The Nour Festival 2014 celebrating Middle Eastern and North African arts and culture October & November at venues across RBKC

Nour Festival announces its 2014 programme  News   Nour Festival of Arts 20 October - 30 November 2014 The Nour Festival, which celebrates contemporary Middle Eastern and North African arts and culture, takes place in October and November at venues across Kensington and Chelsea. The six week festival featuring music, film, food, exhibitions, talks and dance launches on Monday 20 October and runs through to Sunday 30 November. This year, the festival welcomes for the first time new partners such as the Finborough Theatre, the Electric Cinema and the Royal Geographical Society and Westway Presents. Read more »

The landed families of Grosvenor, Portman and Cadogan have been joined by a breed of corporate giants like Lend Lease, CapCo and Ballymore. 

The wave of developers buying up swathes of London includes Malaysia’s SP Setia, which acquired Battersea power station. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

The truth about property developers: how they are exploiting planning authorities and ruining our cities

Affordable housing quotas get waived and the interests of residents trampled as toothless authorities bow to the dazzling wealth of investors from Russia, China and the Middle East

.Extract from  the Guardian.....Across the country – and especially in superheated London, where stratospheric land values beget accordingly bloated developments – authorities are allowing planning policies to be continually flouted, affordable housing quotas to be waived, height limits breached, the interests of residents endlessly trampled. Places are becoming ever meaner and more divided, as public assets are relentlessly sold off, entire council estates flattened to make room for silos of luxury safe-deposit boxes in the sky. We are replacing homes with investment units, to be sold overseas and never inhabited, substituting community for vacancy. The more we build, the more our cities are emptied, producing dead swathes of zombie town where the lights might never even be switched on... Read More The truth about property developers:

No affordable houses available in the Borough

Friday, 18th July 2014

With the London property market enjoying a seemingly endless boom, buying a home has become a distant fantasy for most working Londoners. This is particularly true in Kensington and Chelsea where house prices increased by 14% over just one year (2012-13) and average well over £1million (according towww.rightmove.com).

Now a damning new report shows just how far out of reach home-ownership is for most of us living (and most likely renting) in the capital.

The report, published by the charity Shelter, reveals 99.7% of London homes are unaffordable for first time buyers. Shelter looked at the asking prices of thousands of properties for sale in the capital, on a given day, and compared them to mortgages that are affordable to average first time buyers capable of saving the standard 18% deposit. They found that, across the whole of London, only 86 homeswere affordable to the typical buyer, or 0.3% of houses on the market. READ MORE FROM KC&W Today

CATs Facts Friday The Chelsea set and a question of class and The Sutton Estate - Telegraph

The Chelsea set and a question of class - Telegraph

SEAN O'NEILL asks the people of a London borough interviewing tenants from the Sutton Estate, at the centre of a unique property battle whether they think the old social structures still exist.
more from this article in The Telegraph 2002 Read more

CATS FACTS FRIDAY Are all the people who live in Chelsea well off?

CATS FACTS FRIDAY taken from London Poverty Profile

RBKC is London in microcosm. It has the second highest average income in London, of £36,000. However, this prosperity is not shared equally, and the borough also contains above average levels of deprivation. This deprivation is almost exclusively concentrated in the north of the borough, with the five northerly boroughs of Norland, Colville, St. Charles Notting Barns and Golbourne each including at least one 'Lower Super Output Area' in the 20% most deprived in the country. Golbourne is the 8th most deprived ward in London, out of 627. Earl’s Court, Redcliffe and Cremome also include areas of disadvantage. 
Extract from London Poverty Profile Website view article here
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Osbournes - Month Long Waiting List

It has been brought to our attention that people on The Estate are having to wait over an month for an appointment to get a repair from Osbourne - this is not acceptable. Can you please email the committee or put  a letter through the  Cats Mailbox so we can compile a dossier to approach

Affinty Sutton HQ.

committee@catsinfo.co.uk