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Mayor’s choices for his top team send chilling message
• YOU report that Boris Johnson has appinted ex-Westminster Council chief executive as interim head of the London Development Agency (Blue letter day for top Tories as Red Ken’s defeat frees up jobs, May 9).
According to Boris, Mr Rogers has a proven track record in Westminster of “reducing costs and implementing transparency”.
I would like to know exactly what Boris thinks “transparency” means. It seems to me that politicians and councillors live in a parallel universe alongside the rest of us, playing with semantics as their chosen language.
Mr Rogers was on the Building Schools for the Future team which decided that it was more cost effective to demolish Pimlico School and replace it with a new building which the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment have twice described as “not fit for purpose”.
Repeated attempts to see the detailed options appraisal through the Freedom of Information Act have failed. This lack of transparency and accountability is frustrating, especially when it is apparent that justification for Pimlico School’s demolition is founded on misinformation about its true state.
Reports stated that, for example, the cladding was dangerous. There is no cladding on Pimlico School. The convenient get-out clause is always used about “commercial sensitivity” but with no checks and balances, justification can never be open to public scrutiny. An earlier study had clearly shown refurbishment was the cheaper option, which would also have left the school better equipped with a swimming pool, its own library, dining facilities and better music provision.
Meanwhile, Sir Simon Milton, the leader of Westminster Council, has been given the job by the London mayor, of senior adviser for planning.
I question why he has been given such an important role given his scathing remarks about Pimlico School’s brutalist architecture.
He clearly has no power of vision if he truly considers the new Pimlico School building to be a worthy replacement of the old one. He has been the leader of a council more than happy to hand over Pimlico School and its site to a known venture capitalist and property developer, for “a peppercorn”.
This deal was brokered behind closed doors in secretive unminuted meetings at both the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Westminster City Council and following on from a sham consultation about the future of Pimlico School. As leader, he has also overseen the demise of a well respected Special Music Course, since Westminster, through Steve Farnsworth, the rirector of schools and learning, has refused the 10 per cent selection by musical aptitude to remain, and also refused to look into alternative funding streams for the course to continue.
That praise is given to Westminster City Council by Mr Johnson, and his appointments include key players from that council to be part of his new vision for London, sends out a disturbing and chilling message.
pimlico school parent name and address supplied
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