Sof McVeigh

Great progress! #homes #Kensington

E bikes are a great way to get around - but if you park them badly... Watch out! #Kensington #Chelsea youtube.com/shorts/zZNa0m9…

Colour popping magnolias on the colourful streets of #Kensington! @rbkc #nottinghill

Fantastic that the Council made this work. We 'Stepped up for Step-Free' @rbkc #SouthKensington

Here in black and white is the impact on @RBKC , its residents and its local charities. All being punished by the incompetents in Government and their local stooges @josephpowell and @ChelFulhamBen

What was an £82m black hole in our finances has increased to over £100m. As a sleight of hand they’ve now lifted the council tax referendum. Meaning the choice is to punish residents with inflation busting tax rises or drastically cut services.

After months of supposed lobbying, Inner London MPs including @josephpowell and @ChelFulhamBen have managed to make their boroughs worse off! I know that when Labour negotiate the country loses - but I didn’t think they’d all be quite so able to make a bad situation worse.

After all the mayhem, the pre-budget briefings and Treasury hysteria about OBR growth downgrades, it turns out that if the chancellor had done precisely zilch yesterday, she would have almost met her main fiscal target, to generate a surplus on day-to-day spending. The miss would have been a rounding error £2bn. In fact, without her humiliating welfare u-turns - on disability benefit reforms and means testing the winter fuel payment - she would have hit that target by a slim £4.4bn. In other words the funding benefits of the £44bn of tax rises in last year’s budget were not wiped out by the Office for Budget Responsibility’s decision to downgrade its productivity and growth forecasts - for all the Chancellor’s very public frustration with that downgrade. Her fuss over the downgrade - which did happen, and which added £16bn to the deficit five year’s hence - was a red herring, a canard, a conjuror’s “look over there, not at what am I actually doing.” Because the OBR simultaneously calculated that the yield from existing taxes would fill that productivity induced hole almost twice over! So this was in no sense a fiscal and economic crisis budget. Her £26bn of tax rises were the Chancellor’s choice, not a necessity. For her personally and for her prime minister however there was a political crisis. Because they feared they were losing the confidence of Labour MPs and could lose the confidence of investors. So pretty much every penny of that £26bn in higher taxes had a political purpose - to placate MPs who wanted Starmer’s government to show more zeal in helping families on the lowest earnings, to cut energy, prescription and rail bills, and to prove to investors they are not red Liz-Trusses by adding £12bn to the headroom or buffer against future shocks. The big unanswered political question is whether placating Labour MPs and the mega investors is also addressing the nation’s priorities. On that hinges how Labour will perform in those important May elections, and whether the eviction of Reeves and Starmer is cancelled or merely delayed.

Rishi Sunak had Starmer and Labour bang to rights on taxation. “Mark my words, Labour will raise your taxes, it’s in their DNA”

Admiring the old - with the new - glazed tiles at Knightsbridge, important to keep our design heritage #knightsbridge #London @RBKC

This is *insanely* bad. Astonishingly bad. Unbelievably bad.

@KirstieMAllsopp I loved that tree too, but sadly Storm Amy didn't... @RBKC have planted hundreds of new street trees and love all our old ones too.

At a wonderful @macmillancancer coffee morning, organised by Karen and Alexandra. Lots of chats, cakes and a great cause. Thank you both & the @cadoganhotel #knightsbridge

Just chaired a councillor training for council homes. Lots of good info. #Housing @RBKC

Great to see this unused basement area being transformed into a new community room with residents at Bramley House. @RBKC #Kensington #Housing

Palm trees in North Ken! On Swinbrook Estate, looking magnificent. @RBKC #Kensington #trees

Just had a good meeting all about Social Housing and what is needed. @RBKC #Housing #Kensington

Lots of good tips in our new booklet about your home - useful as the seasons change. #Housing @RBKC

Over the last three years, housebuilding in London has collapsed. Molior recorded just 2,158 private starts in the first half of 2025, around 5% of London’s (low) targets, and still falling. What is going on? I have posed this question to numerous specialists, most of whom cannot comment publicly for professional reasons. This thread is a summary of what I have gleaned.

Pomegranates on Pavilion Road, Chelsea! Looks stunning. #Chelsea

Essential to have a local Housing Hub where residents can get answers in Chelsea on our largest Housing estate there. #Chelsea #Housing