Ken Bates v Hammersmith & Fulham Council

17th November 1999 : At last ! Uncle Ken Bates has triumphed over the bureaucrats at Hammersmith Town Hall, finally getting planning permission to complete the West Stand at Stamford Bridge. An Independent Planning Inspector has overridden the bureaucrats and given permission for the stand to be finished. The reason behind the two year delay appears to have been because of a personality clash between the department responsible at the Council and Ken Bates, which developed after a row over the creation of a walkway from the ground to Fulham Broadway station. Chelsea Football Club have been at Stamford Bridge Grounds since 1902. The insistence on the walkway was a sop to the vested interests of a few influential (i.e. rich) local residents, (who are the only ones who can afford houses in the area) and the police, who will do anything to get football fans off the streets because it makes life easier for them. Most of these "locals" have been living there for five years or less. They knew full well that there was a football club there when they bought their houses, but STILL had the gall to complain about football fans in the area on alternate Saturdays. The walkway was seen as a way of keeping common louts (that's us) off the Fulham Road. Not a bad idea all round, as it happens, as it would have benefitted the fans also. Crucially, there was one small problem with the scheme: it was bollocks, and here's why: the Council insisted that the walkway was created by Chelsea FC as a part of the planning deal, and although Bates felt that he was being held to ransom, he initially agreed. The problems arose after several independent experts AND the Council's own expert found that it would be potentially dangerous, so Bates quite rightly refused to continue with it. In spite of this damning evidence, the Council used Bates' going back on the deal as a reason to withdraw the planning permission, revealing that Ken's suspicions that they had been holding him to ransom were well founded, to say the least.. This decision has cost Chelsea millions in gate receipts, not to mention the huge legal fees necessary to overturn it. As a local resident myself, I'm entitled to my opinion, which is that the people at the Council responsible for the ludicrous decision to deny permission for over two years, spending countless thousands of my and other H & F residents' money on huge legal and other fees, should be held to account and booted out of office. They have quite clearly exceeded their brief by using their muscle to enter into a pointless power struggle with a local businessman, thereby damaging not only their own credibility, but harming local people and businesses into the bargain. This sort of thing is par for the course. The Council have a history of making unpopular decisions with no proper consultation, a couple of examples being the traffic calming measures that are springing up all over the place like carbuncles, and residents parking schemes that are making the Council millions but don't actually help residents to park their cars. It's just a con to extract a yearly fee from car owners. Nobody asked me if I actually wanted these things. They didn't ask me if I wanted the beautiful old York Stone paving flags ripped up from my street and replacing with concrete ones, either. Needless to say, the bastards responsible for this latest debacle will get off scot free, thereby proving just what a joke the Council accountably representing local people really is. I will gladly give space here for anyone from Hammersmith & Fulham Council to give their side of the story, or to correct any inaccuracy in mine, but as usual I shan't be holding my breath... © Priesty's Chelsea FC Refuge.