What DO our elected Councillors and Council Officers REALLY DO?
Gerry (Mr Tan)! Based on your recent comments on this Forum about the quality of Bond Street I purposefully went off and looked at Bond Street again. Perhaps I was being too unkind? The build quality of the pavement is really good. The natural stone flags have stood the test of footfall and weather well. However, it is the build quality of the work that was done five years that has allowed the street to remain straight and level. Around this, however, there is an air of creeping neglect that suggests that Ealing Council does not really care what is happening hear, or cannot maintain the road. Whether this is financial, political, or due to the main Contractors (Enterprise!) I do not know, however my investigation is intriguing.Starting at the North-East top corner of Bond Street there is a (once-) white painted grill that opens onto the street:It is ajar and reveals what looks like several years of accrued rubbish.As you go down the street you notice the way in which the local businesses are narrowing the busy pavement with their planters and “window boxes” making it difficult to go along the pavement more than one abreast in certain places.The impressive and robust planters have withstood a few years of hard use, however, are clearly not being looked after. On closer inspection this planter has an extensive collection of cigarette ends, rubbish and weeds inside it.Further down the street the topiarised Buxus hedge balls have been allowed to die completely and not replaced. Some sensible individual thought to put some annual bedding in here as a temporary stop gap, though on closer inspection there is nice selection of rubbish and cigarette ends in there; a length of rusty braided wire rope loops up from the soil (originally used as to anchor the roots of the Buxus to stop it being pulled up by thieves and vandals it remains) to trap the unwary child's fingers...Further down the street there are more dying bushes and a staved-in container (this plant is in need of urgent help), and yet more rubbish.Across the road there is a damaged parking meter with yellow and black tape on it leaning at a strange angle awaiting repair.Overshadowing it all across a quarter of the West side of Bond Street are the closed and boarded front of the old YMCA and the associated charity shops; bought by the Council for use as part of the projected film quarter development. Boarded and empty they represent an important asset that the community could use.Bond Street in Ealing, being at the very centre of wealth and business in Ealing, you think would attract greater scrutiny than it does from the main political parties: situated in a Conservative ward in a Borough run by a Labour Council you would think both Conservatives and Labour would be micro-managing this prime site? However, it seems to be suffering the same level of indifference from both parties except, of course, Southall. You would think that all parties would be jumping up and down on the Council Officers and the contractors to ensure Bond Street was A1plusplus AND CLAIMING THIS FOR THEMSELVES. Especially as there is a local election in May!As a final thought, the quality of the real stone pavement seems to have given it a longer life than a cheaper alternative, however, I think that we must bear in mind that this project was conceived and enacted in wealthier times, i.e. before the “credit crunch” and what was acceptable and indeed lauded is not now. The pavement in front of Ealing Town Hall is over-ostentatious, and the immensely expensive cut granite paving stones being used in Southall have a positively “Marie Antoniette – Let them eat Cake” factor about them in the light of emerging food banks. Based on a stroll through the quality retail street of Central Ealing, I am lead to wonder yet again what the politicians who say they are represent us are actually do?
Peter Mcleod ● 4315d0 Comments