A Special Invitation

INVITATION:

The Grenfell Action Group would like to extend a warm invitation to all the Borough Councillors to visit Lancaster West Estate in W11 for an informal walkabout to see with your own eyes how our housing estate has been allowed to deteriorate into a near slum after years of lack of investment and neglect at the hands of the Council/TMO.

There will be Estate Walkabouts scheduled for:
Tuesday 11th Sept at 2.00pm
Saturday 15th Sept at 11.00am.

The alternative dates should provide the optimum opportunity for you ALL to attend.
Please meet in the car-park (next to the soon to be bulldozed football pitches) opp the Methodist Church in Lancaster Road.

REASON FOR INVITATION:

Despite the impending imposition into our community of the new Kensington Academy and Leisure Centre (KALC), the vast majority of Lancaster West Estate has seen no significant investment in the past 40 years and, as a consequence of this neglect, the Estate’s housing stock now resembles a ghetto.

Our heating system (when working!) pumps out water so hot it is a Health and Safety risk and our windows are draughty, dangerous and certainly no longer fit for purpose.
Many fearful and frightened residents face the prospect of their homes being turned into a giant building site without any adequate protection from the dust or noise pollution during the construction of KALC.

The exterior of the Estate is crumbling and has an appearance of dereliction while very few improvements have been initiated to the interior of any of our properties in many, many years.
Come and speak to residents and hear their concerns about anti-social behaviour on the Estate and the lack of police response or adequate security.

Finally, in addition to a tour of Lancaster West Estate, Councillors will also be shown where our young people are now being forced to play their five a side football on pitches just yards away from the slip road off a polluted motorway at the nearby Westway Sports Centre! Some Olympic legacy there!!!

THE WAY FORWARD:

Lancaster West has become known as the “forgotten Estate” and this situation cannot be allowed to persist in one of the richest Boroughs in the land.

If 32 million pounds can be frittered away to provide paving stones in Exhibition Road (and an extra million for the recent farcical jolly up!) then the Borough’s Councillors need to examine their consciences, sort out their priorities and find a way to support investment in real people with real housing needs.

Local residents understand, however, that it is not only money that will help solve our problems but also the need for a sea-change of opinion from those with power and influence in Hornton Street.

A move away from complacency and disinterest to treating all residents (whether living in the north or south of the Borough) with respect and dignity.

Please take this opportunity to visit our community, engage with our issues, talk with your colleagues and help initiate this change and improve the well-being of those living on Lancaster West.

Your presence on our Estate will signal to our community that the Council is ready to listen to our concerns and are willing to try and find a new and brighter way forward.

Your absence will speak volumes and consign our futures to a bleak and dark abyss………….

Regards,

Edward Daffarn

Grenfell Action Group

An Olympic Legacy

Lord Moynihan, head of the British Olympic Association, recently called for a step-change in sports policy in the UK. He demanded better funding of school sports, better facilities, and better access to facilities, to develop Britain’s young talent towards future Olympic success.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19135794

He also said that it was wholly unacceptable that more than 50% of medallists at the Beijing Olympics came from independent schools. He described as one of the “worst statistics in British sport”, the fact that half of Britain’s medals came from just 7% of the population who are privately educated.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19109724

Identifying and developing the untapped talent of the remaining 93% has got to be a priority for future sports policy, he insisted, and he called for an urgent overhaul of policy, saying private school dominance of sports was “wholly unacceptable”.

As you might expect the Government responded with their own statement, but this promised only a new initiative to encourage olympic-style inter-school competition.

This is, of course, the same government that is hell-bent on replacing all the comprehensive schools in the country, which are legally obliged to provide sports facilities, with academy schools which are not. The recent school building programme in RBKC bears eloquent testimony to this.

The illustration above, from the Government’s BB98 guidance, shows the typical layout of a secondary school that would conform to the ‘School Premises Regulations’ (1999)  which apply to comprehensive schools. Please note that under BB98 most of the school site would be outdoor space. As part of its drive towards prioritising academies, the current government introduced new rules, called the ‘Independent School Standards Regulations’ (2010), under which there is no obligation to provide any sports facilities at all. These new rules apply to academies, while the older stricter rules still apply to comprehensives.

It should be emphasised also that the new laissez-faire rules apply to more than just school sports provision, as every category of school facility is less stringently regulated under the Independent School Regulations. This is accomplished mostly by using  deliberately vague terms when stipulating minimum standards. School buildings, for instance, are required to provide only reasonable resistance to rain snow and wind, they are required to provide only a satisfactory standard and adequate maintenance of decoration, and to make appropriate arrangements (whatever that means) for providing outside space for pupils to play safely. The older regulations, that still apply to comprehensives and other LEA schools, are far stricter and far more detailed, covering all the minutiae of space, facilities, health and safety etc.

It’s no wonder the playground of the new Kensington Academy will not even be big enough to swing a cat  – the regulations demand no more than this. It would be interesting to see, when and if any of these academy schools are ever sued over health and safety failings, what view the courts will take of these ultra-vague regulations. Realistically, it would be hard for them to find any schools negligent, when the standards set for them are so utterly nebulous to start with.

Compared with the required standard for comprehensive schools, the Chelsea Academy, and the soon to be Kensington Aldridge Academy, are remarkable for their almost total absence of external space, for sport or any other use, as both have been shoe-horned onto sites that are far too small to accommodate these uses.

So, the Kensington Aldridge Academy, like the Chelsea Academy before it, will be built with just a single rooftop muga, no bigger than a tennis court. This will be the entire outdoor sport provision for a school of 1200+ pupils. It is hard to see how this will even begin to answer Lord Moynihan’s appeal for a radical rethink of school sports policy, or the Governments warm but inadequate words in response to that appeal.

Meanwhile, the popular sports pitches currently in use at Lancaster Green will soon be bulldozed out of existence to make way for the academy, and the various school parties who habitually use these facilities will be forced out, probably to the Westway Sports Centre, which we have previously described on this blog as a Minotaurs Lair in a poisonous underworld, beneath and surrounded by motorway ramps.

If push comes to shove, one wonders if Lord Moynihan would have the stomach to challenge the hypocrisy of his fellow Tories in government, by suggesting that they reverse some of their more destructive policies, particularly those relating to schools and school sports.

A good place to start might well be a rewrite of the decidedly dodgy ‘Independent School Standards Regulations’, to give them some teeth. Our children are surely entitled to a greater measure of protection than is provided in this Fagin’s Charter.

A bit of space to run around in might not be a bad idea either.

What do you think, Sir Colin?

A Sports Pitch Epilogue

We thought we would just offer this little epilogue to our most recent item on the alleged re-provision of the outdoor sports facilities that will be lost to the KALC development. Many of our readers will already know that there will be a single tennis court sized MUGA on the roof of the Academy. This will only be available for community use outside of school hours.

As previously reported the Council have also very generously paid the Westway Trust to refurbish a couple of their mangier, and little-used tennis courts, supposedly to cater for all others who previously used the Lancaster Green pitches, and will now be displaced to Westway.

The picture above highlights one of the problems with the nether regions of Westway where the refurbished pitches are located. They sit right next to busy motorway ramps that are so close you can almost reach out and touch the moving traffic – yes kids, that is a coach full of Olympic tourists, and it is almost close enough to touch! And can’t you just smell the delicious stink of diesel fumes???

This second picture gives a sense of the far superior ambience of the pitches at Lancaster Green, soon to be bulldozed out of existence. Unfortunately, informal kick-abouts (and other childrens play) will no longer be an option for local kids as charges for the new facilities, both here and at Westway, will be levied where previously they used to play for free. Here’s a quote about pricing from the Cabinet paper presented by the Director of Planning and Development in July 2010:

“Cabinet may wish to note that Westway charges adults £35 per hour peak time, and £25 off-peak, juniors are charged £25 peak time, and £17 off-peak, and so there is a high probability that Westway will be able to propose satisfactory terms for managing the usage of any two new MUGAs that might be funded by the Council.”

By the way, this was the same paper, previously reported on this blog, that recommended that Cabinet vote £75,000 to Westway Trust to pay for this piece of crap.

Sorry kids – No pay no play in the future plans mapped out by Mr Bore.

(Yes that’s his real name – and  it does seem rather apt, don’t you think?)

It needs to be said here also that the refurbished pitches at Westway would never be used by Lancaster West children, even if they could afford to pay, which of course they cannot. The pitches are on the wrong side of the Silchester Estate, enemy territory as far as Lancaster West kids are concerned. The Council’s planners have failed to consider the territorialism that dictates where it is safe, and where it is unsafe, for inner city kids to venture.

The Council’s re-provision plan is obviously far more about profit-taking and the economics of the leisure industry than it is about providing usable play-space for the disadvantaged children of a disdavantaged inner–city community.

Why are we not surprised by this?

Reprovided Sports Pitches – Part Two

Regular readers will recall our recent item on the so-called reprovision of the Lancaster Green sports pitches at Westway Sports Centre.

The Council paid Westway Development Trust £75,000 to resurface a couple of tennis courts because they were desperate to justify the loss of the much needed and well used football pitches at Lancaster Green.

We described in our earlier piece the inappropriateness of the Westway site for reprovision of our sports pitches.  The site is too remote from Lancaster West, and is surrounded by motorway ramps, and subject to the air pollution hazards that must surely arise at that location.

We recently sent one of our intrepid undercover paparizzi to take some snapshots of the newly resurfaced pitches at Westway, that the children of Lancaster West are highly unlikely ever to use.

Unfortunately it rained on the day and he had to send his models home. He wasn’t able to get any decent shots as a result, just this one, showing the new olympic length swimming pool that Westway Trust apparently threw in as a bonus, presumably because they were so grateful for all the lovely lolly that RBKC gave them, no questions asked.

But seriously folks……..

Surely they didn’t really pay £75,000 for this sodden rubbish????

How strange, and how infuriating, that we had to fight tooth and claw for double-glazed windows to protect our worst affected residents from the dust and noise that the KALC construction works will cause.

We are still awaiting an answer on that issue.

Meanwhile the Westway Trust must surely be laughing all the way to the bank.

Academies To Hire Unqualified Teachers

As of today England’s new academy schools can hire as teachers people who do not hold the formal qualification for teaching, the government has announced.

Academies are state-funded but are semi-independent, outside of local authority control and have greater freedom than other schools over curriculum and teachers’ pay and conditions.

Until now, most state-funded schools could only employ people with what is known as “Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)”, meaning they have been trained and approved as meeting a range of standards.

Teachers unions have attacked the move, describing it as a damaging backward step.

You can read more on this story by visiting;

BBC News

North Kensington Smog Alert

Regular readers of this blog will have noted our recent report (Reprovision Of Outdoor Sports Facilities)  highlighting potential air pollution risks at the Westway Sports Centre, which will be required to plug gaps in outdoor sports provision resulting from the loss of facilities following the KALC development at Lancaster West.  How strange that the creation of a new sports centre and school at this location should result in a net loss of outdoor sports provision.

It seems our warning may have been timely, as witnessed by recent reports from Clean Air In London,  also featured in The Guardian newspaper (25th and 26th July) of dangerously high smog levels affecting North Kensington. One might reasonably assume that the high ozone levels are caused in part by traffic using the Westway flyover, beneath which the Westway Sports Centre sits.

From the Guardian;

High temperatures and easterly winds that are forecast to persist until Friday look likely to create a “perfect storm” of smog pollution that could affect the performance of athletes at the start of the Olympics.

Health experts have warned that summer smog could cause problems such as the inflammation of airways and breathing problems for London 2012 competitors, especially those in endurance events.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) issued a pollution episode warning at 1650GMT on 25 July, after ozone levels in North Kensington, London, breached the “ozone public information threshold” set by law.

The department warned pollution levels would be high for 24 hours as the warm sunny weather is likely to continue. Defra said: “The main pollutant of concern is ground level ozone as a result of the warm and sunny weather which favour the formation of secondary ozone in the atmosphere.”

Clean Air in London said this was the first serious warning since new laws on informing the public of high pollution levels came into effect in 2008, and said the UK’s worst summer smogs in recent memory occurred in August 2003 and June-July 2006.

“Athletes are thought to be especially vulnerable to the effects of ground level ozone and other air pollutants because they are breathing in very high volumes of air,” said Gary Fuller, an air quality expert at King’s College London. “It’s something that might affect their performance on the day.”

Jenny Jones, a Green party London assembly member who ran for London mayor earlier this year, said:

“The government and the mayor could have avoided the embarrassment of issuing this warning just ahead of the Olympics if they had taken firm action years ago. Instead we have had a series of delays and backward steps which have done little to improve the health of Londoners. There is now an additional concern that certain events could be affected if the pollution levels become even higher.”

Despite the well established and well documented risk of air pollution in the North Kensington/Westway area, air quality is still not measured at the Westway Sports Centre. Meanwhile RBKC are forging ahead with their plans for the KALC site, which will involve a significant loss of outdoor sports facilities at that site, and the displacement of many current users, including school parties from the wider North Kensington area, to the Westway Sports Centre.

Don’t forget you heard it here first!