Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

Back to reality in Brilliant Brentford after sunny Italy

Gosh, it seems to be Thursday again and Thursday is Blogday.

Haven’t really found my feet having returned to Glorious Gatwick on Monday afternoon, proceeded to Chichi Chiswick to pick up some leaflets and delivered them to Brilliant Brentford from where in due course they will plop on the doorstep of a Home Near You in the nearish future.

Dedicated Tuesday morning to beginning to tackle the email mountain whilst enjoying the contrast between 28 degrees of sunshine and what seemed to be about 2.8 degrees of rainshine.

Going to Southern Italy puts certain local matters into a different perspective. We (me included) moan about litter here and the fact that so many people don’t seem to care. Anywhere outside the town centres in Italy there is rubbish everywhere and there seems to be no attempt at all to tidy up, be it a coke can  or a discarded barbecue.
Oh, and they are not too bothered about graffiti. Even the old cannons have messages for us.

As to potholes – you think ours are bad (not in Hounslow of course) but you really have no idea. Other things seem quite familiar: splendid bike lanes in wide and slow moving city streets, though often with a scary covering of gravel and other slidy materials, no provision at all on fast, narrow, potholed country roads. With Italian drivers, not that I’m stereotyping. OK, I’m stereotyping.

Anyway, back to here. Tuesday afternoon it’s to the Holiday Inn for the Greener Borough engagement event, with the focus on tackling the climate emergency. Very good turnout, though as ever most of the attendees seemed to be from the East of the Borough. I thought the event was very well organised. There is loads to do and I think we might be reaching two tipping points – the horrific one where the effect of emissions goes beyond the point of no return for the planet, and the hopeful one, where public opinion gets really serious about arresting matters and makes politicians implement properly ambitious policies. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg accepts that votes for women and the working class are here to stay, whatever his opinion on the wisdom of this might be.

Not very good at selecting what to take pics of but this slide grabbed me, so I grabbed it. It shows what would happen with no policy, current policies, and what we have to do to limit temperature rise. Doing nothing, I would advise learning to swim and to live without food and water.

Wednesday morning was another day of managing down the dreaded emails, that seem like Boyle’s self-filling flask. As soon as a few drops of email dribble down the drain they are replaced by new ones dribbling in the top. Not that I’m complaining, but it takes a little while to get on top of things when you’ve done very little for 2 weeks.

In the afternoon the three wise monkeys, Corinna, The Melvinator and I, repair to Hounslow House to meet the planner who’s dealing with the proposal to demolish O’Riordan’s pub and replace it with a - museum/garden of delight/funfair? No, sorry – block of flats. There have been surprisingly few objections but we have some concerns about the scheme and want to understand what options might be available. A few matters remain unclear and it seems the application may come before Planning Committee in December. We also ask about a proposal for 1 Eastbourne Road, where a problematic idea has been put forward to turn this problematic building into a house in multiple occupation, HMO for short. The current application is likely to be refused but it would be good to get this building back in use and stop it being flytippers’ heaven. Would make two nice semis IMO.

Afterwards we talk a little about ward matters and the Melvinator tells us about his health – all good news after a couple of scares. He is grappling well with new technology to help do his work despite his poor eyesight and he asks us for support – gladly granted -  in getting him a little more training to help him work more flexibly. I truly admire him for achieving what he does, overcoming handicaps that most of us would find most daunting.

Then I’m back to the Clayponds estate to pester the inhabitants of Brentwick Gardens and Clayponds Crescent until it gets too dark to read, whereupon I mount my trusty steed (such a luxury after extremely dodgy Italian hire bikes) and head off to Isleworth Public Hall for the labour branch AGM. It is a night of supreme triumph for me as I finally succeed in not getting elected to any roles whatsoever within the party, having successfully dodged any nominations.

So here we are again on a sunny Thursday morning. Unread work email count is down to 136, unfortunately including the Planning papers for this evening. So we’ll try and work through them before heading off to a Heston walkabout at 4 and planning later. One of my pledges on Tuesday was to find a gym in Brentford that I can readily walk or cycle to/from rather than (as I have been clinging to!) driving to Roko at the far end of Chiswick. Any recommendations or special offers gratefully received.

Cllr Guy Lambert

October 10, 2019