Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

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Has gained some readers from Chiswick

The behaviour change workshop was quite a change. I suppose you’d say it was based on brainstorming ideas to encourage more recycling and less flytipping from the public, ie improving the way things work at source rather than dealing with the consequences of things not working. Anyway, it’s fun doing this and the people running the show, paid for by the Local Government Association, are experts. They have already talked to a selection of residents, particularly dwellers in some council estates and the idea is to make our efforts more effective (and use the learnings across other councils, hence the LGA sponsorship). Like all respectable consultants they need a buzz word, and theirs is Mindspacer.

Was quite a full day because I then headed off to the Musical Museum for a Speak Out in Hounslow event. They are a fantastic charity who support adults in Hounslow with learning difficulties and this was their Big Night Out. I really only popped my head round the door to say hello and show a bit of moral support. They have just won a good grant from the lottery but they need lots more to thrive, and deserve it

Celebration cake by Joanne Cheung

Next on my tour was Hogarth Trust another charity providing all sorts of youth services for people aged 8 to 21. They too need to raise money to keep going and the event was really an awareness and fundraiser. There were powerful speeches, especially from a young person who has benefited (and now volunteers there) and a mum who has really relied on the centre, which is based by Hogarth school in Chiswick.

This visit to Chiswick needed a bit of brass neck as I bumped into the massed ranks of the Chiswick Conservative Army – well, the three or four who bothered to turn up – who apparently regard my blog as essential reading as it serves to tell them what’s going on in Chiswick. They hadn’t noticed that TfL have posted notices all over the relevant bit of Chiswick High Road that they will do some work preparatory to our new cycleway at Kew Bridge during the (relatively) quiet period over Christmas. Because I remarked upon this in my blog it apparently means I represent the epitome of callous disregard for those who would like the cycle path to be delayed until after Hell freezes over. A Chiswick resident wrote to me, describing her councillors as Sleeping Beauties. I can concur with one word of that, but some of them do wake up from time to time, notice there’s an election coming, and rant about cyclists.

Friday morning I’m off to the fragrant vale known as Depot Road. I have been invited to attend the monthly coffee morning where Lay Assessors meet Hounslow Highways and update them on our Cleaner Greener programme and what part they might play. Unsung heroes all, spending their own time monitoring what Hounslow Highways are up to and in most cases providing much of the content on FixMyStreet and causing those little white lines around emerging potholes.

The evening is in the even more fragrant vale known as Syon Park, where I accompany the Brentford Chamber of Commerce to the excellent Enchanted Woodland. I’m rather ashamed to say I hadn’t been before and pleased to say it’s rather wonderful. Book now http://www.enchantedwoodland.com/ - it finishes 1st December. Is that two Conservative councillors I see, casting spells upon a bicycle wheel? One of them has spotted me and seems to be running away.

For approximately the second time in my life, I fancied a mulled wine. To my shock and horror the stand flogging it had sold out. They offered me mulled cider (eurghh) but I opted for an overpriced gin and tonic to accompany my sausage sandwich (only haute cuisine please) and then repaired to the Magpie and Crown where two lady pillars of the community plied me with strong liquor (and vice versa) until Pegasus wobbled me homewards.

Saturday morning I meet with Ruth Cadbury and a bunch of residents of Grosvenor Road who have experienced a spate of crime in recent months. We hear lurid tales of a brothel which apparently has been operating in a local shed (not in Grosvenor and now chastened by a new and hefty lock). We discuss lighting and Neighbourhood Watch and attendance at the Police Panel as well as urging more patrols – difficult with our depleted force.

Later my friend Gerald arrives from Vienna for his uncle Karl’s funeral. Good excuse to come here and I’m delighted to have him as a guest for a few days. Given the weather, the guest, and the subdued enthusiasm from normally dedicated locals, I decide to cancel my regular litter pick for November and December so I have the weekend off, bar a bit of light door-knocking.

On Monday I meet Hounslow’s new IT director. I have form in this area, having managed an IT contractor in a previous life and served many local authorities including, in a minor way, Hounslow. A good discussion about the state of the service.

On Tuesday I spend part of the day out with Ruth, knocking on doors in the Hounslow Heath area. I find it quite depressing how these once-pleasant suburban streets have surrendered completely to the car, with virtually every front garden paved over in worship of it. Anyway, a good response on the doors that opened. Many don’t, which is hardly surprising on a working day.

In the evening there’s a public meeting at Clayponds Community Centre. About 20 or 30 residents are there and I sit with housing people, enforcement officers etc. They have various issues, the most recent one being parking: the contractors working on the Brentford FC development have decided the spaces marked ‘Residents Only’ are a cool place to park, as have Mercedes Benz employees who have already prompted both Carville Crescent and Lionel Road North to introduce Controlled Parking Zones. The people who could stop this or at least discourage it are the employers but any actions they have taken haven’t made any difference. Longer standing issues are to do with drains (some a bit too horrible to describe in a family blog) and ASB, particularly around the sheds on the estate.

People are pretty angry (and with reason) but I think they appreciate that senior officers have turned out and are taking the problems seriously. Someone makes a positive remark about the general maintenance of the grounds – something I have remarked upon before – and there’s a hearty round of applause for Eddie (I think) the caretaker in attendance. He does a great job and I wanted to congratulate him face to face, but when I looked for him at the end of the meeting he had melted back into the night.

On Wednesday I have a meeting with TfL, Hounslow Highways and council officers. I have grown increasingly frustrated with poor maintenance (cleaning, weeds, graffiti) of certain parts of the TfL network. Round here that is mainly the A4 but out in the West of the borough there are big problems on the A316. We agree a plan of action. TfL have some flexibility to increase attention and we get clearer about who is responsible for what. Of course in Brentford we have the additional delights of Highways England (who own the M4 and its supports). We also digress to my personal bugbear of clanking manholes and our collective inability to consistently fix them properly. Anyway, feels a useful meeting and we agree progress meetings, initially every 6 weeks.

On the way back I notice that County Parade has acquired a new skirt and building crunching machines are chomping away behind it (progress!) though the chimneys were still there if you look closely.

After that I have the delights of a new filling to replace one the dentist has identified as Holy. Or holy I suppose. She says I will be numb for an hour but I am still inadvertently chewing my lip 6 hours later, after a trip up two of our iconic Towers for a bit of door knocking.

Today is Beaujolais Nouveau day so I will go up to Covent Garden to get plastered with some old (many even older than me) colleagues who remember when this was on every news bulletin in the 1980’s with some clown in a Bugatti or a Morgan racing home to have the first bottles in London.

Cllr Guy Lambert

November 21, 2019