You’ll find our suits doing the Lambeth Walk

(L to R: Sue Foster, Iago Griffith & Rachel Sharpe)

These days  we  have more suits  (senior staff) than ever before and also less accountability  and transparency than ever before.

The RBKC  Leadership Team  (Cabinet) do keep telling us that there will be no regeneration – so why are they hiring so many suits who have cut their cloth in regeneration in other London urban areas then? Let’s look at three from Lambeth….

These suits do not come cheap: Sue Foster – now our Director of Planning and Place  received a £90K “golden goodbye” from Lambeth  bedore arriving here and Rachel Sharpe   – received £84K.  Before she danced off to Lambeth, Rachel was  Head of Strategy and Regeneration at Southwark. But Rachel has itchy feet  and has recently walked off to  sunny Brighton

Rachel “Wendolene” Sharpe was here for a  short and unremarkable time – this post is pretty much all most of us got from her all expenses paid flying visit  to the Royal Borough – she will not be missed- and we wonder how much she was paid off?

Both Rachel and Sue had been singing and dancing around Lambeth for some time and are not too fondly remembered by residents there  as they are two of the suits behind the  controversial regeneration and the destruction of several  social housing estates.

Residents of low rise Cressingham Gardens  have been fighting an incredible campaign to save their homes. Read more about this here

Sue Foster before arriving at RBKC,    was “playing the spoons” as Strategic Director of Neighbourhoods and Growth at Lambeth. Foster didn’t just attack social housing though, Network Rail’s redevelopment of Brixton Arches   – which came with termination of leases and rent increases to small businesses  by as much as 300% was aided and abetted  by Foster and her Lambeth colleagues.

A fitting tribute to Foster and her Lambeth colleagues at Brixton Arches

Before she was at Lambeth, between 2002 and 2008, Foster was the Assistant Director for Regeneration and Planning at Hackney but in 2006, Hackney council was heavily criticised by the Local Government Ombudsman in three reports for failing to take action on planning breaches over several years

The Ombudsman had said “There were very serious failures, with delays in taking action of several years. It is fair to say the planning department was in a state of complete disarray,” but that didn’t stop Sue from remaining in her post, getting an OBE for her services to planning after being nominated by her friend, Hackney’s Chief Executive and going on to bigger things.

Iago Griffith is not as much of a senior suit as Foster and Sharpe, but he also danced over to us from Lambeth where he was  one of Foster’s underlings and working in – you guessed it – regeneration He is now  supposed to be a Resident Engagement Officer at RBKC but is rarely seen or heard from. Most of us wonder what he is doing here, but we guess that his former boss Mrs Foster put in a few good words….

Back to  local matters in Kensington and From The Hornets Nest reporting on Harry “Bimbo” Hart and his controversial (to say the least) plans for a supposed “luxury care home” at Avon House, Allen Street here

We were warned  by our Lambeth friends about Sue Foster coming to Kensington before and the warnings appear to  have been on point, as she is trying to steamroller the Planning Comnittee and is flying in the face of residents’ objections (127 of them so far) by pushing   for this schene that will bring nothing to the area and wil impact heavily on the lives of the  people nearby – see this From The Hornets Nest blog post

Worryingly, the “Quality Review Panel” that our council now has set up, seems an easier way to get schemes like this through as well as any possible regeneration schemes. We wonder if this was Mrs Foster’s idea?

This comment, below,  from someone  regarding how Sue Foster allegedly has  behaved towards residents in her former borough,  below, is far from reassuring, and so is the nickname that  Lambeth locals give her: The Grim Reaper