Borough of the very rich and very poor

From: Ken Walsh, Tunstall, Richmond.

I HAVE read with interest the horrendous findings being revealed at the public inquiry with regard to the Grenfell Tower disaster.

At the age of 18 in 1964, I left home in south Leeds and joined the Civil Service in London. My last job upon retirement was spent working in the Square Mile in the City of London – departing in 1991 and moving to the Yorkshire Dales.

In the 60s, the Civil Service Commissioners housed in Burlington Gardens located posts for both sexes but guarded the new arrival’s welfare by the fact that they provided hostel accommodation for male and female employees housing them in segregated hostels.

Several of these establishments were in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea – the borough administrated at the time by the GLC, the Greater London Council. I lived off Cromwell Road.

May I suggest that if one was to ask for famous brands or affluent locations springing to mind when the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is mentioned, the likes of Harrods, Sloane Square and Belgravia come to mind.

But having spent several years in west London passing through the affluent areas, the disparity in wealth is astounding.

Prior to my arrival in Kensington in 1964, there had been riots among the Cypriot immigrants in Notting Hill. The consensus of opinion at the GLC at the time was to ensure that the reputation of the borough remained unstained.

I am in no doubt that the term social housing is a no-no in the vocabulary of the borough and either by default or design hundreds of people housed in Grenfell – many on zero hours contracts and many having three jobs in order to survive, sadly became the victims of an atrocious tragedy.

One can verify my own observations by catching a Tube train from 5.30am onwards. All the carriages are full of office cleaners – many of whom complete their tasks by 8am and travel to another job on minimum wage and have no job security. My son-in-law verifies my own findings because like many staff employed in the City he catches an early train in order to use the private gym housed in his international bank located in the Docklands.