Thursday 28 February 2008

Buffy in Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury sounds so different from Holborn and St Pancras, but the London enclosed by the Euston Road, Gray's Inn Road, the river and the Tottenham Court Road is one entity bound together by its gardens and squares, its universities and libraries, hospitals and research institutes, Inns of Court and professionals' pied-a-terre in pretty edwardian blocks, its museums and art collections, and diversity of shops and restaurants. Bloomsbury conjures up georgian splendour while Holborn and St Pancras brings council blocks to mind;both are here and as integrated as the population, in all their diversity.

Which is why we all put our stakes into our handbags and coat pockets and went to the Stakeholder Workshop on the Bloomsbury Corridor (refreshments provided), despite the effort it took to find out where and when - having emailed our acceptance of the inaudible invitation. They had underestimated our bush telegraph. And us. They've been doing that for ages; they want to end the community that lives in such a desirable, central quarter between the City and the Government; we aren't their sort. So spurning their sandwiches and juice, we set to on the vampires of undemocratic governance.

They fought hard. Each stake holder was required to state name and number - and the names rolled: the British Museum (a Slayer and his Watcher);the University of London (a lone Slayer but with wonderful braids);the Vicar of St Pancras (he had no stake with him but his church, with its caryatids, has one of the finest organs in London); the chairpersons of the Bloomsbury Square, Russell Square, Tavistock Square, any Square you can bring to mind, (and their Watchers); the Marchmont Street Association, traders and residents (Slayer and Watcher); our local, elected Councillors.....and a resident Angel.

They had us sign in and leave addresses; our lips curled like their sandwiches.

Then the self-designated Chair of the meeting told us the order of business: the last item would be Questions and we would possess our souls in patience until then as there was much to get through.

Item 1 - Welcome. We all understood how welcome we were and the platitudes petered out.
Item 2 - Project Background. Woburn Place, east side of Tavistock Square, Russell Square, Southampton Row, and Kingsway into the Aldwych needs to be turned into a race track for the Olympic delegates and press who will be quartered here. A barrage of questions and well-yielded stakes turned presumptions (and presumption) into dust. The agenda collapsed.

The Transport Liaison Officer of Camden (lead apparatchik) was separated from the Consultants, who took their chance to begin demonstrating (with passion, and film and graphic representations) their alternative plan for the reconstituting of a unified series of Bloomsbury Squares and the ending of the division of the quarter by the trafficking of Russell Square.

Slayers, Watchers and Angels, backed by their Councillors roared them on with helpful contributions ( notable was the Slayer for Russell Square who explained the Acts of Parliament governing the great Bloomsbury Squares and their design and planting; the opinion that there was a sub-agenda to cut off grander, institutional west Bloomsbury from livelier, residential and trading East Bloomsbury, as there has been for decades so that East Bloomsbury's poorer sectors can be 'redeveloped', was greeted with cries of 'Well said, that Angel' from the West Bloomsbury grandees, who eat, shop, and go to the pictures too. )

Camden's apparatchiks seized the Chair from the Consultants, who had the bit between their teeth by now, and were showing film from European cities of re-pedestrianisation techniques, and discussing plans for a great North Entrance to the British Museum from Montague Street, linked by these means to the University of London Senate House area (both of these public and private spaces being currently used as coach and car parks), for social mingling. "It is not your brief to discuss the coach parking which is crucial to the Olympic needs" the Lead Apparatchik roared in pain as stakes sank into him. Mingling, not coach parking for Olympic delegates, was winning. And, worse, the assembled company, whose joint IQ, and social, cultural and political connection was stratospheric, were demanding that he speak up, speak clearly, use consonants, stop mumbling, and sit up properly.

The Marchmont Street Traders and Residents were in tete-a-tete with a charming and clever Consultant on the enhancement of Marchmont, through Brunswick, across Coram's Fields and on to the Grays Inn Road; it emerged that this was the object of a separate 'Study' of which no hint had got out. Stake holders handed in their emails and credentials for that meeting too.

The Camden Lead Apparatchik finally got order and faced a cold and ceremonious questioning. The British Museum was surprised this was the second Stakeholder Workshop, what of the first? The University of London had heard nothing of any of this either; as Bloomsbury's main resident it was odd. The Chairman of the Bloomsbury Residents' Association noted that the Camden apparatchiks seemed unaware that 5000 people, many of them shift workers at the hospitals, lived where a coach park was planned for a sports festival. The Councillors enquired where was the public consultation and were given the astonishing reply that 'public consultation' would come when the Executive was good and ready.

At this point a sub prime Apparatchik stood up and began photographing the people present. The Vicar remarked that was a bit much. The photographing and videoing continued.

Walking home, it was agreed that we had seen just a flank of the monster that is the New Order - the arbitrary powers, the pretence of consultation, the hidden agendas, the sheer scale of contempt for us all, even major institutions that are not part of the Project. Most of all, the loathing by all involved, even the Consultants, of the new Order's programme.

But who are they? And why do they want to spoil the world?

13 comments:

Nick Drew said...

This is really interesting, HG. They will next be asking you "how can we make this work for you ?", the empty buzz-phrase that goes with these things

i have had a 20-year association with part of the area (Brunswick / Coram), and though no longer a Stake-holder am cheering you on

hatfield girl said...

They will need the Conway Hall for their next stake holder workshop ND, and Kevlar vests.

A Councillor who lives in Lambs Conduit street said he'd entered politics the day he walked across Brunswick Square on his way to work and saw the demolition of the lovely houses to build Seifert's Brunswick Centre, so that's 40 years at the coal face and he was soooo knowledgeable about what they are up to - again.

During one time-wasting peroration I whispered that I couldn't grasp the apparatchik's point. His point is arrant nonsense, was the ringing reply, he's preventing discussion.

The British Museum senior had stepped straight out of Le Carre's Colonial Office mandarin mould, and the University of London had a large, hardbound, black memorandum book in which she ticked boxes ominously and wrote detailed comments to prepared heads. These two ARE Bloomsbury, but had failed to make the cut for the first stake holder 'workshop'. They said they were 'astonished' to have been left out, who had qualified to be included, and 'dismayed' at the informal means by which they had come to be there. We can do informal means, oh yes.

It was the dash for Goodness, Merit, and Professional Integrity
by the Consultants that shook the Apparatchicks and heartened us all.
Remove the railings, end pedestrian herding, ban the coaches, limit the black top, build up and enhance the public realm (lovely usage) with soft demarcations, slow the traffic, (send it north on Tottenham Court and south on Gray's Inn Roads was a popular view, and by tram, not buses).

They kicked at a stone and found it is the tip of a mountain. We kicked at a stone and found the New Order vermin crawling out from under.

More news will follow as 'informal' swings into action.

Nick Drew said...

the Handel Street irregulars

hatfield girl said...

The T.A there was to have been knocked down in the Seifert advance, but joined the resistence long ago. They're still there, doing manoeuvres round the Renoir.

Anonymous said...

Goodness me! I am flabberghasted at the sheer unbridled insolence of these people. How dare they think they can ruin one of the oldest and most elegant areas of central London just to house Olympic delegates and participants for a week or two! Good for you and your cohorts for standing up to them so vigorously. More power to your elbows.

In an effort to be helpful, may I suggest the construction of a tent city on Blackheath and in Hyde and Greenwich Parks? Lots of room there for a couple of hundred runners, jumpers and hangers-on. And it comes with the advantage that costs will be manageable and any temporary damage can easily be remedied when this expensive carnival has left town. The tents and other equipmwnt can then be donated to Save the Children or similar.

Elby the Beserk said...

Don't really know Bloomsbury, apart from getting stuck in a one way system there many years ago, with a VW van full of warring children. Not sure I've ever been back. Hadn't realised it was being despoiled, but am not surprised, governed as we are by utter Yahoos. When will we be rid of them, they make my gorge rise.

Last instance, Jacqui Smith on R4, being told by John Humphreys that it is illegal to seize the assets of people who haven't even been charge, gaily trilling "Oh, we're going to change the law".

So there ya go. They need the power to do something, they change the law. Paging Mr. Fawkes, paging Mr. Fawkes.

hatfield girl said...

The 'needs' of the coach companies have to be discussed with them and met, Nomad, and No there would be no tram until 'far into the future' after the Olympics, if then, it didn't play a part in Olympic planning. Bloomsbury has been decided upon as the Olympic delegates and press area. Who by? the various Olympic planning agencies and Transport for London, etc. Under what powers? Delegated from enabling legislation and Orders.
What powers have they got? Who knows.

This Olympic monster is bigger and with all sorts of tentacles than imagined - a vehicle for taking liberties with our liberties, apart from being sports event, which is bad in itself.

Anonymous said...

"but the London enclosed by the Euston Road, Gray's Inn Road, the river and the Tottenham Court Road"

Not sure about the river - unless there is one flowing under New Oxford Street.

I'm not sure all the Embankment types belong in the Bloomsbury set.

Anonymous said...

The 'needs' of the coach companies have to be discussed with them and met...

Why do they need to be met in Bloomsbury though? It seems to me that there's a lot more room around Hyde Park than the elegant boulevards of Bloomsbury to park up a few coaches! Keep fighting!

hatfield girl said...

You are right Geographical, pedants are, but the secondary school Bloomsbury has been denied for decades would have a catchment going down to the river, and I think Holborn and St Pancras does too; I expect you will say if not.
The Aldwych and Embankment is very welcome, that would bring KCL in too.

hatfield girl said...

I went to LSE Elby, so it's the same as wrecking Oxford would be for you.

That they intend to change the law is almost an admission of failure for the New Order; they nearly succeeded in passing a Grand Enabling Act that would have got rid of presenting their perfidy publicly and to Parliament, but were caught on the straight by the Lords.

So they've gone for the European Constitution instead, piecemeal enablers and, I realise now, individual 'events' that require over-riding powers that are then used for other purposes and are permanent.

The other distinctive and still liveable quarters of London should get round to their town halls and ask what their designated Olympic role might be, and what powers are held by which quasi-government bodies.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately the stakes of stakeholders are not the Slayer's weapons, to be wielded as you rightly suggest. They are a weasel word meaning "legitimate interests" which, however, unlike the shares of shareholders, do not carry any vote to protect them. The weaseling consists in the pretence that - merely by association with shares - they are somehow protected, just because they are worthy of protection.

Moreover there are lots and lots of stakeholders. A company stakeholders for instance include employees, creditors, debtors, suppliers, customers, local authorities, the environment. The state is also a stakeholder, but it can looks after itself: in our globalised world we could contemplate foreign stakeholders as well as our own stakes on what happens outside our borders. There is no way those stakes (=legitimate interests) could be reconciled by law, this is what is politics is all about. No good pretending otherwise.

Every time we hear the very word stakeholder we should all reach for our guns.

hatfield girl said...

Politics is about choice, democratically expressed through votes; all the rest is rule by force - authoritarianism - however dressed up it's weasily recognized.