Latest news with #DollisHill
The Independent
14 hours ago
- The Independent
Police ‘very concerned' for 14-year-old missing for almost two weeks
Police have said they are 'very concerned' for the wellbeing of a 14-year-old girl who disappeared from west London last week. Aaliyah Ekedi-Morrow was reported missing from the Ladbroke Grove area on Wednesday afternoon. She was last seen at 2:35pm, wearing her school uniform which includes a black blazer, a white shirt, a black skirt and a black and pink striped tie, the Metropolitan Police said. Detective Inspector William Peel said: 'Due to Aaliyah's age and the period of time she has been away from home we remain very concerned for her wellbeing. 'I urge anyone including Aaliyah's friends and family, who may have seen her or have information concerning her safety and whereabouts to please get in touch with police as soon as possible.' Police described her as having a slim build and light brown hair that she often wears in a bun. It added that she is also known to visit the Dollis Hill area. Anyone with information can call police on 101 or tweet @MetCC quoting CAD: 8071/11JUNE or contact the Missing People charity on 116 000.
Telegraph
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
I didn't love my private school, but I detest Labour's evil war on them
Up till the age of 12, I went to the local state school in the small Waspy town in Massachusetts where my parents settled in 1984, the year I turned two. They picked this town because it appeared to be everything our previous home in crime-ridden Dollis Hill, north London, was not. It had the sea, woods, no crime, and thanks to the 45-minute drive south to Boston, where they had got jobs, it was commutable. They did not consider the school when they moved to the town. And boy was it awful: a brutal awakening for an English five-year-old. It was lorded over by nasty teachers who regularly insulted the pupils, sometimes siding with the schoolyard bullies. Though I was fierce and always had good friends, I was also bullied for having curly red hair and being 'different' – a code for Jewish, with European parents and a mum who worked hard and wasn't in a tennis club. I regularly – and unintentionally – used words that went beyond the teachers' vocabulary, earning me the mocking nickname from my third-grade teacher of 'the class dictionary,' as if that was a bad thing. At 12, I began the private-school chapter of my life; I went to a cut-price independent school in the next town. It was nothing like the state's famous prep schools – such as Phillips Academy, the alma mater of George W Bush. But you called the teachers by their first names, didn't have to learn maths in a traditional sense (this came back to bite me later), did lots of creative writing and sat round tables having discussions rather than at desks quietly making notes. It was friendly and relaxed, but too stifling and zany for my taste, and so for my next move, at 16, I went back to Blighty (my family stayed put in America) to do A-levels at a famous co-education boarding school in Hampshire: Bedales. This was pricey even back then, but there was a substantial violin scholarship that brought the cost down for me. Bedales – which is now £18,357 per term for boarders – is definitely the kind of school that Keir Starmer's Government thinks is fair game for a tax raid: an independent school that is the very definition of servicing the rich and privileged. I was there with the pop star Lily Allen, actor and musician turned heartthrob Johnny Flynn, Luke Pritchard of the indie rock band the Kooks, celebrity shoe designer Charlotte Dellal, actress Lydia Leonard (Cherie Blair in the most recent series of The Crown) – to name just a few that came from or became pop, rock, film, modelling and West End royalty. As for little old me, I mostly just worked hard as best I could, with some very erratic teaching. Not really partaking of the binge drinking or romantic economies of the school, I had plenty of energy and time to study, get all As, read widely (for pleasure) and go to Cambridge. Was private school the be-all-and-end-all for me? Did it assure my path to Oxbridge? I don't think so. As an experience, it wasn't transformative for me; it was just better than the very bad state school I began my educational life at, but which probably would have been OK too if I'd stuck it out. Does it then follow that because my own school experience was 'meh' that I think Starmer is right to attack private schools and the parents who send their children to them? That it doesn't matter if he does or doesn't force fees up by taking away business rates and charitable relief? Absolutely not. Sir Keir's whole operation reeks of pound-shop Marxism: an attempt at spiting the rich, of levelling down by punching up (though it's not actually punching up when it's children's daily lives). The chickens are only beginning to come home to roost; last week saw a High Court case brought against the Government by schools and parents who argued the VAT raid on private school amounts to an infringement of human rights; some children had been forced to leave their private school despite being there for religious and special educational reasons. A judge ruled against their case – as was widely anticipated – but this is the tip of a fast-melting iceberg. Starmer came to power promising to scythe private schools' tax exemptions and pour the new gains from this into state education. In spiting a few rich kids, figured Sir Keir, Britain would be made 'fairer'. Of course it hasn't worked out like that. The only beneficiaries are… nobody. As with all Sir Keir's two-tier ideas, there are only losers. As the costs of running private schools have suddenly soared thanks to the addition of VAT and the loss of business-rates relief, schools pass the costs on to parents. Some can't stay open; the Government itself expects 100 schools to close thanks to the raid, which will lead to 40,000 students being displaced and 11,000 jobs lost, according to the Independent Schools Council. And as Starmer must know, not all private-school parents are stinking rich; many are just hard-working folk. Recent figures suggest that two-thirds of fee-payers get help from family, friends or the schools themselves with costs. Eton spent £9.7 million on scholarships and bursaries in the past school year. My cleaner, a single mother from Poland, has a talented son who hopes to get a scholarship to a private sixth-form college for A-levels, and then to go to Imperial. So this is just an attack on aspiration, and the malignity is everywhere. In December, Rachel Reeves insisted: 'Every single penny of that [private-school tax] money will go into our state schools to ensure that every child gets the best start in life.' But last week Starmer said the revenues raised would be spent on an affordable housing scheme, which, as some pointed out, could mean just for general 'social' ends. This might possibly include housing for migrants. The £1 billion per year Starmer envisions harvesting for the state educational sector off the back of private-school pupils' parents might be put against the £15.3 bn of taxpayer money the National Audit Office now forecasts will be spent on housing asylum seekers over the next 10 years. Wouldn't a 'fairer' way of saving money be to allow in and then house fewer asylum seekers? It's certainly strange for the British Prime Minister to let his proletarianism out on children, and yet with the focus of a precision missile that is what Sir Keir has done. Consider the fact – previously reported in the Telegraph – that there are 170,000 charities registered in England and Wales, coupled with the fact that of the UK's roughly 2,400 independent schools, just about half have charitable status. This means that Labour is singling out just one per cent of all charities for his tax raid – and it happens to be one per cent that determines the lives of some children. To spite the rich one must stop their spawn. Listing the ways in which the droning Sir Keir is a two-tier kinda guy is becoming an ever-more Sisyphean task. Under his rule, we have seen Britain embrace, quite openly, a hypocritical, cherry-picked approach to matters ranging from policing and justice to education and the economy. And of course Israel, where its brave, world-saving actions against the Islamist monsters threatening us all are met only, in Sir Keir's court, with public insult, sanctioning and ostracism. With this and all else, Starmer is intent on cutting off Britain's nose to spite its face. It's for this reason that I deplore Labour's attack on private schools. Personally I could take or leave them. But that doesn't mean I think picking on them – whether the big public ones or small-time independents – is OK. It's just a deadening poke at dreary 'fairness' and makes everyone worse off in every way.
Daily Mail
12-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE A bitter neighbour battle over EIGHT FOOT: How two men went to war over their narrow shared driveway... but two years later who won?
It was the neighbourly feud to end all neighbourly feuds and although the players have changed, in one leafy North London neighbourhood the game is still the same. Like all neighbours, Alisson Roberto Teixeira and Robert Medcalfe had started out as acquaintances, swapping catch ups about their lives and local area over their 8-foot shared driveway in Dollis Hill, North London. However, this small patch of communal tarmac was to prove the pair's no-mans land after Italian businessman Teixeira decided he wanted to make use of it in a manner that appalled Medcalfe. And so, in 2022 things came to a head after ambitious plans were submitted to Brent council for Teixeira to build a brand new house behind his property using the 2.7m-wide shared driveway as an access road - with the project estimated to cost up to £2million to complete. Locals were appalled and his neighbour felt betrayed, saying at the time: 'How can you try to do something with someone's property without speaking with them and getting permission? That's not what neighbours do.' But do, Teixeria did, and it was only after spending £7,500 fighting his former friend that Medcalfe was able to claw back the dignity of protecting his driveway by stopping the plans in their tracks. However, the fight took a heavy toll. Last year, in a boon for Mr Teixeira, Mr Medcalfe raised the white flag and decided to cut his losses with neighbours telling MailOnline the 'stress and aggravation' had been too much. Now fresh of his triumph, Mr Teixeira has submitted fresh plans to the council for the controversial development, which will see three garages pulled down for access and the creation of two new parking spaces. When MailOnline visited the two warring properties today we were told that since Mr Medcalfe moved out last year, new tenants have moved in. It is unclear if they are aware of the scale of the plans. Mr Teixera's large property is currently being rented out to a young family who said they had been informed of the new plans, however the man himself was not available for comment. The sheer scale of the plans has always been a controversial matter along the Dorris Hill boulevard. If approved, the home would feature a substantial basement boasting a wine cellar, games room and a bar, with plans showing it spread over two and a half storeys. A garage would need to be knocked down to make way for the home. Concerns came about over the requirement for future residents to use Mr Teixeira and Mr Medcalfe's shared driveway to get to the property. Mr Medcalfe said he was never consulted over this plan, which he said 'relies on my consent', which would also see construction vehicles travel up and down it during the build. This would have prevented him accessing his own drive and by default, his own home and garage. There were also fears emergency services would not be able to gain access to a new house at the back, as the driveway is only 2.7 metres wide, neighbours told MailOnline. Speaking last year, neighbour Reza, told MailOnline the fight took a serious toll on Robert, explaining: 'He sold up because he had so much stress over the last couple of years with what was going on.' He added: 'It just gradually built up and I think eventually he couldn't handle the stress and aggravation any longer, that's why he's moved. 'It started off with a one and a half storey building in the back garden, then it went to a storey plus a loft conversion and a basement believe it or not. 'It's a shared drive, you can't have access to a house via a shared drive, it's meant to be for both houses. 'They took it to appeal but the appeal was turned down eventually. I don't know what the plan is, whether they'll go back and redo it, I don't know. 'If it went to a two-and-a-half storey, that's quite high. That's quite a big building. 'I think it was going to be an HMO as well, bring so many extra cars and completely change the whole environment. 'The basement had a cellar, wine bar, the only thing that was missing was a disco and you could have a good time in there. 'It is ridiculous, someone in this area, it made no sense for all the other buildings. 'It's a very quiet area and would change the atmosphere of the place. They went to appeal, which I think is as far as you can take it. 'Everyone was against it.' Documents showed Mr Teixeira, who rents out the property to a group of Brazilian moped delivery drivers, owned the plot of land where he hoped to build a three bed house of multiple occupancy with a carpark.
