Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

Considers litter bins "a matter of high culture"

Back to Hounslow for Planning Committee. The M40 decided to have one of those traffic jams which cause drivers to think they are in dodgem cars and bash into each other. Unfortunately they just don’t have the bumpers so the whole thing clogs up with bent Bentleys and damaged Dacias so the hour I have in hand to go home, change and cycle to Hounslow House becomes minus ¼ hour. Furthermore, the one I called in – Mercedes Benz on the GWR – is the only one with speakers so it is taken first. I arrive in the middle of it and therefore am not allowed to vote but Melvin ‘defer it’ Collins moves successfully to defer consideration to next month, so I’m off the hook. The rest of the agenda is fairly uncontroversial so we get through it quickly and the Melvinator has the now rare luxury of a lift home, handlebars not being to his liking.

Friday is meeting free until I meet Chiswick’s enthusiastic new councillor, Ron Mushiso, to look at a couple of road problems in his ward. I agree to ask Hounslow Highways to take another look and we repair to the George IV for some richly deserved lubricant. I have arranged to meet someone off the train at Gunnersbury to look at a problem footpath. I lurk for a bit without connecting, then realise I didn’t actually confirm anything so I’m just hanging around like an idiot.

The weekend is uneventful, especially the Cargo Bike social event I attend on Acton Green. This is so uneventful that not a single cargo bike is to be seen but it’s interesting to note how Acton Green – in Chiswick but in Ealing Borough – organises litter bins in its parks. My life is filled with contemplation of matters of high culture.

On Monday morning I have a workshop in Hounslow House in my diary, but when I appear in the room I am quickly chased away. This is an exclusive event for proper council officers, not elected hangers-on and I have been invited in error, so I scuttle off. Nice day, so I use the time saved in a boring meeting to cycle down to Hampton, then back on the other side of the river using the superb cycle paths created by Kingston Council from ‘mini-Holland’ funding from the Mayor of London.

In the afternoon I go and meet Seema Malhotra at the Heston Hyde hotel. This is a planning session for the gala dinner she is hosting for her Hounslow’s Promise charity. Everybody else seems to know what they’re doing so I’m rather a spare part but it’s good to meet the other people involved.

Back to Brentford for the Community Council meeting in the evening. A presentation from L&Q about their plans for the Morrisons site, and much talking about other local planning matters, mainly those matters beginning with a Bally and ending with a more.

Tuesday morning it’s Jubilee House in the romantically named Depot Road, world headquarters of Hounslow Highways. All the girls and boys are there – cleansing supervisors from H Highways, recycling and waste supervisors from Recycle360, enforcement, waste and environment officers from the council and senior managers from all sides.

This is a session to gear people up for the changes we will be making over the next few months to make our streets cleaner – all these teams working together with no buck-passing, and more public engagement and involvement. All seemed to be up for a change and the atmosphere was very positive. We’ll be deploying a few of these nifty ‘spend 2 mins making it beautiful’ stands in strategic locations to encourage the public to help.

In the afternoon my regular monthly meeting with finance officers. Nothing exciting to report despite 3 accountants (one lapsed) being in a room together.

Cabinet in the evening, a public meeting attended only by Cllr Biddolph – if she counts as ‘the public’. It was quite a big agenda with some important decisions – first to divert funds to support Early Help. Our schools are exceptionally successful but some children get into difficulties academically, or with mental health, or with behaviour. It is tempting to save money in the short term by waiting for the problems to develop then intervening. I’m proud that we’ve had the foresight to fund early support. It costs money and there’s always a risk it won’t work but the evidence suggests it will and the benefits if it does are important for everyone.

We are also extending licensing of Houses in Multiple Occupation to those with 3 occupants. Most HMOs are run by decent landlords but some are ignorant of what they should be doing or just don’t care, leading to poor lives for their tenants and often to problems for other residents, such as fly tipping. I urge sufficient resource to be found to do this work quickly.

I had been looking forward to Wednesday morning because I’d arranged to meet two of my favourite ex-councillors for a very superior coffee in the Verdict – Her Former Worshipfulness herself, Myra Savin, and Linda Green. My cup runnethed over when we were joined by another of my fav ex-councillors, Sam Christie. Three lovely women to drink coffee with on a sunny morning – what’s not to like?

On the way back I stopped by Rye on The Water to investigate bread etc and was waylaid and persuaded to have a bottle of fizzy water. Daddy Coot was paying visits to B&Q and returning building materials to Mummy Coot who was sitting on the nest. Actually I’m no expert on coot genders or gender roles so that could be a sexist stereotype. Whether this little video will work anywhere I have no idea, but trust me, it’s cute.

[if you can't see it, imagine a nice coot video]

I was due to go and help a resident who had fallen foul of the parking permit renewal system but he rang me to say ‘sorted’ so the afternoon was free until I had to mosey on down to the Isleworth Public Hall. There was a public exhibition of some modest improvements for cycling between Isleworth and Twickenham. I attended this briefly and heard that The Isleworth Society are concerned this will have a negative impact on the Glossop memorial. I must say I thought the changes would improve its setting but it seems there’s something I’m not ‘getting’. Must talk to them.

Then downstairs for the Labour Party branch meeting. We had an excellent presentation from a most charming woman from Extinction Rebellion, which really helped me to understand. The time has come to redouble our efforts on climate change.

I very nobly decided to skip the pub (not literally) so I could get back to write all this, because I remembered (that’s a first) I had an early start Thursday and would be out most of the day. However when I got home I found I had 50 new emails on my LBH account and I fell asleep trying to deal with them. So here I am trying to finish late on Thursday, having started in the morning. I have been at a course about Local Authority companies during the day. I was going to cycle to Kew Bridge then get the train but the morning was so perfect I decided to cycle all the way to Coin Street. Soon I’ll be popping out to Green Dragon Primary School for their first ever Music Festival, sounds like FUN. This clashes with a High Street traders event but I’ll see if I can get to that later.

Phew, quite a day but all good.

Cllr Guy Lambert

July 12, 2019