I RECEIVED an email from a Kensington borough councillor desperate to help a very disadvantaged family living in the north of the borough.

The councillor told me this family struggled to make ends meet and were desperate for a break.

I put the councillor in touch with the Family Holiday Association which aims to provide basic seaside holidays for hard pressed families.

Hopefully, they will be helped.

Astonishing though it may seem some families in this borough may never have a holiday.

For those families it can be life changing - moving them out of a state of depression - to one where life does not seem so bleak.

When my councillor friend told me about this case I felt a surge of anger. Anger that our Council can waste money on fripperies when there are borough residents for whom life is a desperate struggle.

RBKC spends a vast amount of money supporting Holland Park Opera. Is this a priority? Of course not. Is spending £9million-plus on a cemetery? Again, the answer must be no.

It is time the leadership of this very rich borough started to think less of self aggrandising spending schemes and more about alleviating the dire financial and social poverty hidden away in our borough.

When this councillor - whose political views I do not share - told me of the circumstances of this family, I felt a sense of great shame.

We, in the privileged parts of the borough need to look to see how we can help those for whom life is one long struggle.

Come on Cllr Cockell. As we affluent residents plan holidays why not dig into OUR £204m reserves and set up an emergency holiday fund for those in the borough whose summer will no holiday.

Or better still cancel some of these crazy spending plans and divert just a fraction of the savings to helping the needy. It may mean junking the £1.7m spent on PR, but most of us rational residents know that is money wasted anyway.

Justin Downes by e mail

Residents First!