Forum Topic

Now where did I leave my ark?

I actually saw a council gulley cleaning vehicle a few weeks ago, having thought they had gone the way of Boris' watercannons. Driving back from Victoria Road in south Ruislip today, the need for regular maintenance of local roads was there for all to see. A large ''lido'' at the bottom of Eaton Rise, the usual small lake where Woodville Road meets Haven Green as well as the same for Helena Road and Mount Avenue. The Mylett Arms forecourt was under water as well as the ''summer'' resorts to type in England. To add insult to injury, the council rejected a joint Liberal/Tory councillor ask for some of our council tax money to be spent putting in a drain at the northern exit of Montpelier Park to take away the water/mud that runs down the slope there. What does this council actually do?

Peter King ● 277d26 Comments

We do need better public transport, but while that idiot khan is at the helm, no chance.How do people not need cars???I know how I do for my job.What about any plumber, carpenter etc, what do they do.Some people can cycle, which is fair enough.People like & need to drive which is the most heinous crime to man.No one drives for fun. We all use cars as we need to for a million & 1 reasons

Peter Yale ● 255d

People NEED better and cleaner public transport.We don't each need a car sitting in the street all day long - just in case we want or need to go somewhere. With so many houses split into flats and with so many purpose built flats there are going to be more adults than cars - and so there should be.You need to look further than TfL and the local Councils about cars.  Govts have commitments.https://news.sky.com/story/what-are-the-conservatives-green-policies-and-what-could-be-scrapped-12927047https://news.sky.com/story/rich-polluting-countries-like-uk-must-fast-forward-net-zero-target-by-a-decade-demands-un-chief-12838175

Philippa Bond ● 255d

& the Edwardian & Victorian housing (along with new builds ) need places to park. Not a free for all, but every inch is fined or charged. Same as getting from A to B, people want & need cars, yet TfL & councils aggravate situation, when in  fact they could alleviate some issues.All for a quick buck.The whole roads systems needs reviewing, but NOT by anti car zealots

Peter Yale ● 255d

Agreed, the Victorians didn't use as much water or pave and concrete over all their gardens creating so many hard impervious surfaces.  There was no great need to separate sewerage and vast amounts of rainwater.  In Central London we have a combined system whereas in some other urban situations they have separate systems. Building Regulations and utilities companies now have a say in how both the fresh water supply and waste water is managed - for instance if you build a new extension you may also have to build a soakaway. It isn't just builders' debris that cause blockages but all the other stuff that residents throw down the drains that they shouldn't.  I can't imagine the Victorians threw away the amount of fat and oils we do now which create fatbergs the size of jumbo jets - oils which should not be thrown down but binned in a tin or jar if not recycled (restaurants should be using a recycling service for cooking oil) as it congeals and mixes with other stuff that should be binned and then hardens.Very heavy marketing has allowed sanitary products and wet wipes to be put on the market which really should not be flushed even though marketed as 'flushable'.  The most cynical marketing has or had those products which do not dissolve marked as 'flushable' in big letters on the front of the packaging and then in small letters on the back something along the lines of 'just one'!  Water companies say 'just pee poo and paper'.  Much of this stuff marketed as 'flushable' is made out of polyester fabric (plastic) and you still see these all along the bank of the Thames when the tide is out. Quite disgusting. It won't be much fun when because of a sudden downpour after a dry period the loo backs up and all the sewage pours into your home and into the street.  We need to slow the flow down the drains and avoid blockages.  Things will hopefully improve once the Thames Tideway tunnel under London is finished.If you add compost (can be home made) to your garden soil you will find that that soil will absorb a lot more water than if it is compressed and dry.  Trees, shrubs and other plants also take up water.You can also water your plants with what is known as grey water - eg washing up water (depends on what soap you use) and can use a water butt to collect some of that rainwater when it falls.  There are all sorts of water butts available - of different shapes and sizes and colours and materials.  Some are very elegant and some less so.  There are often special offers and sometimes they are for two - so you could always order with a friend or neighbour.  If you do this then you will not need to use the fresh drinking water from the tap for watering the garden.  AFAIK street tree leaves and sweepings are still considered to be far too poisonous by the Environment Agency to be used for compost whereas garden waste can be. They are full of oil, heavy metals and cigarette ends etc and as we know when run off goes straight into the river it can poison fish. See what happened in 2013:http://www.thames21.org.uk/2013/07/river-of-death-why-fish-died-in-the-river-lea-and-what-can-be-done/With the density of population in a city there is never going to be enough street space for each adult to park a car.  The answer has to be to have better public transport and to cycle and walk and better sharing of space.  Right now not everybody needs or has a car.  We should be agitating to make sure that our public transport is improved and made more accessible for all.  Our Victorian and Edwardian terraced houses were not built for us all to have cars!

Philippa Bond ● 255d

Whilst much of this is correct the main problem is the huge increase in water usage and run off waste.  Loft conversions - En suite bathrooms - Multiple flat lat conversions, and over development in areas without the infrastructure to support it.Most problems in older residential streets are caused by overblown extensions and very poor planning and building control standards that are not considering the problems that these cause to other properties often further down the street or even in adjacent streets.As for drain cleansing, Ealing used to have a local contractor who used to dredge sewers and drains street by street . That has stopped completely some 20 years ago and their operational base redeveloped. Gulley cleansing is sporadic and never notified and cars have been parked in streets 80 years  when there was very little off street parking.  With Ealing selling premium permits to outsiders and allowing non residential Electric cars to park for free when charging ( which have been placed near gulley drains, there is now not enough spaces for residents paying dearly for permits - even in summer months. ( which is when most flash flood traditionally occur. Not helped by the fact that street trees are not regularly pruned and summer leaf fall is seldom cleared unless residents do it themselves. That and road works and careless builders debris makes up the majority of blockages.

Raymond Havelock ● 255d

"You really are clueless."Pot/Kettle?People in glass houses?      🤣

Rosco White ● 256d

You really are clueless.

Philippa Bond ● 257d

"Ms. Bond, irrespective of what you said (see above), you seem to be a virtue signalling lackey mouthpiece for the inept Labour run Ealing Council."      😂            👌

Rosco White ● 263d

I agree that CPZs resulted in many concreted over front gardens.  Charging for garden waste also increased the paving over.  Recycling figures also went down as the free garden waste collections were removed.  Composting and better garden soil treatment diminished when free garden waste was introduced.Much of this was done to reduce Council costs.  There are often unforeseen consequences as admitted by Eunomia.  Cutting staff means less oversight.

Philippa Bond ● 264d

..or councils need to police concreted front gardens, as I think they need planning permission or should be permeable.

Peter Evans ● 264d

"You don't like the news - so you shoot the messenger. You won't be the first but it won't change the news."Ms. Bond, irrespective of what you said (see above), you seem to be a virtue signalling lackey mouthpiece for the inept Labour run Ealing Council.

Anthony Hawran ● 264d

Dunno which party started it. But at the introduction of cpz & other parking schemes, loads of people concreted over their gardens.The motorist is a cash cow but councils need to take a long long long hard look at their policies

Peter Yale ● 264d

You don't like the news - so you shoot the messenger.You won't be the first but it won't change the news.

Philippa Bond ● 264d

Doesn't she just!

Peter King ● 264d

Ms. Bond, at least inpart, you seem to like making excuses for the wilfull ineptitude of the Labour run Ealing Council.

Anthony Hawran ● 264d

Absolutely. Going back over the decades to 1960 Dad’s off street parking was in our front garden. But he didn’t concrete all over, he simply laid down strips for the car wheels to run along. As he explained to me, rain water had to go somewhere and grass and earth was the obvious soak away.Now- if he knew that in 1960, 63 years ago, why do people still persist in this practice to this day & then act surprised when the streets get flooded now.

Bettina Margaret Thwaite ● 264d

It is rather difficult to clean the gullies with those big glurper tankers with the nose to tail parking that there is in many streets.  This is made worse when not enough notice (or just a few hours if you do actually notice it) when there are people including of course non-neighbours who park and then fly off on holiday or get the tube into town for the day.Giving a lot of notice would also be problematical and gully clearing during the holidays perhaps takes advantage of fewer cars in London.  So not sure what the answer is.  There definitely isn't masses of spare free (as in no CPZ) parking around for whole roads of parked cars to move to! If too much rainwater rushes down into the drains with the sudden really heavy rainfall that we are getting due to the greater heat into London's Victorian combined rainwater and sewage pipework then sewage is likely to back up into people's homes - and that will be worse than walking through some muddy rainwater puddles.  Separate sewage and rainwater systems are obviously easier to deal with!Roll on the new Thames Tideway supertunnel which should be complete in 2025.  In the meantime since we seem to alternate between droughts and floods (which itself causes greater problems as rainwater does not soak in but bounces off and runs to the lowest point) we need to avoid paving, concreting and tarmacking even greater areas of our land ourselves with impermeable surfaces. We should make as much use as we can of water butts (often discounted) and other water saving and sustainable drainage (SuDS) systems to mitigate flooding and provide water for plants when there has been no or little rain and may be hosepipe bans.

Philippa Bond ● 264d

Or they don't as the frequently flooded roads/pavements prove!

Peter King ● 269d

The council cleans the gullies of all council maintained highways and subway drainage systems. https://www.ealing.gov.uk/info/201153/street_care_and_cleaning/235/gully_cleaning

Fred Hunt ● 270d

Drains are Thames Water, but roadside gullies are the councils responsibility.Better buy some welly’s then!!

Peter Yale ● 270d

How does that explain what Peter King saw and stated in his entry on this topic - "I actually saw a council gulley cleaning vehicle a few weeks ago, having thought they had gone the way of Boris' watercannons." (02/08/23)

Anthony Hawran ● 270d

It's Thames Water's fault.They take our money and are meant to clear the gullies, but they prefer to keep costs down to increase payouts to shareholders.It's been decades since the Council charged Water Rates and cleaned out the drains, it's no longer their job, drains are Thames Water property now.

John Smith ● 270d

"What does this council actually do?".They sign off Tower after Tower.As well as neglecting the most basic "Council Services."Thereby ensuring their legacy of utterly destroying Ealing Borough and Levelling Down remains intact.I'm sure they're proud.

Rosco White ● 270d

"What does this council actually do?". Ealing Council virtue signals, aka "protecting public services".However, not all areas of the borough of Ealing are equal to each other. Montpelier Park falls within the bourgeois/middle class of Hanger Hill Ward that has the wrong political representation in the eyes of L.B. of Ealing's present neo-feudal rulers, it seems. Therefore no money is to be spent putting in a drain at the northern exit of Montpelier Park to take away the water/mud that runs down the slope there. Also parts of the Pitshanger Ward could be considered too bourgeois/middle class for attention to be given to flooding  outside North Ealing School, after heavy rainfall.It seems to be that giving paternity leave to the Commander-in-Chief of Democratic Services in L. B. of Ealing is more important than keeping the roads and drains of the borough clear. At the Council Meeting on 13th June 2023, he seemed quite laden. At present, he is on paternity leave until 4 September. Perhaps he will be giving birth or has given birth to a carbon neutral, environmentally friendly 20g little baby out of the urethra hole.This is in order to create a more equal gender society, as well as to fight climate change, for the sake of all humanity and the environment. It will also help confirm Britain's global leadership in combating global warming and climate change. That seems more important to the present seemlingly neo-feudal, virtue  signalling rulers of L.B. of Ealing than the drains and roads in the bourgeois/middle class Pitshanger Lane and Montpelier Park ares of your borough.

Anthony Hawran ● 271d

When it rains heavily Pitshanger Lane becomes a swimming pool. You have to plan walking along it carefully otherwise you get soaked from passing traffic. The only upside to Woodville Road being closed for 4 weeks ( maybe more ?) is the decrease in traffic. The worst part affected is bang where the high rise flats (replacing the old folks home ) are going to be. It never bothered the residents, they weren’t going anywhere. But I wonder what prospective new flat owners will think.

Bettina Margaret Thwaite ● 276d

& Pitshanger Lane o/s North Ealing School, that’s like a filthy swimming pool  after a lot of rain.Been so for ages, lovely for the kids trying to get to & fro.The council ( & all others ) are too busy trying to raise parking & driving infringement revenue.Yet again the motorists attacked, with a soon to be 14th consecutive interest rate rise & the cost of living.It’s absolutely sickening & something needs to be done, make a stand against these dictators

Peter Yale ● 276d