Letters to the Editor

A 150-year commitment to the social needs of communities and the fabric of society is to end.

The Crown Estate proposes sell-off its four estates of affordable rented homes - Millbank (Westminster), Cumberland Market (Regent's Park), Victoria Park (Hackney & Bethnal Green) & Lee Green - a commitment that began with the development of Victoria Park, instituted at the behest of Queen Victoria and opened in 1850.

I wonder if your readers could possibly help me, please?

My name used to be Gail Welton and I lived at 10 Kilburn Lane on the Queens Park Estate from 1950 - 1966.

My family lived in Paddington from at least the 1880s.

I'm paid £8 an hour.

At the moment accommodation is made affordable for me by housing benefit.

The emergency budget proposes the withdrawal of support for housing affordability, nationwide.

The recent letter to the Chronicle by Bryan Latter about the historic aspects of the Millbank Estate currently part of the London portfolio of the Crown Estates usefully summarises some of that history.

There are some parallels with the Millbank still owned by Westminster City Council.

The Crown Estate's proposed sale of its four London Residential Estates, predominately providing affordable housing to key workers, has exposed the organisation as never before and put its reputation 'at risk'.

There is no organisation in the world quite like the Crown Estate, so it has been said.

Your article (Bleak future for Harrow Road traders, August 12) rightly highlights the neglect of the Harrow Road shopping area.

This neglect has been apparent for decades now and Westminster Council has done little, on its own initiative, to address this.

Westminster Conservatives' decision to cut Council spending in December on the neighbourhood regeneration teams in Church Street, Queen's Park, Westbourne and Harrow Road is an act of political spite that will hit the most vulnerable residents in Westminster.

There is no reason for this arbitrary axing of financial support for these successful neighbourhood teams by the Conservatives, other than that for the past decade all regeneration activity in north Westminster has been funded by a Labour Government.

I can clarify (Letters, July 19) that The Crown Estate has not agreed a sale of its residential properties in Cumberland Market, Millbank, Victoria Park and Lee Green.

In May, the Board of The Crown Estate decided to progress the proposal to sell the freeholds of these properties, attaching important conditions to any sale.

Re: John Heath-Stubbs (Bayswater poet to be remembered, July 23)

Besides being a dedicated poet, John Heath-Stubbs was also a devout Christian.

He worshipped at St Matthew's Church, Bayswater, where he was a member of the Parochial Church Council, and for whose special occasions, laureate-like, he composed poems.

Every week that goes by sees more cuts to front-line Westminster City Council services which are both damaging and unnecessary.

This week the Conservatives announced that they are scrapping all free play schemes on Saturdays and halving the number of subsidised play centres open over Christmas and during February half-term.