Few places can rival the London borough of Kensington in diversity. In the 19th century, new mansions sat alongside the cholera-ridden slums around the piggeries and brick claypits. A speculative racecourse came and went. More recently, postwar slum clearance created new housing divides and Portobello Road became a key London destination. Racial tensions erupted in the 1958 Notting Hill race riots, and in the 1970s the Westway motorway sliced through the north of the borough, reinforcing its landlocked character and poor transport links to the rest of London.
In 1965, following a major reorganisation of London’s government, Kensington was combined with Chelsea to create a new borough. In 2013, I became the leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council. Emma Dent Coad, the author of One Kensington, soon became the opposition leader, before going on to serve as MP for Kensington from 2017-9. She has now bounced back to lead the Labour party on the council again, doubtless with an eye to another crack at parliament. This book – a full-throated attack on the council’s record under Conservative leadership, which she characterises as indifferent and uncaring – reads like her job application.
Emma Dent Coad always seems happier to jeer from the sidelines than influence policy choices
Its basic premise is that Kensington is one of the most unequal places in the UK (hardly a revelation) and at the same time the ‘richest borough’ in the country. Undoubtedly some residents are extremely wealthy, but that doesn’t mean that the council is. It is as constrained as any other local authority; it has very limited tax-raising powers and is heavily dependent on government grants allocated on the basis of population and need.
Councils have a statutory duty to deliver specific services, as laid down by central government. They do not determine levels of universal credit, housing allowance, benefits or even rents. Over many decades, Kensington and Chelsea Council worked hard, within the tight constraints placed on local government, to improve lives and create opportunities for a hugely diverse and often rapidly changing resident base.
Dent Coad fails to grasp the fundamentals of local government finance. Admittedly, it is not scintillating stuff. The ability to raise revenue from council tax was first frozen, then capped at 2 per cent, (the council tax overall generally accounts for less than 20 per cent of local authority spending). She publishes a table showing falling levels of government grants, but claims that this was more than offset by revenue from business rates. It was not. These were set by central government, with councils collecting them on the government’s behalf. A complex formula then reallocated the proceeds nationwide.
The council’s grants income fell by more than 30 per cent from 2010-17, but 98 per cent of the services provided to residents were maintained. The fact that it had significant capital reserves is not uncommon, with total UK local authority reserves standing at £31.3 billion last year. Dent Coad is confused by the difference between the annual cost of running services and the need to build a capital fund to finance investment in infrastructure. She would, of course, spend the latter on the former, but the money would run out very quickly.
Over decades, the council focused on creating opportunities through education (the attainment gap between those in receipt of free school meals and those not was one of the lowest in England). Our schools were all rated as good or outstanding, while child protection and family support services were rated outstanding by Ofsted in 2016, which observed that ‘good social work flourishes in RBKC’. Even Dent Coad’s own figures show a significant fall in child poverty.
There is a substantive disagreement about regeneration. Of course it requires education, employment and safety to be addressed. But the physical environment (and particularly poor quality 1960s housing) requires attention too. Kensington needs more housing of every type. Dent Coad skirts this, and always equates regeneration with gentrification. Those 1960s estates now need refurbishing or replacing. The tragedy of Grenfell has halted this programme in Kensington and Chelsea, but the problems have been shown to be nationwide.
The author always seemed happier to jeer from the sidelines than influence policy choices. She had opportunities: she sat on the board of the Tenant Management Organisation when it was deeply criticised by external consultants. As a member of the Housing Committee she will have received regular reports on complaints about the priorities of the TMO. She led the Labour Group for a year, until her more practically minded colleagues dropped her. She even sat on the Mayor of London’s Fire and Emergency Planning Authority in the year before the Grenfell tragedy. She had unrivalled access to a huge reservoir of experience and information about housing and fire safety but never seems to have used it to any effect.
The flawed narrative in this self-styled ‘love letter to Kensington’ (it’s nothing of the sort) reveals Dent Coad’s narrow political vision and unflinching condemnation of all who do not follow her chosen path. Her supporters will love it; but the truth about Kensington is very different, and a lot more interesting.
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