us to enjoy our tenancies in any sort of peace.

When a member of our community recently approached Leadbitters to complain about late night working senior members of the Leadbitters/Studio E management team openly laughed in his face and reportedly told him to “get a life”. This is typical of the responses we have received in the past when local people have tried to complain about Leadbitters disrespect of planning regulations. This thuggish, Mafia-like behaviour and the ongoing humiliation of the Lancaster West community will not be forgotten and bodes ill for the building of good future relations between the Kensington Aldridge Academy and the local community.

On a slightly different note the Grenfell Tower improvement works have finally commenced and the TMO’s latest choice of constructors, the building firm Rydons, have at last arrived in our particular corner of Hell.  Rydons could not have got off to a worse start, however, as their first action was the destruction of a beautiful and well established ash tree to the West of Grenfell Tower that we believe was protected by planning law. This heartless act has caused much upset among local residents and members of the Grenfell Action Group who have seen most of our trees, and much of the residential amenity of our community, senselessly destroyed to facilitate the KALC project.

The TMO and Rydons claim that they had permission to cut down the tree, stating that doing so would lessen future anti-social behaviour by improving sight lines around Grenfell Tower. We have written to Edward George (Senior RBKC Planner) at Hornton St seeking clarification of  this issue as the planning regulations relating to Grenfell Tower clearly state:

8. The tree(s) existing on the site at the date of this permission shall be protected against damage as per Arboricultural Report of B.J Unwin (02/05/12) throughout the period of building and other operations pursuant to this permission, including site preparation. (C020) Reason – To ensure that the trees are adequately protected and to safeguard the amenities of the area. (R020)

To add insult to injury, Rydons have now completely closed our right-of-way along Station Walk and residents of Grenfell Tower are now forced to negotiate four flights of steps and a sizeable detour just to access the closest tube station and buses at Bramley Road, as well as local shopping and other facilities. No alternative has been provided for the disabled, mothers with pushchairs and children, our community elders, etc., All of this is in addition to the restrictions placed on residents who have earlier suffered the loss of our right-of-way to Ladbroke Grove and Portobello Road – this more than a year ago.

We do not believe that the TMO and their latest lackeys, Rydons, have followed proper planning law/disability legislation with regards these more recent closures as we are aware that they have an obligation to provide an appropriate alternative route for the disabled. This they have patently failed to do, as anyone who cannot negotiate the four flights of steps at the base of Grenfell Tower is now forced to hike approximately half a mile to reach the local shops. We also believe that the right-of-way along Station Walk needs to be referred back to the Secretary of State for permission for it’s continued closure, and we are seeking evidence from the RBKC Planning Dept that the contractors have acted within the Law.

THE POWERS THAT BE IN HORNTON STREET, LEADBITTERS, THE TMO AND RYDONS COULD NOT TREAT US WITH LESS RESPECT IF THEY TRIED, AND ALL OF THE ABOVE SHOULD BE DEEPLY ASHAMED OF THEIR ACTIONS.

IT WOULD APPEAR, HOWEVER, THAT SHAME IS NOT A CONCEPT, NOR AN EMOTION, THAT ANY ONE OF THEM COULD EVEN BEGIN TO RECOGNISE, LET ALONE EXPERIENCE.