Kingston Council consultation farce

Conservative run Kingston Council likes to consult its residents.  So much so it launched more than a dozen important consultations over the summer holidays.  This of course has the advantage of making it as difficult as possible for residents to participate.  And when your council leader enjoys a symbiotic relationship with some of the biggest property developers in the country, local residents just get in the way of maximising corporate profits.

So I was somewhat surprised to receive the other day a letter from the council asking for my views about a local housing issue.

The letter however includes a bizarre explanation of council incompetence, "A consultation process took place during April and May this year...Unfortunately residents in two roads, did not receive consultation letters... While this was rectified in August where 140 residents received a consultation pack, unfortunately 20 residents in York Road were still missed ...This has come to light very recently.  We appreciate that this is an unsatisfactory situation..."

One has to wonder just how seriously Kingston Council takes its duty to consult its council tax payers - especially as they have told neighbours they won't engage with them until after the decision is made.

Kingston Tory leader's Cannes flight mystery

Kingston's Tory Council Leader, Kevin Davis is determined to change the face of the Royal Borough with a series of  developments of increasing scale, height and numbers of luxury home and decreasing numbers of affordable homes for local people. 

Kingston's jet setting Council leader

While cutting youth centres and old folks' homes and putting up the council tax he has set up a £4m fund to encourage even more of his developer friends into the borough.  So it was of little surprise that he swanned off to Cannes in March for the annual property and booze fest that is MIPIM spending more than £4,000 of taxpayer's cash in the process.

So what did he get up to during his three day, four night Riviera junket?

According to my FoI request Cllr Davis attended three dinners courtesy of Scape Group, Countryside and the City of London Corporation.  He had drinks with the President of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a 'think tank' (whatever that may be) with the Mayor followed by lunch, drinks courtesy of Barrett and half an hour with ex England centre half Rio Ferdinand - who was apparently doing some sort of a double act with Housing Minister Brandon Lewis.  Strangely, Ferdinand appears to have no connection with property development whatsoever, so one can only imagine what the purpose of that meeting might have been.

To be fair to Cllr Davis, it wasn't all pleasure he also packed in a large number of meetings with the great and the good of the UK property scene including:

• Countryside Properties - based in Brentwood, Essex
• Berkeley Group - based in Cobham (one junction on the A3 from Kingston)
• Tellon Capital - based in London W1
• British Land - based in London W1 (and currently redeveloping a shopping centre 50 yards from Kingston's Guildhall)
• Atkins Global - based in Chelmsford, Essex
• Public Sector Plc - based in London N3
• Hadley Property Group - based in Covent Garden
• Bouygues Development - based in Canning Town
• Thinking Place - based in Hull
• St William Homes (Berkley) - based in SW8
• Barratt London - based in Tower Hill
• Transport for London - based in Victoria
• U + I - based in Victoria
• Anthology - based in London WC2
• Buro Happold - based in London W1
• Ktesius - based in London W1
• Downing - based in Liverpool
• Lend Lease - based in London NW1
• Ocean Village - appears to be a marina in Southampton
• Scape Group - based in Nottingham

One has to ask whether the same could have been achieved with a couple of zone 1-6 travel cards and a day return or two?

Which brings me neatly on to the most curious revelation - Cllr Davis appears to have forked out (from the public purse) £458.07 for a Nice to Cannes return flight. Now Cannes is a mere 17.5 miles from Nice airport and Cannes airport has no scheduled flights.  However there is a half-hourly helicopter service.

Azure Helicopter offer just such a service stating gushingly:

"Have you always wanted to make an entry in Cannes like a star? How about to land on the Croisette in a helicopter ? To mark the 2016 Film Festival and other events in Cannes ( MIPIM, CANNES LIONS FESTIVAL YACHTING, etc) AZUR HELICOPTER airline offers flights between Nice and Cannes in just 7 minutes, comfortably, and with stunning views on the Croisette!"

And at 160 Euro (+50 for a hold bag) each way the bill is spookily close to £458.07 once converted to good old British pounds.

According to the Cannes or Bust website the express bus takes less than an hour from Nice airport to Cannes and costs just 33 Euro return (or about 20 quid).

So did Cllr Davis 'make an entry in Cannes like a star'?  And did the poor old council tax payer stump up for it?  I think we should be told...

Edit - the kind people at the Kingston's Residents Alliance Facebook page have pointed out Ferdinand does indeed have a property connection through his initiative called the Legacy Foundation. 

Kingston Council leader proves David Cameron's maxim about too much tweeting...

The Surrey Comet has more.

Interestingly, despite twice being Leader of the Council, Kevin Davis has never won a borough wide election in Kingston.

Kingston Tories in palace coup

In a political coup worthy of Ken Livingstone's ousting of Andrew MacIntosh 24 hours after Labour taking control of the GLC in 1981, Kingston Tories have dumped their election winning leader just seven days after taking contol.

And in a move that will delight local Liberal Democrats, the Tories choice to lead the council is Kevin Davis.  Hapless Davis is well known to Lib Dems beyond the Royal Borough's boundaries - pledging (and failing) to oust David Laws in Yeovil in 2010 - just as he had done to Edward Davey five years earlier.  As a result of his lacklustre campaign in Kingston and Surbiton he was unceremoniously dumped by the voters of Berrylands Ward (scene of the 'Good Life') in 2006.

He is however not new to the leadership of Kingston Council, having been an executive member in the 1998-2002 Tory administration and Leader between 2001-2002 before losing the following election heavily.

As leader, the competence of his administration was in stark contrast to his overblown rhetoric:

He pledged to cut council tax, but under his watch it soared by 50%.  Davis was the first leader of Kingston Council to levy a tax of more than £1,000 a year.

In opposition he attacked the Lib Dems for increasing council staff numbers, failing to realise that under his leadership of the council a record 238 new staff were recruited in 2001/2. (The year the Council Tax hit £1,000).

He also made a fool of himself over several controversial schemes in Berrylands ward -where he attacked the Liberal Democrats for implementing them, when they happened under his watch.

And in a tear jerking post on his blog in 2007 - after losing out in the Tory parliamentary nomination for Kingston and Surbiton he said, "clearly my future no longer lies in Kingston".

But now in a puff piece in the local Kingston Guardian newspaper he is described as a 'PR guru', when in fact he runs a consultancy who seeks planning permission for property speculators.  This includes working for the developers of the controversial Surbiton Filter Beds scheme - which was finally defeated by residents (with the support of Ed Davey and the Lib Dems) after years of campaigning.

It promises to be an interesting few years under his leadership.

Former Kingston councillor to become MEP

Right wing Tory MEP Roger Helmer has announced he is quitting the Conservative Party and the European Parliament at the end of the year.

Liberal England reports that his place on the list will be taken up by one Rupert Matthews - an eccentric writer and self styled expert on alien abductions.

This Rupert Matthews is the same Rupert Matthews who was a councillor in Surbiton and managed to lose his seat twice in eight years to the Liberal Democrats.

Matthews was one of the young(ish) very right wing Tories who took over the Conservatives in Kingston and Surbiton in the early 1990s. Their extreme views and ousting of the moderate old guard meant that a 15,000 Conservative majority at the 1992 election was overturned by Edward Davey in 1997 by just 56 votes - despite the seat not being targeted by the Liberal Democrats centrally. Instead of learning the lesson Matthews and his cronies persisted in picking even more right wing candidates - resulting in Davey's massacre of former Tory MP David Shaw by 15,000 votes in 2001 and Kevin Davis by nearly 10,000 votes in 2005.

In the interim they split the local Conservatives in two - resulting in Matthews's ward colleagues resigning the party and the two factions ending up in the courts over plans to sell off their Surbiton HQ and club.

Matthews is a worthy successor to Helmer and shows that the old unacceptable face of the Tory party is alive and well - but worrying about imaginary aliens rather than European ones.

Incidently Matthews prodigy Kevin Davis - who lost to Ed Davey in 2005 - went on to be soundly beaten by David Laws in 2010.