Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

Sue Gray will confirm I was alone at a BYOB event on my sofa

Out canvassing with the Labour Party

Before I forget, I will start out letting people know that Kew Gardens have started a scheme whereby those on Universal Credit or pension credit can go to the gardens for £1. Kew for one pound | Kew. There you are, I got that off my chest. Getting things off your chest is the flavour of the week or, well, or not really. Anyway I can confirm that on 20 th May 2020 I was doing whatever Sue Gray says I was doing.

Back to 2022. On Friday a Zooting© with our Labour party organiser and another Zooting© with the head of traffic and Katherine Dunne about progress with the changes to Cycleway 9 in Chiswick. In general these are going ahead OK but we could end up being snookered by a shortage of granite kerbstones. Yes, really, who knew? Apparently there’s a lot of kerb building going on around and about and the stoners (is that what they call themselves?) can’t keep up with demand, something I’ve heard about stoners in other circumstances.

But Friday was a red letter day because I decided it was time to have a tentative trundle on the two-wheeler. My arm was a tiny bit sore but my psyche was soothed by a short ride around my lovely town.

Suitably emboldened, on Saturday I actually used it for transport, but only as far as Wicksteed House, where a crew of intrepid Labourites bashed on the doors. A few grumbles about the concierge service but generally people quite content.

Something close to normal cycling service was resumed on Sunday, with a trip around Dukes Meadows. Most of the work on stabilising the grass verges for parking has been done and the old public toilets have finally disappeared, though there’s still a rather ugly temporary fence there. Chiswick High Road packed for the antique and junque (or is it brique-a-braque) market and I bumped into a couple of people I know, which was a bonus.

Monday started with a Brentford FC safety of sports grounds meeting. These are quite long and detailed, involving the footer and rugby clubs, cops, ambulance, fire, council enforcement and various others. The chair is a bit apologetic, suggesting it might be a bit long and detailed for us delicate councillor-flowers but actually I find it fascinating. By and large things are going OK, though there have been a few instances of trouble outside the ground – nothing terribly serious though, it seems.

In the afternoon an all member briefing on the state of COVID in the Borough. There are plenty of cases across the borough, with Hounslow and Feltham hard hit, also Syon, where I live and which includes the centre of Brentford. By far the highest rates are for people in their 20s but the better news is the graph is beginning to flatten, especially for those over 40. It is still really high though, almost twice as high as at any previous point in the last year. There are also lots of unvaccinated, with Brentford too near the top of the list for comfort with nearly 5000 people. The highest unvaccinated are people between about 25 and 45 – the young and old are better and ‘other white’ are the largest group. The council and NHS are working together to try and reach the unvaccinated, including having an army of volunteers with language skills and a vaccine bus touring areas with low uptake.

On Tuesday we were back to Zooterview© time, this time for the MD of Lampton Leisure. Really ambitious plans for our leisure service and we have appointed an excellent candidate. Normally I would have been off to Hounslow for the Cabinet meeting in the evening but with Plan B in operation we have decided to restrict the numbers for face to face meetings to the minimum required for a quorum and to present the papers. As I had nothing to present personally I got an evening off and merely BYOB to my sofa rather than the extensive and non-existent gardens of Hounslow House.

Wednesday was quite a complicated day. On Tuesday my daughter, who has come down with COVID (not too serious I’m glad to say – thank heaven she is triple-jabbed) asked me to pick up a prescription. Various sanitising arrangements and I delivered it to Busby’s chemist near Chiswick station. But they had to order so I had to go back again on Wednesday.

Various other activities had to happen before that though, starting with a progress visit to Watermans Park.

The contractors are making great progress there and the park is going to look great once it’s done. Good to have the Friends there in some strength as well as a full complement of ward councillors and lead member Samia Chaudhary.

Then I was along to Brentford Library. We’ve fixed the inside but the external area needs a serious spruce up – it’s rather wasted space and we want to make it greener, prettier, more accessible and more fun – watch this space. Then, with Steve Curran, I took a look at Layton Road, where there are a number of problems. Having the council leader along does tend to help to focus attention on these issues so I’m hoping we’ll get rapid action.

So, off to Chiswick to pick up the prescription but a loss of impulsion (as they used to say in show jumping commentary 100 years ago) going up the nursery slopes of the Grove Park Bridge. I assumed the chain had broken but when I looked down I discovered that the pedal and the front gear sprocket had all fallen off of a piece and were resting serenely in the middle of the road whilst a stream of cars dodged round them. Large fat bloke jumping up and down and gesticulating to encourage them to miss it. They did. The shaft has completely sheared and I can only think this must have been damaged when I had my argument with a psychiatrist in a Smart car, as it was the side that collided and I had only fitted a new shaft a couple of weeks before. Well, to be precise, the excellent Jim at www.brentfordbicycleworks.co.uk had fitted it, as I wouldn’t have a clue. Then a Lime bike back to Brill Brentford for a Zooting© with a couple of young women who have just joined the council as community development officers. My real bike still lives in Chiswick until I find an hour to go to retrieve it.

On Thursday morning, a meeting with Brentford Voice covering various local issues – welcome as always and we covered a lot of ground, then another Zooting with an officer from West London Waste. We are trying to work out the implications of Extended Producer Responsibility which will be introduced soon following last year’s Environment Act. This means that people who produce a lot of packaging will have to pay for its disposal, though how much, how this will work, and who will get the benefit of these payments is still to be clarified. We want West London to be very well prepared for this so we get the best outcome possible,

That’s all for now. I had a call today suggesting ITV may want to interview me tomorrow about potholes for National Pothole Day, which is on Saturday. I am the local expert on potholes, you see, so perhaps I will spend the evening composing a sonnet in praise of the little blighters. Or perhaps not, as my mission these 3 ½ years has been to eradicate them, and in any case I’m not a poet.

Cllr Guy Lambert

January 14, 2022