Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

Trying to find out what's really going on in Boston Manor Park

Friday morning I was up to Boston Manor Park to meet the redoubtable Linda Massey who is the mainstay of the Friends group, together with the group chair and another committee member. There is widespread disquiet about the works being carried out in the park as a result of the major grant we’ve won from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

A lot of vegetation is being cleared, apparently to support diversity and sustainability, however people think – rightly or wrongly – that it is having the opposite effect and doesn’t respect the work done by the Friends and other enthusiasts. My horticultural expertise extends no further than a few hardy plants on my balcony – they need to be hardy if I’m their guardian – so I wanted to understand the concerns first hand.

I’m not going to rush to judgment on this: the park certainly looks very untidy in places but our chums from GreenSpace are working away busily so it’s fairly obviously work in progress. Clitherow’s island in the middle of the river/canal is now in plain view, together with some – ahem – unconventional buildings are rather second-hand looking boats.

There are also some direct impacts on the Friends ability to generate income (all invested in the park) and it's fair to say they are pretty hacked off with life at present. We’ll be meeting the Parks team online later today and have pencilled in a date to meet on site early in December after we’ve escaped the shackles of lockdown 2 (I am a cup half full type).

On Friday afternoon I had an update with senior officers on various aspects of Hounslow Highways performance. My focus tends to be mainly on cleaning and flytipping matters and the story is mixed. The good news includes that Hounslow Highways consistently clear 99.9% (really) of reported flytips within 24 hours without any additional cost to the council from their standard annual fee. The bad news is that the overall level of reported flytips continues an inexorable rise and is now over 2000 per month (so they miss the 24 hour target on 2 of those).

There is conflicting evidence about our prosecution record, with the Daily Mail recently saying we issue more environmental PCNs than any other council in the country and another paper (don’t know which one) alleging – quite wrongly - we don’t issue any fines at all! In truth, whilst we do look to fine or in extreme cases prosecute through the courts it is cumbersome to provide evidence and looking back over the years we’ve only managed to fine for less than half of one percent of flytips in our most successful year, and many of these were not paid. I am concentrating on stopping flytipping at source and to that end we are working hard on making sure everyone has appropriate bins, is properly educated, and recycles what they can. Our special waste service will commence shortly, focusing intensively on flytipping hot spots, including enforcement against miscreants.

It’s also heartening to see that cleansing complaints have reduced by around 75%, from well over 4000 in 2014 to less than 1000 this year so far, and that Hounslow Highways have taken delivery of an all-electric 7.5 tonne tipper truck, the very first in the country, as we move towards a greener fleet.

Sunday sees our small but perfectly-formed Remembrance event at Brentford Library. Mayor Louki has asked me to lay the Borough wreath, and the Melvinator is at hand to lay one (a wreath I mean) on behalf of Ruth Cadbury. A bit sad that so many had to stay away to maintain social distance but all impeccably organised as always by Sylvia from the Royal British Legion and I’m sure many people paid their respects in private.

On Monday evening we had Labour Group meeting. Something we always do the day before Borough Council. The main item for discussion was the Local Plan review for the Great West Corridor and West of the Borough, both of which have been under preparation and consultation ever since I was first elected over 5 years ago. Members have strong views about this, because it obviously has an impact on how those areas will develop to provide homes and jobs, both urgently needed. We agree to put it forward to Borough Council. It’s on nights like this that I especially miss the opportunity for a convivial pint after the meeting, so I am left to chewing on a tinnie at home, which is definitely not the same thing.

Tuesday is a very full day, starting with a meeting of the Green Infrastructure Strategy Workshop which runs through the morning. We work on prioritising the various workstreams and ideas we have gathered previously and these meetings are always both informative and thought-provoking.

I was hoping to attend virtually the launch of the KarGo autonomous delivery vehicle but it seems my link was messed up so I missed it. This is really exciting stuff beginning to unfurl outside Hounslow Highways depot (Vinci, Hounslow Highways’ parent company are involved). Hanif Khan was there so I hope he spotted it parked on a yellow line and got parking enforcement to do the necessary. Anyway, this weird looking beastie is delivering medical supplies from pharmacy to care home. It drives itself, but the law says there has to be a real live human on board in case the computer goes to sleep. More here.

In the afternoon the Lampton360 board meeting. Delighted to see the new Coalo MD in post for the first time and she really has the bit between her teeth. These Lampton boards are so much more positive than when I first arrived and cooperation between the council and its companies continues to improve. Most of them are now trading profitably, though Coalo was hard hit by the pandemic with much of its work being suspended, so that company will make a loss this year. The good news is they are mainly managing to work as normal through lockdown 2.

In the evening the unparalleled delights of Borough Council, with our Conservative chums rather imprudently tabling a vote of no confidence in the leader. We run through the annual report of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which turns my mind back to its late and deeply lamented chair, John Chatt. Cllr Khulique Malik has big boots to fill and presented things very well, but those of us who knew John really miss his wisdom and kindness.

Then it’s the local plan and the medium term financial strategy. I point out that we are anticipating a flow of dividends from the Lampton companies in future years, just as soon as they have finished paying off the debt incurred in their set up years, which seems to trouble the Conservatives who are just itching to see it all fail. The newly-elevated Horror of Homefields, leader of the opposition Gerald McGregor bust the first of several guts he will snap over the course of the evening, telling everybody how appalling it all is before surprising nobody by abstaining.

Then we have a few questions before we get to the real fun event of the evening, the vote of no confidence proposed in an increasingly high pitched voice by Gerald (Ping, went a gut) and seconded in increasingly outraged tones by the recently deflated leader Joanna Biddolph. The Mayor had to remind her several times that her time was up but eventually order was restored and a few others had their say. Not surprisingly, everyone who was a Conservative thought Steve should be ousted and everybody Labour said he should most certainly be retained. Really, what were the Tories expecting? We have some robust debates within the Labour group but nobody thinks that Steve is anything other than an excellent leader (as do half the Tories, though they have to keep that secret!). Loads of people are queueing up to speak, but despite extending time – we REALLY didn’t want to miss this debate – we have to move to the vote, which is as expected, except that one or two people including the leader had IT glitches so I couldn’t hear him voting for himself, though others could see him.

After all that excitement it was good to have a free morning on Wednesday. In the afternoon we had the Steering Board for Lampton360, where we work between the top team at Lampton and senior council officers to look to how to develop strategically.

After that, our fortnightly transport meeting. This focused mainly on the forthcoming interim reviews of many of the schemes, with some of the major ones in Chiswick near the top of the list. The whole topic remains very fraught, but should clarify as our independent review reports on these experimental schemes and we come to conclusions.

I’ve been on this all day on and off today, Thursday and have Thursday evening meetings too so I’ll sign off with my new signature, an atmospheric picture of our skyline this week.

Cllr Guy Lambert

November 13, 2020