H&F spends £38K on pro-council West Ken residents group

£38,000 of your cash has been spent thus far by our Council supporting a pro-Council group of residents from the West Kensington & Gibbs Green Estate, according to Inside Housing magazine.

This, regular readers will recall, is the plan to demolish the West Ken estate that has had the majority of residents up in arms for years, leading to protests inside Parliament and Mayor Johnson recently being confronted by the demand for a vote at a Council/Chronicle public relations event. Our Council Leader actually wrote a heartfelt personal plea to the relevant Minister pleading that he "really needed [his] help on this one". He certainly did - the residents were on the verge of using new Big Society legislation to evict the Council as a "rogue landlord".

Underlining just why this week's decision to impose a "need to know" rule on all future property speculator led planning applications is so serious for Hammersmith & Fulham, we now see that this administration is prepared to chuck tens of thousands of pounds at a group which toes the Council line. Nuff said.