Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

Ideas for improving both trackside and roadside

Sometimes life as a local councillor astounds me. Last week I made a rather lame little joke about mislaying my hearing aids for the Labour listens session and I get some ‘no surprise there' comments on social media. Really, people, if you want to have a pop at me – and I know many do - you can surely do better than that.

The session was not exactly buzzing with energy as we had only two live questioners and I believe up to about 40 watching online and a couple of mailed in questions. Fortunately the two live questioners both had plenty to say for themselves and we had a couple of questions sent in so we weren't short of material and I hope it was informative for those who engaged.

If we do it again – I imagine we will – I hope we get more notice and can publicise better but for the avoidance of doubt I am perfectly happy to respond to emails, phone calls, text messages, letters and all the other forms of communication open to humanity in this 21 st century of ours and very happy to meet people in person, subject of course to social distancing etc. if there's a need.

Friday and the weekend involved a fair amount of wobbly cycling. Someone has been complaining (quite rightly) about some horrible flytipping by the lorry laybys on the A312 – The Parkway in Cranford, next to the M4 Junction 3 – so this is a good reason to have a trundle through the back of Heston, check out the problems on the A312 and the A4 coming back. Well, cycling up the shared use pavement on the west side of the A312 is actually nothing like as bad as I expected – it's really quite tidy – until I come to the layby, where everything falls apart. The borough clearly took this problem seriously back in the days of the CiP as this stern sign attests.

But stern signs are not always 100% effective as the picture above confirms.

Delightful. I reckon some of that stuff goes back to the days of CiP. I then proceed up to the M4 roundabout to see if I can access the east side. There are some fine underpasses with the kind of delicate aromas, impromptu artworks and sculptures of the kind found in little-used underpasses everywhere. I've given your stomachs enough to be dealing with already, so I shan't elaborate further. Needless to say, the cycle facility on the east side of the A312 is an invitation to share the left hand line with 45 tonne aggregate lorries moving at 60 mph, an invitation I decline in favour of further exploration of the subways. Coming up for air, I spot another little track and, following my nose (which could use a break at this point) I find myself entering Cranford Park, something I didn't even know existed. It's lovely.

Sunday I decided to join the first organised cycle ride from Hounslow Cycling since lockdown began. We met in the Market Place and trundled off through Richmond and into the park, a place I rarely patronise in view of the inevitable presence of hills. I was very tempted to peel off right at the start in favour of an open-air concert given by what I'd say from a short listen was a bluesman outside the Magpie and Crown. Looked and sounded good and some of my favourite Brentford stalwarts in the audience, but I managed to resist.

A very pleasant ride with good company. Except, of course, for the hills, which really should not be allowed.

On Tuesday we're back on the iLab treadmill. Sounds as if I don't enjoy it, but I do, and we seem to be making progress. Of course it's all very well for those of us who are mere attendees sharing our thoughts and words of wisdom or otherwise, the visible bit of the swan. Meanwhile the legs ie council officers are frantically writing up notes, reviewing and ranking ideas, looking at feasibility and where funding might come from and no doubt getting steers from the great and the good. All this talk has to be turned pretty rapidly into concrete and achievable action plans, which is the hard bit. No, actually the hard bit is delivering the plans after they are agreed. The Tuesday event is about low carbon neighbourhoods – seeking to make it so that people can access what they need within a 15 minute walk or bike ride.

One of the things mentioned is access to natural environments for play. A couple of years ago I noticed there's quite an extensive space, quite safe I think, in a kind of a trench between the Great West Quarter development and the railway line. It's quite lush, and the kind of unkempt common land me and my pals used to mooch around in playing cowboys and Native Americans or Evil Germans and Englander Pig-dogs (it was a different age) when I was about 10. Nothing much like that around here – wouldn't it be nice if we could open this space up? The picture makes it look narrow but it is an irregular shape and gets quite wide in places.

Later I have a Teams call with the chair and MD of Lampton and the CEO and Finance director at LBH talking about our emerging plans for the next phase of development of the trading companies. Pleasingly, there is a strong consensus that we're on the right track and likely to have agreed plans within the next month or two.

In the evening, a pilgrimage to Feltham station where I'm part of an on site discussion led by community groups into how to improve the somewhat intimidating footpaths beside the railway tracks. We planned this for just when it's going dark as that's when it all gets a bit scary. I realise that I'll be riding home in the dark and, whilst I have saved the lights from Pegasus, the skizwosties that attach them to a bike are still on Peg, wherever he may be. He has not turned up on the ‘bikes for sale' website somebody told me about, and I couldn't see him when I checked out the dodgy bike shop in Ealing that was recommended to me as the local clearing house. I employ a piece of Dinosaur tape which turns out to be a most effective if inelegant light fixing.

Another Wednesday, another iLab, this one about the low carbon economy and we concentrate on what might be done to generate jobs to replace those we will inevitably lose from COVID and of course Brexit coming down the track. We talk about the impact on young people, which is likely to be severe, but I also note the problems which will affect older, less skilled workers who are likely to struggle to find warehouse etc jobs.

In the afternoon we have our regular transport change discussion. These changes remain deeply controversial, and people on social media put about stories that are very misleading. The changes have been implemented very quickly and there are likely to have been some mistakes, which we will iron out as they become apparent. But the imperative that drives them is clear, simple and urgent: we must use less motorised transport and either move around less or use human powered transport for short journeys, except where necessary for reasons of carrying capacity or physical incapacity. They are not money making schemes and they will not inhibit the emergency services: if they did they would have asked for changes, as they did for some of the schemes around West Middlesex hospital (and to which we agreed).

So now it's Thursday and the blogometer clicks up another notch. My bike ride yesterday left me very much in drowned rat territory and it looks like we're in for some more of that after today so I'd better get out soon whilst the sun is still around. Planning committee this evening so I need to mug up on that as well.

Cllr Guy Lambert

August 21, 2020