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Comment by Francis on April 19, 2011 at 16:07

THE FIGHT CONTINUES

THE LEADER OF THE COUNCIL IS A COWARD. HE HAS REFUSED TO MEET WITH LOCAL RESIDENTS TO DISCUSS OUR LEGITIMATE CONCERNS REGARDING THE PROPOSED ACADEMY.
SO, IF HE WON’T COME TO US- WE WILL HAVE TO GO TO HIM!

Your support is therefore urgently requested this coming Wednesday 20th April  in the Public Gallery at The Council  Meeting Room, Kensington Town Hall, Horton Street, London W8  between 8pm and 9pm in order to add our support to the following resolution put forward by Councillor Blakeman that requests that the Council:

1.    arrange a public meeting between Estate residents and representatives of Government, the Sponsor and the Council to hear residents' concerns; and
2.    in order to take fully into account the views of the local community expressed during the consultation on the Supplementary Planning Document, the Council will also ensure that:
a.    the Estate's Council-designated public park at Lancaster Green is retained;
b.    no vehicular traffic will be permitted on the new road between Grenfell Road and the Silchester/Lancaster Road junction, other than that which is necessary to service the school; and
c.    the residents' right to the quiet enjoyment of their homes as enshrined in their tenancy agreements will be preserved at all times."

The Conservative members of the Council are set to ridicule this resolution, refuse to support it and, therefore, deliver residents into a future living hell.

We must attend the Council Meeting to tell them this is not acceptable.

PLEASE MEET OUTSIDE THE EMB/CARETAKERS OFFICE ON LANCASTER WEST ESTATE (end of Grenfell Rd.) AT 6.45PM.


                             GRENFELL ACTION GROUP

Comment by RBKC Planning on November 17, 2010 at 18:21

The survery is now online. Please have your say at http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/consultation/kcalc/kalc_spd.htm

Comment by Francis on November 12, 2010 at 1:13

The Council chose this site without consulting, and without any regard to the needs of the local community, by which I mean the Lancaster West community. Now, it seems we are being invited to help choose the wallpaper etc. For us this is like being invited to re-arrange the deckchairs on the Titanic. What an insult, and what a disgusting lie, to pretend that this is genuine consultation. The consultation is a sham, and always has been.

The site is located right at the heart of the Lancaster West Estate and the Academy development will severely impact all residents of Grenfell Tower and any other parts of Lancaster West in that immediate locality, who are dependent on Grenfell Rd for their access needs (including emergency and service access). Because of poor urban design, emergency access to Grenfell Tower has never been adequate. Greatly increased traffic flow in the Grenfell Road area, caused by this latest ill-conceived over-development, will make it even more dangerous and inadequate.

Lancaster West is a densely populated inner city housing estate, with all the social problems that you would expect to find in such an area, including of course the perennial problems of alienated and disaffected youth. Dumping a thousand more teenagers into the mix will not help any of these problems, and will surely make them worse. If there were enough space available to create some separation, it might not be so bad, but there is no space. The site is too small. The academy will sit cheek by jowl next to Grenfell Tower and there will be no room to move, or to breathe, or to swing the proverbial cat.

The chosen site also encroaches on essential amenity space which belongs to Lancaster West Estate. This space, on the west side of Grenfell Tower, accomodates a number of social amenities including a boxing club, a creche, a community centre, and the only play space available for the preteens of Grenfell Tower and adjoining areas. All of these facilities are directly threatened and the playground will certainly be lost. Where will the children play? Does anyone in authority actually care about that?

There are other problems with the siting of this development which the Council has chosen to ignore. Lancaster Green which occupies a large chunk of the site, is a public park in a London borough with an acknowledged scarcity of open space. The Council’s ‘Unitary Development Plan’ and ‘Parks Strategy’ both contain commitments to resist development in park areas. Parks and open spaces are also protected under Planning Policy Guidelines issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government, which require that a careful assessment be conducted which clearly shows an open space to be ‘surplus to requirements’ before any development can be considered on the site. In my opinion a proper assessment of Lancaster Green could not reasonably reach such a conclusion.

I wrote to Councillor Cockell and the rest of the Cabinet in July raising all these issues, but received no meaningful response. Presumably this means that the Council did not assess the likely impact of this development on the Grenfell community before deciding to steamroll it through. It seems equally clear that there has been no open space assessment as required by Planning Policy Guidance.

I copied the local Labour Councillors into this correspondence and for a while they seemed to be supportive. They helped organise a public meeting in September which was attended by nearly 200 local residents, most of whom were very angry at the Council’s plans, and made this abundantly clear. However, the same Labour Councillors subsequently voted in support of the Tory plans in a meeting of the Council on 13th October. With Labour support it was unanimously agreed to proceed with the development. I wrote to the Labour Councillors again recently, challenging their apparent duplicity and again raising the Planning Policy Guidance issue. I asked them to pressure the Council for compliance with the Guidance. I am still awaiting their response.

Now the Council are talking again about consultation, but there are strict limits to what they want to discuss. They are encouraging local residents to participate, as though there were something real to be gained. What a lie! What a sick joke! Something stinks here. Something is rotten about this whole planning and consultation process. I daresay there is something rotten about this whole Council and this whole Rotten Borough.

Comment by RBKC Planning on November 11, 2010 at 17:09

We are just finalising the survey and this should be online in the next few days, please bare with us.