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| Poster at yesterday's demonstration |
Brent Council had referred the matter, first revealed back in September, to the police although they appeared to take a considerable amount of time to give them all the information and open channels of communication. The emails, in favour of Andrew Gillick's redevelopment plans, used names and addresses of local residents without their permission. To add insult to injury those residents many of them were opposed to the plans.
I find it hard to understand why, in these circumstances, the police are not taking action. The developer stands to gain thousands of pounds if his development is given the go ahead, while elsewhere in the now infamous Iceland case the police were ready to prosecute people over removing discarded food from a skip.
Campaigners had argued that Gillick's revised planning application should not be heard until the matter of the fake emails had been cleared up. The police decision not to pursue the matter hardly clears it up and any new application will be heard in an atmosphere of suspicion.
Meanwhile, in another sub-plot, All Souls College, has claimed that it was Brent Council that forced them to take action to remove the Kensal Rise pop up library. The Kilburn Times LINK yesterday reported that All Souls College had been told to remove the pop up by Brent Council planning enforcement officers and that they had delayed until the last minute in the interests of the community. After the story had been published both Muhammed Butt and Cllr James Denselow tweeted that
"we decided not to take enforcement action...All Souls College initiated the removal of the pop up library" Brent Planning HeadTo add to the general murk it appears that Brent Council had known for some time, and certainly before Butt's late night tweet, that the police were not pursuing the fake emails issue.
All Souls College yesterday told that student newspaper Cherwell that the 'hysterical twitosphere' LINK had misrepresented the incident. Their story contained a statement from Cluttons, the All Souls estate managers who organised the demolition of the pop up library:
Following an extensive examination of the various options put forward for the future of the former library building, the College considers that a sale to Kensal Properties, and their proposals for the property, provides a viable long term future for the building.A passerby has contacted me to say that furniture was being removed from the library last night.
This proposal not only meets the College’s Charities Act obligations, but it also provides for a community library facility. In order to progress with these plans, and for health and safety and insurance reasons, the property has had to be cleared.
Commenting on the Cherwell story Stephanie Schonfield said:
UPDATE: At lunchtime today Lorraine King, News Editor of the Kilburn Times tweeted:As per last night's BBC Radio interview:
1.Why didn't the College post warning notices on the Pop-up or in the local press - a month, a week, or even a day before - advising residents to dismantle the structure or face the consequences? Instead, bullyboy All Souls sent in a bunch of heavies - in the middle of the night - to smash up this inner city community's initiative.
2. Half the Pop-Up Library didn't even stand on College land, yet All Souls destroyed that too. The smashed structure, lovingly built and maintained by locals, was chucked in a van and the books dumped on the roadside in the rain.
3. The Pop-Up had won the support of the Council's Lead Member for Libraries, Cllr Roxanne Mashari, who, alerted by distressed residents, visited the site just hours after the demolition. Ward Councillors also supported the Pop-Up, which became a site for poetry and book readings, children's storytelling and carol singing.
I've an email from All Souls College saying they removed the pop up library in Kensal Rise after they were contacted by Brent CouncilThe email was sent on Friday evening and Lorraine has said she will be following it up on Monday.
How can any incumbent Councillor involved in this fiasco remain in office as after Local Election.
ReplyDeleteThey can't be trusted.
The problem is who can be trusted ?
Oxford colleges betray the wishes of dead authors;estate agents smash up libraries; hedge fund profiteers take over local schools; the Labour party colludes.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Spivocracy.
And Celebrity Big Brother is won by Jim Davidson. ( I'm told).
DeleteIt is possible (quite easily I understand with the right equipment/expertise) to perform an electronic trace, to establish where those fake emails emanated from? I hope that has been done prior to the decision not to prosecute.
ReplyDeleteThe Pop up library was and is an illegal structure. It was illegal, breaks planning laws, is trespass, is squatting and was a total eyesore. NOT EVERYONE in Kensal Rise is sad to see it being torn down. The council and the College turned a blind eye to this for long enough. Frankly it should have been torn down the day it was put up. Anyone that says it was not on private land needs to get their eyes tested. It is time the Hippies take all their junk off the pavement, put it in the back of a converted ambulance and toddle on off. There you have it a Mobile Pop Up Library.
ReplyDeleteI should remind you other Boroughs allowed innovative social enterprise models.
DeleteSadly Brent drove a wedge between the community.
It might not look a pretty picture, but you have to give credit to the campaigners.
Once a community build is lost it is gone forever.
Why should Mr Gillick protentially profit from a community asset and probably sold to foreign buyers not local people ?
The pop up library is a symbol of community assets being sacred and should not be sold to the highest bidder no matter what the price!
The voice of the echt Spiv at 18.55 above. Thanks for reinforcing my point so eloquently and with such bitterness..
DeleteHello Jim Davidson at 18.55! Didn't take you long to get back on form and ranting , did it? Relax. Spend your winnings. Enjoy yourself for a change.
DeleteHad Brent Council exercised more ingenuity in how to reduce their spending (not to mention stemming where they waste our council tax; £98,000 on an opening ceremony; £15,000 on a Team-of -the-year etc... etc...)and maintain our services in the first instance: there would NEVER have been the need for a Pop-Up Library! Why also don't you reveal who you are 'anonymous'?
DeleteDaniels will probably be in there selling these flats in 6 months..... poachers turn gamekeepers for a fist load of dollars...
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with 18.55. Not everyone thought this act of squatting and making the area look shabby was noble. Quite the contrary Friday was a great day for Kensal Rise and one i hope we will move on from. This symbol of Hippy revolt has come to an end alleluia!
ReplyDeleteMohammed Butt's late-night sneering tweet to Michael Calderbank claiming that Brent Council had 'provided all the evidence and police not pursuing' the fake email business fails to inspire confidence in the council's, let alone the NFIB's, handling of this grubby affair.
ReplyDeleteAn official statement from the council on the matter is needed urgently. Brent was contacted by the police on 21 January. Does it take 10 days - and the shameless destruction of the pop-up at the Kensal Rise Library site - before the release even of this snippet of information - and, then, in this personally antagonistic and entirely unsuitable fashion? Bad news burying even worse news? Michael Calderbank was simply asking about progress of the email investigation.
Some immediate questions that demand public answers are:
- Why have the police decided not to pursue the matter?
- Has the council probed this decision? If not, why not?
- Was Andrew Gillick interviewed by the NFIB (National Fraud and Investigation Bureau)? If not, why not?
- Was the NFIB told of the apparent sub-letting of Mr Gillick's St Mary Mansions Paddington flat at the time a comment using that address was posted on the Barham Library planning application site? Two comments using that address appeared a couple of months earlier on the Kensal Library planning site.
- Was any attempt made to try and trace the fake emails, as Margaret Smith asks above? If not, why not? As a computer expert confirms: 'it could be very easy if...no precautions [were taken], and difficult or impossible in other circumstances'. This is surely where the occupancy of Mr Gillick's Mary Mansions flat at the time of the three planning comments could help resolve matters?
The computer expert went on to say: 'It's not very clever of Brent to collect comments via a system that is this easy to spoof. They could easily take a few precautions, [otherwise] this kind of thing will only become more frequent'. Fortunately, it seems that the council has now beefed up its system of online comment in the wake of this nasty affair. But
'[t]he police decision not to pursue the matter hardly clears it up and any new [planning] application will be heard in an atmosphere of suspicion' (Martin Francis, above). Precisely.
It seems that a further planning application from Andrew Gillick is expected to be lodged shortly.
The council's lax system enabled the email scam. The very least it must now do is publicise the reasons for the police's decision not to proceed and prosecute. Planning matters around the Kensal Rise Library building can only become even messier without the utmost transparency by the council.
Footnote: 'hippy' references, as below, also featured in the online planning comments supporting Mr Gillick's application. It's unclear whether they were found by the council to be amongst the fake emails passed to the police.
Meg Howarth
Ironically
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/leader_of_brent_council_shortlisted_for_digital_award_1_3258155
LOL!!!
DeleteLet's storm the building and move the library indoors. Anyone know if the heating works?
ReplyDeleteYou have to admire the slickness the eviction was done, no one say it coming.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see if plod show and of it on Crimewatch.
A knock knock at 5am shame it was not televised. LOL.
Did anyone see Tom Seaman and Andrew Gillick there or were they wearing disguises?
Did they use the pieces of the pop up to keep the fire going and themselves warm out in Oxford?
Now they are the important questions.