Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

Observing the petrol station queues on my bicycle

Queues to the Jet Station in Brentford

A good session with ‘my’ service Director, Exec Director too busy standing in for the CEO. One of my frustrations, having come from a background where project and programme management was the key discipline, is that local authority culture – in Hounslow at least (but I used to have a lot of local authority and central government, and indeed private sector clients and it’s not unique) – it is not quite so embedded.

It’s particularly an issue for me because we have so very many programmes progressing and as a ‘here today, gone tomorrow politician’ to quote Sir Robin Day about the minister John Nott (who was gone shortly afterwards) I’m acutely aware that anything not delivered or well-embedded by next May might never happen if an ungrateful/perceptive electorate boot me out or if I have a different role in a new administration.

Anyway, the Coronavirus has made many of these programmes lose impetus for a while, though everything is now moving ahead. It’s also all too easy (as in any enterprise) to lose sight of the important in favour of the urgent, and any one of 17000 voters in Brentford or a couple of hundred thousand across the borough are capable of having urgent concerns.

I’m delighted we’ve agreed to have a programme tracker in place to help keep our fingers on progress of the important stuff, and I’m promised the first version of this tomorrow.

Off to Bicester in the evening. For a free event (for members of Motorsport UK) with a free BBQ and a free drink it was quite thinly attended, especially as there were a lot of attractions. We had 3 star racing drivers (and allegedly a star comedian, but I’d never heard of him) on display together with a Repco-Brabham like the one Black Jack used to become world champion for the third time in 1966, looking fab. The car, not the late Jack Brabham. It was great fun and I got to have a longish chat with the leading Austin A40 driver I had been cheering on at Goodwood, and his team owner. I made a faux pas by suggesting the A40 was a very boring car back in the day – they bristled and observed that the very car we were looking at (see below) had won the British championship in 1960.

Yes, I know this has nothing to do with Brentford. Indulge me or look away.

Back to the grind. I had a West London Waste meeting in person at Harrow Civic Centre on Friday morning. I remembered how much I hated driving there last time so cycled, but it’s a horrible place to cycle to as well, especially after you hit Harrow borough.

Worth it to discuss matters of waste and recycling with my colleagues from across the 6 boroughs, as well as the Waste Authority team themselves. Everybody is having a huge struggle with drivers, though I suppose we are more keenly aware as it’s a council-owned company providing the service. Some boroughs have suspended some services, though as of last week I think everybody was back just about coping. We talked about recycling from street bins. Because these are so contaminated we Hounslow announced several years ago that we’re not trying to separate any more because we cannot extract any useful recycling. Everybody got a bit coy about their boroughs, but I came out of the meeting with the distinct impression that everyone is in the same boat and we’re the honest mugs for admitting it.

I had to leave the meeting and rush – as far as a fat old man on a bike can rush – to Boots in Kingston, where I am picking up my new privately paid for hearing aids from Boots. Somebody convinced me that they are different class to the NHS ones which don’t really work for me, and Boots offer a 60 day money back guarantee. It’s an hour and a half ride from Harrow to Kingston and I was a bit late but am now kitted out. Early signs are promising, though the software is much more complicated. It’s just not right if the NHS service we offer is genuinely inferior to what we can get in the market, because private provision is far from accessible to everybody. But we’d need a change of government to have any show of fixing that.

In the evening, with Ruth and some Labour comrades I go a-door knocking in The Ride and Clitherow Road. It’s fair to say that enthusiasm for the part-closure of Swyncombe Avenue is under control, but people are not very pleased with my alternative (tongue-in-cheek) suggestion of reopening The Ride to through traffic. To my amazement, somebody tells me that the back alley See pic) between The Ride and Swyncombe Avenue is being used by some as a rat run to avoid the Swyncombe entry restriction! Doesn’t look too promising to me, but some people will go to any lengths…

I am going to meet a friend of mine in Oxford on Saturday and would normally drive, but given the emerging fuel chaos I decide to cycle to Ealing Broadway and take the train. It is quick, stress free, and considerably cheaper than driving, and makes me think I can further restrict my driving habit in future. The worst bit is coming home along South Ealing Road. Traffic nightmare because there’s a massive tailback for the Esso petrol station just north of South Ealing station with added horns, road rage, 3 point turns, expletive-filled air etc.

The high point of Saturday is a brief visit to the Clayponds Fun Day. Forgot to take pictures but the weather was lovely and so was the event. People from Speak Out were singing and dancing and in the 7 or so times that I’ve been there I’ve never seen it so busy. The excellent Julie who runs it (I think) told me that two of their stalls had already sold out.

There is of course another high point locally on Saturday when a local team of ball-kicking merchants take on the glorious ball-kicking merchants from my home city that I have supported (in a distant manner) for over 50 years. Turns out that it is a festival of ball-kicking second to none, with a fabulous performance by the Bees, so much so that I was happy with the result – a 3-3 draw -, especially as Liverpool (Porto 1- Liverpool 5 on Tuesday) are top of the league and top of the world, and the Bees look set to really show their worth in the Premier League. Very proud to have them in our town.

On Monday I’m supposed to meet someone about some issues with the towpath near Kew Bridge, but we miss our connection, which gives me a good chance to observe the shenanigans around the Jet station. I’d already observed cycling from home that there was a huge tailback, Frustrated motorists decided it was cool to go the wrong side of traffic islands to try and get round the queue which inevitably caused some near misses with people going the other way. Constant angry horn blowing, and the poor bloke trying to control access to the forecourt was under plenty of pressure from all angles. There were no less than 7 buses caught in the tailback. The government, on their usual ‘not me, guv’ tack, blame panic buying, but frankly if you’re a plumber or a doctor or a care worker what else are you supposed to do?

Tuesday is free until an evening meeting with the Brentford Towers Residents Association. I get a bit shirty about two matters – what seems to be a rather poorly managed situation with concierges which ends up causing trouble for the Residents Association (as well as the poor residents themselves), and too many lights not working as autumn sets in. Some green ink emails ensue.

Wednesday is again meeting free until late on, when I am called upon to chair the panel judging the Cleaner Greener Community awards. We all subside into Simon Cowell mode – really hard to judge because the quality of entries is so high – but eventually reach a consensus. But my lips are hermetically sealed until the awards event on 6th October where a local litter picker or flower arranger will be catapulted to international stardom, or at least get a photo-opp with Steve Curran (I imagine).

So that’s it folks. A relatively uneventful week other than on the wider stage. Johnson and his dopey pals still with no idea how to run a chip shop and proving it every day, Keir Starmer having what seems to have been a very good (even if some thought his speech a bit dull) Labour Conference with the vast majority of the party now on board. Give me a bit of boring efficiency rather than a self-renewing omnishambles from Captain Clueless.

Cllr Guy Lambert

October 1, 2021