Just who is running the show?

A newsletter was distributed across the estate last week that appears to be from the Residents Association but on closer inspection appears to be nothing of the sort.

Our last post noted that the newsletter appears to have been prepared without the knowledge or consent of much of the Residents Association's Committee.

Of the twelve elected Committee members ten have stated that the first time they saw it was when it dropped through their letterbox.

That doesn't sound at all dodgy does it?

A further bit of digging has now revealed that:

• The newsletter was written with the help of, perhaps even entirely by, Council staff.
• The newsletter was printed by the Council.
• The newsletter was distributed by the estate's caretaker, a Council employee. 

And the photo of the recently anointed Chairman gracing the front of the newsletter was clearly taken in the Council's own offices. Probably by a Council officer (we wonder who?).

The Chairman. In the Council's offices.

That all sounds completely legitimate, doesn't it?

It's not as if we have Council staff effectively pretending to be the estate's Residents Association with the help of one particularly "helpful" resident is it? Of course not.

The newsletter states that a "residents meeting" is to take place this evening in the Cremorne Sheltered Clubroom. 

Again, most of the Resident Association's Committee, including the Resident Association's Secretary, knew nothing about it. It's clearly not a meeting called by the Residents Association in any legitimate fashion.

It hasn't been announced or advertised by the Council in any way. So it doesn't appear to be a Council meeting either, although we understand that a number of Council officers intend to be present (why? what for?).

The agenda is apparently going to include a discussion on the future of the Riley Arms pub, a den of iniquity, drug dealing, fencing stolen goods and other petty criminal behaviour at the end of Ann Lane that blights the lives of those living nearby, both on the estate and on the other side of the Kings Road.

The newsletter's author, whoever that may be, and whoever actually organised this meeting, clearly support whatever plans the pub's owners have for the place.

The Council, the freeholder of the property, appears to do so as well.

The only people who don't are the Resident Association Committee, many of the estate's residents and many of the estate's neighbours (and, unsurprisingly, they haven't been invited).

Does anyone else get the impression that the Council is making use of the newly anointed and clearly compliant RA Chairman to rush through unpopular decisions before the estate's residents, or anyone else affected, can do anything about it?

So much for the Council actually caring for its residents. Or having learnt anything from Grenfell.

We do wonder who at the Council thinks this is a good idea. A bit more digging is clearly in order, and once we start digging we are sure there will be much, much more to follow.

RBK&C dirt ahoy!