Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

Please take your litter home with you

As predicted, I spent some of Thursday afternoon in the dungeons below Ferry Quays with recycling officers and site management. For reasons lost in the mists of time some LBH green waste recycling bins and some secure waste bins have appeared, together with a wheelie bin from Weymouth or Weybridge or somewhere – nobody knows how, when, or why. I suspect the ghost of Tommy Layton or perhaps Lawrence Rowe . Didn’t Lawrence Rowe play for the West Indies in the 1960s? He must have been getting on a bit. Anyway, nobody collects these bins so we decided to bin the bins, as you might say. I was treated to an understanding of how we deal with internal flytipping on the estate – at great expense and difficulty. It makes me wonder how people dealt with discarded furniture etc in the 1950s when few had cars. I’m pretty sure they didn’t merely dump it on a street corner for somebody else to deal with. As far as Ferry Quays goes, the site team stressed the importance of consistent collection days and clear communication. Getting the bins to street level involves a janitor hitching bins to a little tractor and towing them out, or manually tugging out the smaller bins – and there are about 10 bin stores with up to a dozen bins in each so it’s important that timings are right. It’s also reassuring to hear that all our recycling actually is recycled. We’re going to adjust the bins, relabel some, and do some communication and we’re hoping Ferry Quays can be the pioneer in an improved system in all the fairly modern blocks which have a similar recycling system.

Late afternoon we had our task group on libraries and parks. All the Green Flag assessments for parks come along in May or June so the parks team are busy on that. I asked for some more clarity on the timescales for the Brentford library works, also reassurance that provision will be made for existing groups that meet there (got it verbally but would like to see it formally communicated).

Friday, suddenly it was Easter and no work to do. Weather generally glorious over the weekend so my bike got a good pounding, including an encounter with the Extinction Rebellion celebration (that’s what it felt like) on Waterloo Bridge. I tried to wheel my bike over the bridge but was eventually stopped by a line of coppers, for reasons that were obscure. They helped me lift the bike over the railings and I then had to ride (haha) down the steps to the South Bank. In the course of the weekend I had no less than THREE punctures, the last one a spectacular blow out with a huge bang just by Elthorne Park. Anyway, I now have a shiny new rear tyre and all’s well, but I reflect upon the fact that my 15 year old car has not let me down once in about 6 years whereas the bike let me down 3 times in a weekend. There must be a better solution, though I must say I was overwhelmed by the kindness and helpful attitude of cycling people who I encountered when I had problems, particularly someone called Casey who I believe leads the Hammersmith and Fulham Cycling Campaign and helped me sort out my first puncture when I was lost in Chelsea!

Interspersed with all this was my final act of the Great British Spring Clean. About 8 people turned up (not including the threatened visitor from the Daily Mail) but frankly there wasn’t much litter left on the A4 so we split up, so the photo opp doesn’t do justice at all! Some of us ended up in Carville Hall Park, where I had previously been on Wednesday and left spotless. As you can see, it didn’t last long. We need more and bigger bins but whatever happened to what my mum told me ‘take your litter home’? Piles of bags left in two different places, quickly picked up by Hounslow Highways.

On Tuesday I get on my bike again and have a bit of a ride around (I’m getting addicted to this – the first good thing I’ve ever been addicted to I think!) and have a mosey round the Ham/Brent Way/Catherine Wheel Road. We heard a while back that Ballymore will be doing things in the space near the Brewery Tap including, I think, their visitor/information centre which is supposed to be opening shortly. I took a couple of snaps whilst dodging the jackhammer, and it’s all looking interesting.

We’re back to work so I cycle into Hounslow House for a cabinet meeting in the evening. This was longer than they sometimes are because we didn’t have our pre meeting last week, so by the time I arrived at the Spring Grove Residents Association AGM they were already tucking into the cheese and wine, so I didn’t have to answer any awkward questions, simply got on with a bit of tucking in on my own account.

On Wednesday, back to Hounslow House at lunchtime. Some developers wanted to present to the Melvinator and me a proposal for a ‘co-living’ development on Gunnersbury Avenue. This is not actually our ward but close by, and we had an interesting discussion. Co-living means a development of studios for single occupancy with lots of communal living space – dining rooms, living rooms, cinema, gym etc – aimed at the likes of young professionals. It seems a good idea to me, much better than HMOs or tiny flats in inappropriate Victorian houses, though whether it is appropriate development where proposed – between the Volvo and Peugeot/Citroen dealerships – is debatable. The rooms are strictly for single occupancy – no couples. I asked if they would have a fierce landlady/lord saying ‘no ladies on the 8th floor after 10.30’ or the like but they said no. Melvinator was having difficulty with the presence of double beds together with this restriction, but he should see me in a single bed (or maybe not).

After this I see the head volunteer (can’t think what else to call her) and driving force behind the FoodBox in with the leader, so the three of us have a brief discussion about FoodBox and other local matters. Then a quick visit to West Middlesex for a replacement Hearing aid (one of them fell out somewhere and I lost it) and then to the FoodBox itself for a rather lively Trustees meeting where we welcomed one new trustee in person and another in spirit. I was delighted to endorse the transfer of the Treasurer portfolio to one of these new trustees, who is a proper accountant.

Then straight to Siracusa, where I had promised my daughter a dinner. Who should I bump into there but Steve Curran who is tucking into a pizza with some colleagues.

This evening I start off on a long weekend away so before I go must catch up with stuff plus make arrangements for delivery of a questionnaire from Ruth Cadbury about crime. I’ve managed to find people to deliver 5000 of them but still have 3000 to go. Sometimes I wish I was a representative for a nice dinky Chiswick ward rather than the monster-sized Brentford ward.

Cllr Guy Lambert

April 25, 2019