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.
Yours faithfully
A. Resident
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