Windows Part Three – Signs Of Progress?

We’ve been hearing whispers suggesting there may be signs of possible movement on the windows issue.  It seems that the Cllr Coleridge and the TMO are looking hard for a solution (ie money). At the community forum last week they even floated some rough costings for new windows in Verity Close somewhere in the region of £250,000.

We in turn did our own number crunching, based on an estimate of the number of windows involved, and calculated that the TMO figure breaks down to somewhere around £800 per window. This ignores the fact that a number of properties in Verity are leasehold, and one or two may even be freehold, so the TMO would not be liable for the costs of improvements to these properties. It also ignores the fact that several of the leasehold properties have already been double-glazed by the owners.

We think £800 per window sounds more than a little on the high side, and we are wondering why the TMO can’t secure a contract for these works at a more favorable price. We know that they have already double-glazed most, if not all, of the housing stock in the rest of the borough under the Decent Homes programme, carefully avoiding Lancaster West, of course, and we are wondering how much more public money they may have already wasted on contracts for similar works in recent years.

Indeed, if their previous claims of poverty are based on these kind of costings it’s no wonder Cllr Coleridge and the TMO have been stonewalling us until now, and they may yet still decide that the works are unaffordable. It would be a real scandal if they continued to withold these emergency improvements because their own surveyors and contract managers have badly miscalculated the costs, and failed to negotiate contracts at competitive rates.

Furthermore, it would be an even bigger scandal if they capitulated to us, because of the amount of NOISE we’ve been making, but continued to ignore the plight of the most vulnerable, in Blechynden and Whitchurch. There are still no indications that they are actively considering new windows for any other properties, and we are thinking that if they weren’t about to waste so much money paying twice what they ought to per window, maybe the £250,000 would stretch a lot further.

The Grenfell Action Group has never sought to win concessions for our own members at the expense of any other group, and we would would certainly not wish to see the old and infirm of Blechynden and Whitchurch excluded from any settlement because they lacked the wherewithal to agitate as we do. Our campaign is not about winning concessions for ourselves. It is about achieving social justice for all.

Whatever the outcome for Verity Close, we will continue to campaign on this issue, in the interests of all who need improved sound insulation, especially the residents of Blechynden and Whitchurch, but also those affected in Barandon and Grenfell Walks too.

Windows Part Two – Rifkind Rides In

We posted an item  a couple of days ago castigating Cllr Coleridge for his indifference to appeals for better measures to protect vulnerable residents on the frontline from the worst excesses of noise and dust from the KALC works.  To our horror the Labour leader on the Council immediately accused us of damaging delicate behind-the-scenes negotiations they had begun with Coleridge.

Frankly it’s hard to see how anything we say could be damaging, as there are few indications of anything positive happening for us to damage or upset. We are grateful to Cllr Tod Foreman for his perspicacity (ooh big word) in identifying the areas (EG Verity, Whitchurch and Blechynden) that would be worst affected, and for his attempts to engage with Cllr Coleridge on the issue.

However we have seen no evidence of any significant progress being made. Coleridge is sticking to his guns, disowning RBKC responsibility for the problem they have created, and passing the buck to the TMO who, as usual are pleading poverty. Indeed Coleridge himself has already told us that additional funds for Grenfell type improvements to other parts of Lancaster West are unlikely to materialise from TMO budgets for at least three years, and maybe longer.

Meanwhile our local MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind, has responded to pleas for his help from both ourselves, and some of the worst affected individuals. Sir Malcolm has at least found a suitably compassionate tone, unlike Cllr Coleridge who until recently, and despite being repeatedly warned of this, seemed oblivious to the fact that there were many vulnerable residents right on the frontline, whose welfare had clearly not even been considered.

Nonetheless, even Sir Malcolm has resorted to the same tired TMO mantra that would seem to be part of the problem rather than of the solution.

Cllr Foreman, to his credit, has challenged Coleridge with the inescapable truth that provision of adequate measures to mitigate the worst effects of the building works should have been factored in to the KALC budget to begin with, but was conspicuously absent from the budget allocation.

However, the Grenfell Action Group has been banging that particular drum since last December, when the budget was approved. To our horror it included no provision of funds to mitigate the significant negative impact of the development on the local community.  And it’s not as if they might have inadvertently forgotten this. We have been banging on about it (and I mean BANGING) ever since day one, because we never really trusted this Council, and never expected fair treatment from them.

Of course, one of the problems we’ve had all along, quite apart from the intransigence of the governing Conservatives, is that our local Labour opposition councillors have been ambivalent right from the start, presumably because it was a Labour government which dreamed up this ghastly academies programme to start with. Labour councillors have thus found themselves snookered politicaly, and forced into supporting the KALC project even while increasingly having to recognise the real harm it will do to this working class, Labour heartland, community.

Who’d be a Labour councillor in RBKC?

Labour or Tory, they don’t seem to like this blog too much. Maybe that’s because we finally managed to find a truly independent voice by creating a forum in which they no longer control the agenda. In fact they control nothing here, because this is OUR VOICE. This is at last the authentic voice of our community, beyond their ability to control, censor or spin.

Hallelujah.

Reprovision Of Outdoor Sports Facilities

The Grenfell Action Group recently wrote to Sport England seeking their assistance and making them aware of some of the inconsistencies of the Council’s claims regarding provision of outdoor sports facilities to replace those which will be lost to the KALC development. The text of our letter is reproduced below;

“Dear Sport England,

As you are already aware, our community has serious concerns with regards how the Council intend to replace existing sporting facilities that will be lost as a result of the KALC project.  It appears that there will be a net loss in terms of five a side pitches that has not been satisfactorily resolved by the Council’s planners.

There are also concerns that the pitches the Council are providing as part of re-provision are not fit for purpose as they are located right next to a motorway and are subject to flooding any time there is any significant rain. This is not acceptable to our community!

It was very kind of you to take the time to visit Lancaster West Estate last year to witness yourself the way the sporting young of our community are being treated by those in power at Kensington and Chelsea and we hope that Sport England will robustly ensure that the Council’s statutory obligations with regards sporting provision are rigidly followed during the planning process and beyond.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require any further information or if you would like us to arrange another visit to Lancaster West Estate?

In the meantime, thank you for your continuing support with regards protecting our community’s sporting aspirations.

Kind regards,
Grenfell Action Group”

The Lancaster West sports pitches are well used, and are used most days by school parties from far and near. These will all have to go to the Westway Centre in future if they want to play outdoor sports. Even the new academy on the Lancaster Green site will have no outdoor sports facilities, except for a single rooftop multi-use games area (muga) about as big as a tennis court. We have been told this will be available for use by the community, but this will only be outside of school hours, and will of course be for a price.

The kids of Lancaster West are used to playing football for free on the existing pitches. They certainly can’t afford to pay through the nose every time they want to have a kickabout, and there is nowhere else on the whole Lancaster West Estate where they can have a kickabout.

In July 2010 Cabinet voted £75,000 to fund re-provision of the Lancaster West playing pitches at Westway Sports Centre. We have no reason to doubt that this money was paid to Westway Development Trust and used to convert two tennis courts at Westway to dual use. The courts in question were re-surfaced, and provided with removable five-a-side goalposts, but surely it wouldn’t cost £75,000 to resurface two tennis courts? Did RBKC really pay the Westway Trust £75, 000 for this work, and if so…..

Where’s the rest of the money?

In any case, this alleged ‘reprovision’ actually results in a net loss of sporting facilities locally, as the Lancaster West facility will be lost with no additional capacity gained at Westway, so how can it truthfully be called reprovision? This is re-provision in name only, and is just another part of the BIG CON being perpetrated by the KALC plannners.

Westway Sports Centre is a massive complex, most of which which is almost subterranean, beneath a spaghetti junction of motorway ramps.  Strangely they do not test air quality on the site. The nearest roadside testing stations are half a mile up the road at Ladbroke Grove Library, which is a stone’s throw from the westway flyover, and half a mile the other way in Hammersmith and Fulham.

Both of these stations record high levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulates, both of which are implicated in the massive asthma epidemic of recent years.  Children of school age are, of course, disproportionately affected by this condition.

According to the executive summary of the most recent RBKC air quality report;

“In 2000, the whole borough was declared an Air Quality Management Area on the basis that certain government air quality objectives, for nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, would not be met”.

We strongly suspect, and there is good reason to suspect, that air quality in the vicinity of the Westway Sports Centre is as bad as at any of the Borough’s worst blackspots.

So, apart from the obvious criticisms of this so-called re-provision that is not really a re-provision, on a site that is too close for comfort to motorway ramps, and that floods every time it rains, we are just a wee bit curious as to why RBKC considers it appropriate to concentrate so much of the outdoor sports provision for North Kensington in what is effectively a Minotaur’s Lair,  and why no-one seems particularly bothered about the air quality at this site,  given the fact that it sits underneath one of the busiest motorways in the country.

A Ballardian Interlude

Before we depart this Ballardian netherworld of motorway ramps, we thought we might indulge ourselves a little by showing some spectacularly bizzare pictures of spectacularly bizzare architecture.

One of our members, who played a crucial role in the birth of this blog, recommended that we try to spice it up a bit and occasionally get away from the excess of doom and gloom that our normal subject matter involves.

I don’t suppose this is quite what she had in mind, but ‘V’ this is for you.  You can find more of these pics via the link below;

Concrete Islands In Japan- A Ballardian Overview

NB Ballardian = JG Ballard, who wrote such classics of post-modern alienation as Crash, Concrete Island, The Atrocity Exhibition, and Empire Of The Sun, which was his most successful work, if only because it was adapted into a hugely successful epic movie by Steven Spielberg.  Some of Ballard’s best work was located in and around the Westway, which for obvious reasons captured his deliciously warped imagination.

The Double-Glazing Debacle

We were heartened to see yet another piece on the excellent Hornet’s Nest blog last Saturday, supporting our efforts and drawing attention to our plight. The piece entitled GRENFELL ACTION GROUP – YOU CANNOT GAG THEM  drew a number of comments from some of the Dame’s readers, among them this, from an anonymous but conscientous and public-spirited source (yes, dear reader, such people still exist);

“The Council have many questions to answer with regards the KALC project not least their cynical disregard for any democratic process during consultations.

The fact that the Council/TMO are forcing vulnerable residents to suffer unacceptable levels of noise and dust pollution during the construction of KALC is inhuman.

If 32 million pounds can be found for Exhibtionist Rd (and an extra million for a quick jolly) then surely a small fraction of this could be spent on protecting vulnerable and frightened residents on Lancaster West Estate?

SHAME ON THE TMO/COUNCIL FOR TREATING RESIDENTS WITH SUCH CONTEMPT!”

We at the Grenfell Action Group are fully aware of this most recent scandal arising from the slipshod planning of the KALC development,  and have received pleas for help from a number of affected vulnerable residents.

It seems that Cllr Coleridge, under pressure from local residents in the KALC Community Forum, came up with a spiffing plan to buy off some of these critics (and hopefully split the Grenfell Action Group at the same time).

He managed to scrape together £6 million to pay for essential improvements to Grenfell Tower. Of course most of these  works should have been completed years ago by the useless TMO,  but the TMO has a nasty habit of ignoring Lancaster West whenever it can.

The Grenfell Tower improvement plan includes double-glazing all the windows to improve sound insulation so that residents are not driven mad by noise from the academy construction site, and later from the 1200+ pupils who will attend the academy.

To Cllr Coleridge’s utter bafflement, before the ink was even dry on the Grenfell Tower plan, a great chorus of WHAT ABOUT US? could be heard echoing round the estate from the many other KALC victims who would not be benefitting from Nice Tim’s largesse.

One of these forgotten victims, who is seriously ill and lives in Verity Close, contacted us recently and copied us into his recent correspondence on this issue.  It seems the sainted Cllr Coleridge turned a deaf ear to this man’s desperate pleas for help, claiming that nothing could be spared from the £6 million, and there was no possibility of finding any more money.  It appears not to have occurred to Coleridge, the Cabinet Member for Housing, that he has a duty of care to residents, and a special duty of care to those who are old or ill or otherwise vulnerable.

According to Cllr Coleridge.

“The residents of Grenfell Tower will bear the brunt of the noise during the building works and they, being closest to the works, should be assisted first”.

Cold comfort to a sick man faced with the prospect of several months of constant noise and disruption right outside his windows, but I wonder if any of our readers can spot the deliberate error in Cllr Coleridge’s statement?

Any Verity Close resident could have told him that Grenfell Tower residents will not be “closest to the works” as Dim Tim insists. Indeed some parts of Verity Close are as close to the academy site as Grenfell Tower, and are a damn sight closer to the soon–to-be-demolished Leisure Centre. Indeed one of the Verity Close blocks is a mere 10 yards from the Leisure Centre. Residents of this block may count themselves lucky if they don’t have chunks of masonary falling on their heads.  Parts of Barandon Walk are also adjacent to the Leisure Centre site, and Grenfell Walk is next to the academy site.

None of these locations has passed Cllr Coleridge’s flawed proximity test, and will not be double-glazed.

And then there is also, of course, the Blechynden House/Whitchurch House complex along Silchester Road. This is a so-called ‘sheltered housing’ complex for some of the most vulnerable residents of North Kensington, the old and the sick.  Are they not entitled to the double-glazing that has been so arbitrarily gifted to those lucky enough to live in Grenfell Tower, and to have caught the eye of the willfully myopic Coleridge?

In our view it is unconscionable for RBKC to seek to provide double-glazing to soundproof Grenfell Tower, while ignoring completely the homes of these most vulnerable of residents, who will be more, and not less, vulnerable to noise and other nuisance caused by this major construction project.

The residents of Lancaster West, and of the entire borough, should rise up against this mean-spirited and unjust decision by the Rotten Borough’s Cabinet.  Of course, it’s just possible, although I wouldn’t bet on it, that Cabinet might not have approved this cock-eyed scheme if Coleridge had not misled them with his flawed risk assessment (Risk assessment? What risk assessment?).

We suspect that Tim is neither as dim, nor as nice, as he pretends to be, and that this whole scheme has more to do with PR for the hated KALC project than it has with genuine concern for Grenfell Tower residents, or for any other residents of this area.

Nice but Dim Tim has got a lot to answer for.

Location Of The Month

Let’s just rewind for a moment to June 2008 when Lancaster West Estate won the title of Location Of The Month from ‘Film London  – The Capital’s Film & Media Agency’ . The news was posted at the time on the website of the Film London Directory

Lancaster West had just been used in the making of the film ‘Adulthood’, the sequel to the 2006 film ‘Kidulthood’ written and directed by upcoming British film talent Noel Clarke.

Film London

According to the blurb;

“Both films take the audience deep into London’s underbelly, delivering a raw, hard-hitting reflection of what life is like for 21st Century teenagers, where sex is currency, drugs are easy to come by, and violence is a way of life.”

A spokesman for the film company said;

“The Kensington and Chelsea TMO were really helpful to us. We filmed on their property, often at short notice and within anti-social hours and nothing seemed too much trouble to them.”

And the TMO added;

“We welcome filming in the range of properties we manage in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and particularly like to encourage youth participation in these projects.”

All this mutual back-scratching sounds very nice for those involved, and the local community may even have enjoyed some small financial benefit from this. Indeed these film crew circuses are a common sight at Lancaster West. They descend on the Lancaster Road car-park, filling it to overflowing with equipment trucks and luxury caravans.

So what kind of films are they making down here in the ghetto? Not the latest Emily Bronte remake, that’s for sure. They’re making hard edged gangsta films based on twisted caricatures of our lives, and of the lives of our children.

Do we really need to be stereotyping our kids in this way? Do we really need to see them typecast as psychopathic juvenile gangsters, a lost generation adrift in the cold and pitiless nightmare world of London’s so-called underbelly? Isn’t it already hard enough for them to find their way in the concrete jungle without stigmatising them even more with all of this?

The days of the Potteries and Piggeries may be long gone, but the housing estates of North Kensington still represent, in the middles class imagination, all that is amoral and dysfunctional about the so-called criminal underclass inhabiting these inner-city sink estates and the alienated youth culture which it spawns.

So what’s the point of this little rant?  Well, the point is this – does anybody really think that stealing our precious little green-space, displacing our kids from one of the few recreational resources they can call their own, and replacing it with this monstrous carbuncle of overdevelopment, will contribute one iota to improving their lives and helping them to adapt to the social and economic chaos that surrounds them?

Not on your nanny.

All it will do is make it that much harder for them to find their way.