Council Corruption Over the Years
A few weeks later we were ensconced in a flat in Clerkenwell. Linda had picked out a house around the corner from her flat in Kingsway Place, San’s Walk. We split out time between the two places.
Hers was a wonderful, high ceilinged space; previously a triple-storey school until some council decided property developers had priority over the education of the nation’s children.
I had seen the same in a borough where I first lived, when I had a summer job in London.
A friend’s father had put in a sealed bid, supported by a Montessori school and two other private schools, a nursery and a preparatory school that had all outgrown their premises.
The bid was a very generous offer.
They lost the building in the sealed bid and surprise, surprise the building was awarded to a family company that developed similar buildings in the borough and the owners just happened to be cousins of several of the councillors.
Britain was meant to be less corrupt than other countries but sadly it was not.
Whatever the merits of turning a public building that had been built for educational use. Even so, I had complained to people at the time.
Anyway, her flat was gorgeous, a vast living area with beautiful old, oak stained wood flooring and lofty windows; a kitchen on the back wall and an internal wooden staircase that led to a mezzanine.
ABOUT ME
A well respected author
Michael Fitzalan was born in Clapham, South London where his mother had established a doctor’s surgery in a house which she filled with children.
With three sisters, two brothers and a library full of books, a love of literature was imbued in him from an early age.
Michael Fitzalan comes from Irish parents were doctors and they settled on the West Side of Clapham Common and had six children in quick succession.
A story by Michael Fitzalan