With the polls opening at 7am tomorrow (they are open til 10pm, so there is no excuse not to vote!), Londonist provides you with the third entry for our local elections competition. This time courtesy of Hans Sloane:
The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
With Sloane Square, Harrods and a palace or two within its boundaries, it's no surprise that Kensington and Chelsea is dominated by Tory councillors - 42 out of 54 at the last election. But the Royal Borough (never just 'the borough', darling) also has pockets of deprivation, notably in the northern wards around Portobello Road and Ladbroke Grove, and it's here that Labour is fighting to hold on to its twelve seats in the face of a determined Conservative campaign, especially in symbolic St. Charles ward - where Tory leader David Cameron has his
(allegedly wind-powered) London home. The Lib-Dems may hope to slide in and pick up a handful of seats in the more bohemian wards around Notting Hill; the Greens, the Christian People's Alliance and the Alliance for Green Socialism are also fielding candidates here and there.
Issues exercising the pamphleteers include the proposed redevelopment of the Royal Borough's only comprehensive school, Holland Park, to be controversially financed by selling off some of the school's playing fields for luxury apartments; whether the character of Portobello and Golborne Road markets will survive the Council's 'improvement' plans; and the western extension to the congestion zone - which is already decided and was never in the Council's hands, but which provides a voter-friendly opportunity to bash Ken Livingstone some more.
You can still enter our comp up until 10pm tomorrow night (when the polls close), see the conditions here.
