KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
RBKC residents love culture, and our thriving museums, art galleries, theatre and music venues are testament to that. But the ‘Independent Culture Review’ isn’t about the untold benefits of Opera Holland Park, who over the years cost us over £50m in revenue losses plus capital spending. They have been supposedly ‘independent’ since 2015, but their official address is still the Council offices in Pembroke Road, for which they do not pay, along with the six storage units and use of the Southern Terrace of Holland Park for three months a year - of which more in a future blog.
No, this ‘Independent Culture Review’ in nothing to do with the arts, it’s part of the Council commitments to be ‘the best Council’, ‘the best Council we can be’, ‘a better Kensington and Chelsea for everyone’ which is the new slogan God help us. It was announced on the morning of 21 October, which by pure coincidence was also the day of the first Full Council since July.
We have to hope that the 999th team of ‘scrutineers’ of the Grenfell Council have been watching earlier Council meetings this year, when in the lead-up to and since the local elections in May, the senior Tories were at their loudest, rudest, cackling, sneering and ridiculing opposition Councillors.
But – lo – on 21st they were transformed.
The regular attack dogs (all male) had clearly been muzzled or told to stay away. Instead, as discussion of the lovely cuddly Council Plan – priority number one for the Grenfell Council is apparently cleaner streets – and a cross-party Motion on the future of the Grenfell Health and Wellbeing Centre were debated, all was empathy, emoting and charm. As the rottweilers silently ground their teeth, the few amenable Tories had a say, along with a few shape-shifters.
An observer in the Gallery left early, stating it was ‘boring’. So it seems that between now and May 2027, when the Independent Culture Reviewers report back, all will be positivity and light. If they can keep it up, which frankly seems unlikely.
Sad to say the Labour Group is going along with this fantasy transformation, and the entire front bench of Labour Councillors trooped off to the Mayor’s Parlour for the ‘Council Supper’ with their overlords.
This – ladies and gentlemen – is the epitome of controlled opposition.
BAD PRESS
It is noted that the Leader of the Labour Group, clearly overwhelmed by their numerous duties, often fails to grasp the substance of Council reports and draft policies. They were apparently taken by surprise by the draft Council Plan … that had been consulted upon since May. Instead of scrutiny, as usual they descend into critiques on process, while effusively thanking officers and praising majority (Tory) Councillors. Waving or drowning? I think we know.
BAD PRESS OFFICE
The Cultural Reviewers might be interested to know that the profound hatred of poor people in the Grenfell Council remains embedded in the institution’s culture, manifesting in a refusal to be transparent on some important issues around Grenfell recovery.
The aforementioned aspiration to be “The Best Council” by 2027 has been quietly dropped by Elizabeth Campbell and co. But the press team won’t comment, unwilling to even acknowledge the downgrade from “Best” (also “Greener, Safer, Fairer”) to merely “Better”.
Better than what though? The pre-2017 RBKC?
If there was truth in that notion, surely they would have responded to our requests for any published information detailing the work of the council’s Independent Advisory Panel.
Do they not know where the information is? Or has it never been published because the advisory panel is too independent, and therefore off-script? Or is the panel another a tick box exercise, meant to convince milquetoast scrutineers and reviewers of the Council’s sincerity? If inconvenient questions are ignored, is this a better RBKC than pre-2017?
Another issue the press team won’t touch with a 10-foot pole is RBKC’s community engagement regarding the future of the borough’s biggest community space, Canalside House. Since striking a secret deal to sell the building to Ballymore in 2022, the press officers have not responded to our questions about Canalside residents and local people are being ignored, their protected characteristics disregarded, and how this replicates the exact attitudes of RBKC and its Tenant Management Organisation in the years before the fire and undermines the credibility of all of the Grenfell Council’s post-fire pledges to change.
Canalside Update
We hear there’s been sad news for the RBKC asset strippers. At a meeting with Canalside House tenants in mid-October, Council officers explained that the developer (or in this case, bulldozer) Ballymore had missed a deadline, meaning that talks to finalise the deal are on hold. Canalside tenants have a reprieve and RBKC claimed it would invest in the building.
However, the Council’s dream of selling off North Kensington’s community assets has not faded. Officers told residents their space is by no means secure; Ballymore and demolition remains the preference of the traitorous local authority.
Aside from the usual vague platitudes about ensuring the charities and African Diaspora groups will have somewhere to go, RBKC is not involving the community in decision making. Transparency and democracy are threats to the Grenfell Council’s true agenda, and any culture review that doesn’t acknowledge that reality will simply be a part of the Grenfell cover-up.
at the foot of Grenfell Tower, 2026
Rotten? is edited by Emma Dent Coad & Tom Charles. The Rotten? images are by Junior Tomlin.
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