Letters to the editor: The sad demise of Kids Company

Closed: the Kids Company closed its building in Camberwell on Wednesday
PA
7 August 2015
WEST END FINAL

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We are a group of long-standing Kids Company employees who have, for many years, worked with vulnerable children, young people and families who have been catastrophically failed by society.

Kids Company provided a safe sanctuary and refuge for vulnerable children and we offered a loving family for many children who didn’t have one of their own — in some cases we were their next of kin.

Therefore you can imagine the horror we felt at being vilified in the media and the personal attacks on our founder, Camila Batmanghelidjh, whose life’s work has been discredited.

Throughout, Camila has been unwavering in her strength, dignity and support of all of us and the children. Without her courageous leadership, we would not have been able to endure the pressures of the past six months.

It is a great shame that the huge amount of energy and money which has gone into undermining our reputation couldn’t have been spent on finding solutions for an organisation which lacked enough funds to meet the children’s needs.

We sincerely hope that the misguided individuals who relentlessly campaigned to undermine our existence have a better plan to provide for our children.
Kids Company staff team, Arches II Centre

Clearly there were serious problems with Kids Company which need investigating but our immediate focus has to be on the vulnerable children. The timing of the closure during the school summer holidays could hardly be worse, with the increased demand for the projects Kids Company ran.

It’s clear that London’s councils have detailed plans to ensure the children affected by Kids Company’s closure are supported, and it’s a credit to them that they have quickly stepped in to pick up the pieces despite facing cuts. The wider tragedy is that there are so many children who would normally receive free school meals but who go without during the summer holidays. That it falls to charities such as Kids Company to feed and support them should be a source of deep shame.
Fiona Twycross AM, Labour’s London Assembly economic spokesperson

I am a university student who has just returned early from one of Kids Company’s summer residential holiday schemes. It is easy to overlook the wonderful schemes and programmes that Kids Company managed on a daily basis. The holiday scheme was one of many that provided children with a week away from their homes to meet new people and learn new things.

Kids Company worked hand-in-hand with schools, mentoring children who had lost their way and needed support. If they can no longer do this, who else will?
Sophie Kinloch

Foreboding over City Airport sale

What would it cost to turn east London into a noise ghetto? About £2 billion. London City Airport’s overseas owners have spent years crushing our community under a barrage of noise, expansion plans and broken promises. The last expansion in 2009 promised us “jobs, jobs, jobs” but they never materialised. There are fewer jobs today than back in 2009.

City Airport’s negative economic impact on the local community cannot be ignored. The huge safety crash zone around the airport means large parcels of taxpayer-owned land cannot be developed.

By refusing the airport’s questionable expansion earlier this year, Boris Johnson showed his absolute determination to protect London from the corrosive noise impact that aviation inflicts. For a new owner to make a return on a £2 billion investment, London City Airport would need enormous expansion, which would be met with resolute, focused and determined opposition by residents of Newham.

The new owners should buy it, shut it and then develop the land. It’s that simple.
Alan Haughton, Stop City Airport

Preserve the Green Belt around London

We were pleased to see Richard Godwin referring to the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s new campaign — Our Green Belt — in his column [“Green Belters need to keep up with the times”, August 5]. Still, it was disappointing to see him fall back on a series of myths to advocate Green Belt development.

He argues that a more representative campaign would “concede some ground in a bid to allow everyone access to green spaces”, but access is actually one of the key benefits of the Green Belt. By preventing the sprawl of towns and cities, it ensures that urban dwellers have easy access to the countryside and the health and wellbeing benefits it brings.

Encouraging development in the London Green Belt would simply see developers build large, which would be out of reach for the young renters we all want to help. To tackle the housing crisis, we must instead start to redevelop brownfield land.
Paul Miner, planning campaign manager, Campaign to Protect Rural England

Corbyn is right on housing solutions

If “Corbynmania” means a solution to the housing crisis [August 5] then bring it on. Jeremy Corbyn’s housing proposals are the best on offer. What has the Government proposed? Sell off more social housing on the cheap, raise social rents to market rents and make it difficult for councils to build more social housing. Mr Corbyn would ensure a good supply of social housing at decent rents.
Steven Pruner

London businesses need space as well

Fashion designers in Hackney, it seems, are joining Soho’s creative industries and Shoreditch’s tech firms in being undermined by rising rents. Businesses that need space are also being squeezed out by residential development, and ethnic minority companies from Brixton to Tottenham are under threat from ill-conceived regeneration projects.

Of course we need more homes in London but we also need places for people to work.
Tom Chance, prospective Green Party mayoral candidate

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