Council cleared of wrongdoing by leasing buildings in deprived area in lead up to Grenfell fire

By Julia Gregory, local democracy reporter

Kensington and Chelsea Council’s leader has apologised that the West London council did not put the community first as it sought to make millions by leasing buildings in one of the most deprived parts of the borough in the years leading up to Grenfell.

Conservative leader Elizabeth Campbell who took over after the fatal fire in June 2017 said although an independent report by Kroll did not find any wrong doing, as the council tried to maximise income for services, residents weren’t put first.

“We should all apologise for that.

“No wrong doing doesn’t mean we got everything right,” she said.

The report looked into the way the council sold off leases for a range of buildings in North Kensington in the  six years  between 2010 and 2016 leading up to Grenfell.

It comes before the council is due to give evidence at the Grenfell Inquiry which is likely to look at how the council responded to residents.

The deals  included  the controversial  sale of Wornington College’s Kensington Centre which the council bought for £28.6m, to build a mix of private sector and affordable homes and a college.

After the Grenfell Tower fire it sold the building  to the Department for Education for £10m, making a loss of £18m.

It also leased the building under the Westway where a community information centre was based to private schools. However they then sublet part of the building to Pret a Manger causing community anger.

And the council had planned to dispose of North Kensington Library on Ladbroke Grove to the next door prep school and build a new one. The move was scrapped after Grenfell.

Another deal referred to the Isaac Newton teacher training centre in Lancaster Road after the council agreed a £2m-a-year rental to the Alpha Plus Group which wanted to open a school there.

Community groups including the Friends of North Kensington Library and Save Wornington College fought to oppose the moves.

Edward Daffern who was involved in the Save Wornington College campaign and survived the fire at  Grenfell said the Kroll report “goes a long way into capturing the culture of a local authority that had metamorphosed into an agent for property development, an organisation that treated the North Kensington community with contempt while playing its perverse game of monopoly with our public assets.”

The council halted its disposal of property after Grenfell.

Mr Daffarn is speaking at an Our Library Saved event organised by Friends of North Kensington Library on Saturday (March 13).

The independent report found the council had “a proactive and commercial approach to generating revenue”.

It said the council aimed to generate revenue which “ultimately benefited the communities and residents of the borough”.

However it pointed to issues including lack of timely scrutiny.

The chair of the housing property scrutiny committee only became aware of the decision to lease the North Kensington library to Notting Hill Prep school seven weeks later. He said the committee “would have expressed serious concerns about the lease”.

And the committee met three weeks after the Cabinet approved the acquisition  of the Kensington Centre which was just a day before contracts were exchanged.

Council leader Elizabeth Campbell apologised to the community for what happened at an audit scrutiny meeting which discussed the report’s findings on Monday.

She said although the report cleared the council of wrong doing, “It’s pretty clear to me that before 2017 the council did not find the right balance between financial benefits and social benefits.

“And too often the council placed a narrow goal of generating commercial income above the broader aim of delivering benefits to the wider community.

“We fell below the bar on consultation on transparency and on scrutiny. We can’t say hand on heart our residents were involved every step of the way because patently they weren’t put first.”

Councillor Emma Dent Coad whose Golborne ward is one of the most deprived in London said: “I read over and over again in utter disbelief.

“It comes over and over again that the documents weren’t shared with councillors.”

And  Labour’s cllr Dent Coad who  became Kensington MP just days before the fire at Grenfell said: “It’s nearly four years since Grenfell. I don’t want to hear that phrase ‘lessons learned’ again.

“The council is still not transparent,” she said.

“Within those six years (between 2010 and 2016) one of those issues that should have been dealt with was the economic well-being of  the north of the borough.

“One of the reasons for buying the college was “the economic well being of the area will be improved” – and it clearly would not have been.”