This proposal is a pure revenue generation idea. It is highly detrimental to residents struggling to find spaces. The Council does not allocate permits to new developments because it knows that residents’ spaces are at a premium so why offer to second home owners?
Below is your chance to make sure this crazy idea does not come to pass
The Council is carrying out an informal consultation on the proposal between 10 January 2025 and 23 February 2025, and we will also carry out a statutory consultation on the proposed traffic order changes in February for three weeks. All comments that we receive in the informal consultation will be automatically recorded in our statutory consultation as well.
We would be grateful if you could send your response to our inbox before the closing date of 23 February 2025.
Our MP, Joe Powell is an honourable man. He is also a leading expert on international money laundering. One hopes he has made his views felt to the PM on the Anti Corruption minister. She sounds a real poacher turned gamekeeper.
Tulip Siddiq should not wait to be fired: she should have resigned as soon as the early Times revelations appeared. It is about all prospective MP’s were checked out by the security services. It is quite wrong that the onus is on the media to protect us from dodgy MP’s.
When Siddiq goes the obvious replacement is Joe.
How fortunate we are to have investigative journos.
Investors have lost millions ‘investing’ in Rory Campbell’s football betting syndicate. They now intend to call in the police.
His father, Alastair, presumably assisted his son in getting up to Oxford.
Campbell Junior boasted that he spent the majority of his degree time playing poker, watching football and betting on football: what a waste of time and a place.
It could have been better used by someone serious with a desire to benefit society rather than a feckless Labour aristocrat.
Campbell Senior worked for Bob Maxwell and was one of his most loyal defenders.
Judge Williams claims the decisions of the social workers involved were “not obviously flawed” and the decision of a judge to send Sara to her father’s home was “indicated by faithful application of law and practice mandated”…..what the hell does this mean?
No wonder faith in our institutions is at rock bottom
He droned on: “In this case, the evidence suggests that social workers, guardians, lawyers and judiciary acted within the parameters that law and social work practice set for them.
“Certainly to my reasonably well-trained eye, there is nothing, save the benefit of hindsight, which indicates that the decisions reached in 2013, 2015 or 2019 were unusual or unexpected…..so that’s ok then?
The EU is an absolute hate of Trump’s so what better to piss him than appointing an ex-EU Trade Commissioner. Mandelson was appointed because of his experience in trade negotiations but we shall have to see how that turns out.
Mandelson’s income will now soar to around £300k a year….not bad for a retiree and better than the dosh he would have collected as Oxford chancellor.
A better appointment would be one more congenial to a complicated man like Trump. But as is the way in British politics we can’t resist the ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’
The Dame was a good friend of Mandelson’s dad, Tony….he was a charmer too!
More than half of people in the UK receive more in benefits than they contribute in taxes. A total of 52.6pc lived in households that received more from the state than they paid to the Treasury last year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Everyone has a story to tell of non-doms or high-rate taxpayers fleeing the country.
At least, this group pay taxes or creates employment. Instead of encouraging international investors, we push them away.
By driving them out the burden of funding essential services will fall more heavily on already struggling and hardworking working people who do give more than they take.
The judicial appointments team ask heads of chambers for nominations…a happy moment for the chambers. “oh yes”, says the head of chambers enthusiastically as he names the deadweights he’s desperate to rid himself of.
No one would suggest Judge Williams, the one-time Legal Aid officer, arrived in the High Court this way….but….
Below is Judge Williams from a 2015 leaflet when he contested Wycombe for Labour and lost badly.
JUDGE WILLIAMS…
The Guardian has written a sober piece about Judge Williams and his ban on the naming of fellow family court judges. The big question is why Williams refuses to name three judges. These duds badly failed the murdered and tortured Sara Sharif
From the Guardian, “The high court judge who banned the media from reporting the names of the fellow judges who oversaw three sets of family court proceedings relating to the murdered schoolgirl Sara Sharif, on Friday night refused permission to appeal against his decision.
The reporting restriction protecting judges’ identities that was made by Mr Justice Williams on Monday is thought to be unprecedented in relation to family court proceedings.
Two reporters who specialise in reporting on the family justice system – the authors of this piece – lodged the first press application in September 2023 for court documents relating to child protection concerns for Sara Sharif. Backed by Tortoise Media, they will now pursue their application for permission to appeal to the court of appeal against the current judge’s upholding of his decision to anonymise the previous judges.”
The papers released to the press show that one judge presided over all three family court cases, which included two sets of care proceedings brought by Surrey county council, and one private law application made by Urfan Sharif asking the court to agree that Sara and her sibling could live with him. On a single occasion, a different judge made an emergency protection order.
In a democracy, it is the norm that judges are named in relation to cases over which they preside and the decisions they make.”
We often complain about the media but when the Establishment closes ranks we desperately need them. Well done, The Times and Guardian for attacking this judge.
We all believed it when Labour claimed the mantle of the party of business. What a mistake we made.
On a battleship in the Baltic Starmer the PM said, “I mean, I want economic growth, but that economic growth needs to come through changing our planning rules, through changing our regulatory environment, not simply going back over old ground.
Only a lawyer could claim that changing the planning rules would be the growth engine. Nothing at all about encouraging enterprise.
This government has shown itself to be deeply antipathetic to business.
As for Joe Powell…. he doesn’t seem to care too much either.
Labour’s error was not seeing Wes Streeting as the future.
Joe Powell has been proactive in curbing this two-wheel anarchy. It goes beyond thoughtless dumping of bikes.
E bike riders have been responsible for dangerous riding leading to deaths and injury. They have also been used in street crime. Only docking bikes should be allowed.
“Lessons will be learned”.….the usual mantra by councils when they have frequent foul-ups.
The murder and torture of Sara Sharif will lead to much soul searching.
Surrey County Council had a hapless reputation before this tragedy but questions are now demanded of its futile leadership.
Joanna Killian, (left)former chief executive of Surrey county council; Dave Hill, its former director of children’s services; and his successor Rachael Wardell
Killian was upbraided for taking a salary in excess of £200k before becoming CE of the LGA. Hill, now dead, got a gong and Wardell was in charge when her staff ignored all the danger signs.
But the big question is this. How many of Wardell’s team worked full-time in the Council offices?
When the Dame asked about RBK&C home working no one had a clue
Children’s care cannot be properly managed in a joined-up way when child protection officers are working from home.
“Back to the office” should be the mantra and no excuses.
The Council PR department is finding new wasteful ways to get through council taxpayers hard earned money. This particular one is just gruesomely embarrassing.
In fact, it so bloody awful Price-Thompson has had to get staff to put up supportive comments! No one bothers to read K&C News…just another cost.
On one side is a renowned educationalist, Professor James Tooley; on the other an ex-director of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain who favours huge black square glasses and modish haircuts…not so very University of Buckingham!
Step forward Liverpudlian tecchie, Mark StJohn Qulater. Qualter is chair of the University of Buckingham’s governing body.
How he got the job is a mystery. He describes himself as a merchant banker but none of the Dame’s City titan friends know of him. His company, Control Now Ltd, seems to be run from serviced offices in Convent Garden….nothing wrong with that the Dame supposes but…..
Here’s the odd thing: this University is libertarian, anti-woke and very much a child of Thatcher thinking. Qualter is a bit of a New Statesmen reading, sandal-wearing bore…..hardly the most suitable leader of this radical right uni. More to the point, his CV tends to ‘glisten’ and seems not the stuff of senior academic leadership: much more suited, say, to the Uni of Lyme Regis IT faculty.
Could there have been a clash of cultures between the highly liked and well-regarded prof and the seriously boring Qualter?
Qualter’s precipitate actions are now the subject of a high-level investigation. Qualter has much explaining to do….
A Fulham resident was surprised by a clamour outside his home.
He popped out onto the street to see what was going on. Imagine his surprise when he was assailed by the Foreign Secretary who greeted him like a long-lost friend asking how he was.
The conversation went like this:
“Hello. David Lammy. How are you?” “Not very well “ “Oh dear – why?” “Because of the budget” “Oh dear. What was wrong with it?” “Well, it’s going to cause unemployment and put up inflation “ “Is that because of the NS changes?” “Yes, partly “. “Oh here comes my car. Got to go now. But your new MP Ben is just over there and he’ll be able to talk to you about it”. And off he sped……..
Persuading RBK&C’s FoI department to come clean on costs is like pulling hens’ teeth.
In the last couple of years just under £2 million has been spent or budgeted for.
This is a huge amount of money. The PR department under Price-Thompson has become an empire with around 16 staff beavering away. It would be understandable if there was tangible evidence of some sort of positive outcome but that is not the case.
The Dame knows a little about the PR Game. Over the years she has consistently advocated outsourcing to a grown-up consultancy or sharing the resource with neighbouring councils.
The publicity material put out by the Council is just embarrassing and unread and whatever advice is given to the Leader still leaves her floundering.
It is time the winds of change blew through the Council and a new, younger, leader untainted by the past put in the driving seat.
Is Henry Tufnell MP backwards in coming forward(back in image)?
There is nothing contemptible in an aristo being a Labour MP.
What is contemptible is pretending to be what you are not.
If Tufnell had been open about his background no one would have given two hoots. However, his gauche efforts at clambering up the greasy political pole by pretending to be common (like the Dame) are just embarrassing.
Wayne Ting, boss of Lime claims the council needs to ‘give’ his multibillion company more space. His words are his smooth as his looks.
Ting….Smooth operator
No matter now much space you give his riders they will still feel entitled to drop bikes as the fancy takes them. This is why on every London street we see the results of his company’s miss-management. He attempts to claim he is on some sort of divine social mission to enhance our streets. Most of us think he is looking to make easy money out of public spaces. Santander manages to have a socially responsible docking system but that costs money.
This is what Miss Pleasant, a PR operative for Lime wrote in response to yet another complaint. She also claims to be replying on behalf of a ‘Dominic’ who is responsible for Forest ‘excuses’.
Thank you for your email and sincere apologies for the issues you are experiencing at Hans Road and Walton Place, this is not acceptable. I am responding on behalf of myself at Lime and Dominic at Forest to let you know that we take these issues incredibly seriously and will be looking to take action here.
Both operators have a system of warnings and fines for users who do not park appropriately. Repeated offenders are also banned from our services. We also have teams of staff who monitor bays, redistribute overcrowded vehicles and tidy bays such as this. We will allocate additional resourcing here to ensure that we are keeping on top of these locations and moving vehicles away from them swiftly.
The issue here is caused by overcrowding as a result of high demand, we will be working with the council to see if there is further space that we can add parking to reduce pressure on the Hans Road bay as well as private parking locations in the area.”
Miss Pleasant attempts to present this as an isolated incident: it is not. It is greater London wide and is the result of lousy logistical planning by a money making private equity backed monster.
It is time RBKC got to grips with this. There is a mass of legislation it can deploy yet the officer involved seems out of his depth and passes the buck back to Miss Pleasant.
If you park your car badly it gets a fine and /or impounded. The Council should be doing the same with these bikes.
The Planning Inspectorate has ridden roughshod over houseboat dwellers, RBK&C and all who love this stretch of our river. The ‘Mysterious Moffats’ have been allowed to park their hideous mega boats despite 100% opposition: what a negation of democracy.
The Inspector’s decision can be challenged in the courts if there has been an error in law. If that is a possibility the RBK&C should fund the challenge.
The Dame’s many long-term fans will have followed this story for years. RBKC’s traditional markets are controlled and protected by parliamentary legislation: the London Local Authorities Act 1990. Council charges for market services must be “reasonable” and agreed with licensed street traders. Unreasonable, unagreed charges are unlawful. All unspent revenues must be returned to individual traders. The Market account is currently £200k in credit; funds are owed back to the traders.
RBKC has long proved itself incapable of tolerating the existence of publicly owned assets, particularly in the north of the Borough. Numerous, attempts have been made to steal and/or destroy them. These are a few fairly recent attempts by RBKC to sell off and/or demolish:
*North Kensington Public Library – RBKC declared the interior stone staircase unsafe for children. Despite this, the building was leased to a private primary school. When the public objected, RBKC ‘reversed’ the lease.
*Morely College provided higher education for N. Kensington residents, for decades. It was set in spacious grounds; so was sold to a ‘private’ educational company – be demolished for luxury flats. Several hundreds residents attended a public meeting. RBKC’s Cllr Taylor Smith publicly announced the reversal of the sale. The College now flourishes.
*Portobello Court – 300 flats. RBKC drew up early plans to demolish the estate; replacing it with private luxury flats + shops. The Chair of the Portobello Court Residents Association knew nothing of the plans. Lawyers for the Grosvenor Estate wrote to RBKC. If the flats were to be demolished; the Estate would take back ownership of the land on which it sits. Shortly after WW2 it was leased in perpetuity to Kensington Council for public use. No more has been heard of the plan.
*The Old Laundry and half the playground in Colville School was sold to a private French Nursery. The Nursery had recently lost its lease. Enquiries followed.
The Nursery owner was a baronet, who had evicted his own business from his own villa in Oxford Gardens.
No Colville School parents or local residents had been consulted over the plan.
The husband of an RBKC councillor was then Chair of Governors. Once the story was made public, RBKC backed off and Colville School continues to thrive.
Returning to the Markets; RBKC has long ’secretly’ planned to steal Portobello & Golborne Markets from public ownership. It will sell assets it does not own to the highest bidder. Successive public consultations have failed to deliver the result required to move forward. In 2017 RBKC published a report local tourism. Portobello Market has 6 million visitors a year. In 2019 Cllr. Faulks’ report on the local economy provided a detailed analysis of the Borough; without a single reference to or image of Portobello or Golborne Markets. In 2022 a rash of licence applications mysteriously appeared for hospitality tables and chairs to replace market traders. The public objected. All the applications were rejected. In January 2023 RBKC omitted to advise the public of 3 alleged public meetings to be held on one day. All were allegedly to discuss the future of the Markets. Days before the phantom meetings, the Dame published details. Hundreds of residents attended. By evening Cllr Kemahli rode back on the plan. Yet the current, £100k+ public consultation seeks to ‘improve’ Portobello Road, while co-incidentally preventing future market trading. This is the 4th or 5th consultation that’s failed to garner the required support for RBKC’s supposedly secret plan. Local residents know what’s intended and continue to refuse to accept the destruction of 500 people’s livelihoods. Kim Taylor-Smith claims to have “dealt with” the Grenfell survivors and now intends to “deal” with the street traders in a similar manner by unilaterally forcing up rents and other expenses. This, apparently without thought given to the possibility that by doing so, RBKC may breach parliamentary law.
To protect residents, street traders and the public; this is a matter for the Leader of the Council; Chief Executive and Borough Solicitor. It is their duty to uphold the law and protect the public, rather than support the ambitions of a local politician.
The Dame is a bit of a PR expert. She knows the tricks PR people get up using pseudo-scientific nonsense to get leaders to ante up more dough.
Mr Price-Thompson, the K&C PR boss, has built up a huge empire convincing Elizabeth Campbell all her troubles could disappear by pouring out endless drivel read by no one.
One bit of wisdom was to persuade those celebrating Diwali to use electric candles as normal candles caused fires!
The Dame decided it was time to see how much Thompson and team cost taxpayers.
Such information should be available at the touch of a button so why is her FoI taking weeks to answer?
No council needs an in-house PR team.
PR would be economically and efficiently managed bought in from external consultancies.
The Milner Street Area Residents’ Association holds it 2024 Annual General meeting on Thursday, 28th November at St Simon Zelotes Church at 7pm.
After the meeting, there will be a party so residents can meet with local luminaries and, importantly councillors, the police and Joe Powell MP.
Peter Bazalgette, described as the most important man in British television, will give an address. The Dame was fascinated to read that his parents never allowed him to watch television until he was 12. What are his thoughts on smart screen usage by the young?
Those flooded by sewage a few years back might also get his views on Thames Water’s poor upkeep of our sewage system…Peter’s Victorian ancestor engineered the first effective London sewage system.
MISARA is a very proactive campaigning association.
We complain that our views are frequently ignored but MISARA is a powerful vehicle to amplify our voice and thus deserves our support.
I am a former employee of Inc&Co. Despite exiting ….. years ago, I am still in touch with many great people who work in the companies and many people who have left over the years and here is some information to help provide factual information on the setup.
Dylan is not actively involved in the day-to-day operations of any of the companies he claims to have ‘founded’. Neither is JM. Instead, Dylan meddled and focussed his time at the group level, likely skimming off profits, racking up legal fees and ‘removing’ £13.7 million from Barclays. JM focus in group was craving validation spending all this time in the mirror or on his failed quest to become the next Steven Barnett, as a LinkedIn influencer. Neither one of these two individuals have any credit to take for any of the companies successes under the umbrella.
All company finances are centralised at Inc&Co, with decisions on payments tightly controlled at the top with an iron grip (THE FD who reports into SD). this includes the lack payment of staff pensions and also sale fees to former company heads. Individual businesses have no access to banks, budgets or funds and everything is managed and owned by Scott and hidden behind multiple layers of finance personnel within Inc&Co. JM was nothing more than a puppet craving attention, a distraction from the real operator and most likely developed by Dylan to take the fall. The staff at Inc&Co and the businesses have had the rug pulled from under them. He is a master fraudster and it beggars belief that Barclays have allowed this devastation. He doesn’t operate in plain sight, he hides behind multiple layers of group staff given he has no value to offer any of the companies. Most people haven’t even seen him in the flesh. Sometimes he would turn up for the odd board meeting refusing to put his camera on, but mostly he would use the sessions to discuss himself and his prior successes, a great opportunity for him to Gaslight the domain experts in the companies themselves.
Scott claims to invest in these companies, but in reality there is no investment, he siphons money, avoids paying creditors, and destroys thriving businesses. He’s a compulsive liar who thrives on manipulation. When challenged, he doesn’t hesitate to threaten livelihoods, pulling companies and jobs as leverage. He often takes to LinkedIn to spew abuse, masking his actions with smoke and mirrors all over the press and claiming complex PTSD. There have been many instances where JM has challenged SD and staff have been left unpaid. Despite being JM grade A arsehole, SD is the puppeteer. The FD? Few question marks there.
A RARE TRIBUTE FOR ALLCOCK FROM A PENTONVILLE PRISONER. IF HE IS SO GOOD AT SEARCH RESULTS MAYBE HE COULD SEARCH FOR INC FUGITIVES?
We know that Mr Dylan likes changing his name. Here that he has changed name yet again…. to Dylon!
When the Dame was a young thing she tie-dyed her T shirts with Dylon
The journalist’s trade mag, Press Gazette, the New Statesmen and PR WEEK have investigated PR Fire, Manchester PR company run by one Sam Allcock. It claims that he runs a series of websites purporting to be independent local news sources.
Below is an another Allcock ‘publication. 2 issues. 1. the genuine Financial News is not happy with this passing off. 2. Dave Antrobus listed as a journalist is on the run so one assumes ‘working remotely’!
PR Week the trade mag also looked into Allcocks’s activities…
These websites are nothing more than vehicles for paid releases put out by Allcock. Some of the stories on his various websites have been written by one Scott Dylan. The Dame has comprehensive evidence that Dylan, now serving time in Pentonville for contempt of court, is well known to Allcock.
From the ALLCOCK MEDIA GROUP!!!!Some of Allcock’s ‘papers’ go under these titles…the Bolton Gazette, Rochdale Gazette and Manchester Gazette. He has several others. We should be told whether Allcock was paid by Dylan. Step up to the plate, Allcock and tell us.
It would not be so bad if these ‘newspapers’ were standalone but they are not. They all connect back to Allcock.
Many K&C residents got badly burnt when on the run convict, Jack Mason, bought it. Deposits mysteriously disappeared and complaints soared on Trustpilot over quality and dire customer service.
Until very recently Mason was still running it but scuttled back to Spain when the police wanted to chat to him.
With an arrest warrant out on him and Judge Rajah attempting to seize assets the business is now in the hands the hands of a man who also claims to be resident in Spain. The word on the street is that Mason has passed over control to his friend, Bradley Coulson. The Dame thought that Mason was barred from transferring assets so what’s going on? Jonathan Sen….can you help us?