Student Housing, Shops, the ACAA and Moving Forward with the Watermans

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert reports back

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert

November 28, 2025

On Friday I caught the district line to St James's Park and made my way down to Smith Square. The meeting was in Transport House. Women of a certain age, and men of similar age like yours truly, remember Transport House as one of those places where meetings in smoke-filled rooms allegedly decided the future of our country. This was the headquarters of the Transport and General Workers Union, led by the legendary Jack Jones. His other half amongst the 'Terrible Twins' was Hugh Scanlon of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the pair of them were thorns in the sides of Ted Heath, Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan in an era when these men were very powerful. I suppose in the end their power led to what for me remains a great tragedy for the UK- the ascendance of Margaret Thatcher and Thatcherism, which in many people's views (mine included) dominated politics in Britain ever since.

I was a bit early and decided to mooch around a bit. I remembered Harold Wilson lived in Lord North Street (when not down the road in Downing Street) and thought I would seek out where, expecting one of those blue plaques. But the only one in that street was a green one, in tribute to one W T Stead.

I had I suppose vaguely heard of Stead but that was about it. Seems he was the father of the tabloids and a genuine powerful reformer.

I'm not sure I would have wanted to meet him on a dark evening but if you picked him up and waved him around you would get rid of a lot of cobwebs.

As to my yoof hero Harold, no sign of a plaque for Wilson, which seems quite bizarre to me. Sleuth as I am, I found he lived in number 5, which is this one.

In my research I discovered another PM lived a couple of doors away - Sir Anthony Eden. He is well known amongst men of a certain age (actually a bit older even than me) for being an early prototype for Liz Truss though to be fair he lasted for quite a number of cabbages, though the jar of red cabbage in my fridge is dated November 2003. I am deciding whether to call it Thatcher or Blair.

Eden's old gaff is this one.

Eden of course was also a prototype for Trump in that he liked seizing canals but according to Dr Wikipedia he was a moderate Tory (they used to exist!) until he developed his canal peccadillo, seized Suez, and apparently did more damage to the UK than even Truss. As you can see, he has been succeeded in 2 Lord North Street by an even more damaging bunch of clowns. A local resident put it this way "James O'Brien on LBC called the IEA a politically motivated lobbying organisations funded by 'dark money' of "questionable provenance, with dubious ideas and validity", staffed by people who are not proper experts on their topic. The IEA complained to the UK media regulator Ofcom that those remarks were inaccurate and unfair.Ofcom rejected the complaint". A rare three cheers for Ofcom.

Well, there you go. I hope you enjoyed my digression as much as I did.

Then I was in the LGA meeting. About 20 in the room and another 20 on Teams. There were 2 main topics which I engaged with. One was about the imminent reorganisation of a lot of councils, mainly by amalgamating district councils and counties and replacing them with 'unitary' councils. We have (because we are the UK and nothing may be simple) a hotch-potch of different models, some with a Mayor of a strategic authority (like London and Manchester) but others with different models. My brain hurts trying to get across all this, but for affected areas like Norfolk and Surrey to name two who were vocal on Friday this means there are quite big changes for which officers and politicians need to prepare. The LGA is providing support for training etc, which seems very sensible and necessary.

I didn't engage closely with this because we in London are not directly involved. But it got me thinking about how we are organised here. We have a very centralised council, despite it spanning several towns or areas with very different features. Chiswick is very different even to Brentford whereas Hounslow and Feltham are very different again. When I lived in Chiswick for 20+ years I can only remember going to Hounslow once (to get a skip licence from the council) and the only times I went to Hounslow was to visit the warehouse Honeywell had off the Hanworth Road. Increasingly we have little or no authority in our wards or town centres. Decisions are made in Hounslow by councillors who mainly live in the borough and by officers. I don't know where all of them live, but when I was on cabinet my main senior contact lived in Lambeth and her main deputy lived in Islington. The CEO then lived outside London to the South somewhere and I struggle to think of middle managers who live in the borough. I think that needs to be powerfully reset, because I think it is unhealthy that most of the people who have power rarely even visit.

The other main topic was about saving money within the LGA. Whilst we had a civilised and constructive debate about the options, we did not actually make any decisions, nor did we have the data needed to make a decision. I think back to my time on cabinet. The division I led on had to make some savings. A suggestion from the officers was to reduce the power used by street lamps. They told me (and I believed them) that the dimming would not even be visible to the eye. So we did it, and reduced cost by a few tens of thousands. Looking back, we made that decision without really knowing what the options were. That I think needs to change, but there is no prospect of that before the election. I am also aware that councillors - charged with running the budget for an enterprise which turns over well over a billion pounds annually - generally have no experience of that kind of financial responsibility. Councillors work as teachers or support workers or specialist professionals or run small businesses. Steve Curran ran a team in the NHS which gave him good management experience but if any councillor had experience similar to mine - running a commercial division with 400 staff and a turnover of tens of millions - I have never met them. I am not being boastful about that, and I was not in any danger of becoming Richard Branson, but I do think that councillors - and officers - with comparable background is something the council would benefit from.

I made some points about the lack of information to make valid decisions. My comments were received respectfully but really nobody took any notice and we ended up rubber stamping what the officers suggested.

Sorry, but sometimes these dreary matters seem important and need to be dealt with more vigorously as the council - maybe including me - move into a new era after the elections next May.

On the way back I meant to drop into the Steam Museum but ran out of time. On Saturday though, I did make it into XYZ in the old Watermans Park/Max Factor building. Met with Kal who I have asked to make a new cover for my pouffe/footstool. We have been (not) working on that for at least 6 months but on Saturday I decided on a material so a quote will follow in the New Year. A couple of other ladies were there with frocks (not my size, sadly) and various Christmas present type thingies, a couple of which I bought.

Mary and her pal had plans to improve my venerable leather coat which has the kind of pockets which no longer hold anything, and a tear on the shoulder caused by a thorn on the ruddy Beeline.. I have of course expertly fixed this with Gorilla tape but I have been persuaded that my nearly-antique jacket deserves a more professional answer. Was pleased to find out they will be there regularly from January

On Sunday I went to the 'collective' Brentford surgery in the Digital Dock. When we started that there were 7 Labour councillors. Katherine, Dan and Balraj (no longer a councillor); me (now Green) and Lara (no longer a councillor and now a Green member in Lewisham!); Marina (now leaving Brentford having been allocated by the Labour party to Feltham I think) and Rhys, no longer a councillor. I have really been the only working councillor in Brentford West, and Katherine and Dan only have Theo who doesn't seem to do much, but they are good and dedicated workers. As is Marina, and I think is her new ward partner Max. On Sunday it was only Katherine and me. One person from each of our wards dropped in and we had a chat about life, the universe and dodgy junctions, as you do. I also urged Katherine to call in the planning for Concord House - very near to where I live and in Syon Ward. The plan is to turn it into student accommodation, which worries me because 881 student rooms will open next year in Paragon (by the University on Boston Manor Road) and there are early stage plans for more students on the GSK and B&Q sites. All in favour of students having decent accommodation but I think we should fully understand whether this proposal stands up.

We have also been discussing the corner between Windmill Rd and Boston Manor Rd where some will remember there was a spectacular accident involving a cop car some weeks ago. Locals think this junction is dangerous, and as I took this picture there was a near miss with a lot of honking. Personally I think the bus stop is too near the junction and further restricts marginal visibility. Time will tell if any changes are made.

On Monday I had a call to see the dermatologist at Heart of Hounslow. Turns out my ear wart was just that and nothing sinister, but I mentioned a pluke thing on my cheek that has been there for ages. The first blast of freezing whatever was quite pleasurable. The second blast caused me to say ow. The third one caused me to say OOWWW! so now I have a pluke 10 times as big. I'm sure it is all in a good cause.

Then I spent some time wandering the ward. Wanted to look at leaves on BMR where a man complained last year and this. I thought it was OK with leaves mainly on the grass verge. He disagreed so I referred him to Hounslow Highways. Adelaide Terrace and the opposite side of the A4 were a different matter, and I have been delighted to see Highways have reacted to that and thoroughly dealt with the problem.

There were, however, the traditional horror show in Enfield Walk (FixMyStreet reported and fixed, as was a similar one in Boston Park Road.)

Outside of my ward, I note that we still have 10 of the 12 council shops, for which I was promised there were eager tenants, still empty nearly a year later. I have pointed out to Tom Bruce and the Assets Director that the estate agent is advertising 3 vacancies on their website, but there are at least 7 with almost invisible 'to let' notices and I believe there are actually 9 out of the 12 without potential tenants, though nobody at the council responds to my enquiries.

Better news is this site 58/9 High Street now has a 'under offer' banner on Sneller Commercial's website. Of course, my enquiries about who, what, when have not had any response. I can dream that this handsome building, a real eyesore for a year or 3, may be back to being an asset to the High Street before the next millennium starts.

On Tuesday I decided it was not a day for cycling to Feltham so I drove to see Dr Nooralhaq Nasimi MBE of the Afghanistan and Central Asian Association. He says he is getting no support from the council, despite having been awarded at least one Doctorate (from Royal Holloway University) and one MBE (from the King). ACAA had been a bit of a guilty thing for me because I had not accepted any of his invites over several years. So I did. He told me he believes there are 300,000 Afghans in London (official estimates are somewhat less but may be out of date). I was surprised there are so many and it seems West London is the most lively community for Afghans. There were a number of people working away in their building and it is clearly a community centre as well as an office. I was impressed by their approach which seems to be epitomised by this notice on the wall in his office, and similar messages all over the building.

Not sure I had ever met an Afghan before, but the ones there were lovely.

Well, that's about it for this week. I had a meeting this morning with Green colleagues about the Police Station/Watermans redevelopment which is likely to come to planning soon (when is still a secret). There are various environmental concerns which I share, but where more experienced people have defined the concerns more effectively. But we agreed the main concern is to move forward with removing the police station eyesore, derelict for 15 years plus and providing an appropriate arts centre in our town centre. We all think the design etc could be improved, but we focused on the need to get something done: it will not be perfect but it will be an improvement and we can work to influence the Environmental (in all senses of the word) impact for improvement.

And the main concern is that the viability assessment currently shows the proposal is actually far from viable, despite seeming to have no plan at all to pay for fitting out of the arts centre. There may be something going on below the covers that will improve that and we will be urging that to be resolved, and progress to eventually actually happen. I remain very nervous about whether we have a deliverable solution, though Cabinet members still insist they have the answer.

Gosh, a week today it's real Chrimbo. I suppose I'd better go and get ready! If you’re expecting Blog 510 next week, write it yourself and I will publish it for you. If not, bad luck Brentonians.

Councillor Guy Lambert