Why Does Bill Gates Insist That I Live in Bradford?

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert reports back

Cllr Guy Lambert

July 21, 2023

On Friday morning I had an appointment for an online fracture clinic. So I booked into a Teams session and waited for a doctor to appear. He didn't. In the afternoon I had an e-mail from West Middlesex to apologise but they also told me that I would get a call from a nurse over the weekend. I did, and a charming sister called me on Saturday morning, explained that a consultant had looked at my story or more precisely X-rays undecided that he needed to see me personally in real life. Later I got an appointment set for today which is Thursday afternoon. I assume it will go ahead although of course today is the first day of the strike by consultants. I don't want to be a scab as well as my other physical problems but we'll see.

Back to Friday I got the decree absolute for my divorce from Virgin Media which after must be nearly 40 years of our relationship: this was never a love match but we mostly rubbed along OK over the years. Getting them to go away took a lot of effort but eventually a bloke turned up on Friday morning to take away a bag of gubbins which he told me they going to recycle. I'm hoping that their demands for alimony will now cease so I can continue in my new mission to make BT even richer.

Later in the day I had a session over teams with our deputy CEO plus the director of social services where my understanding of my task of health integration with social services. I'm going through the early SATs now and hope by Christmas I'll be ready to take a GCSE.

Late afternoon we have the first meeting of the trustees of the FoodBox for a number of months, which is getting more urgent because our most important trustee is stepping down in September and we urgently need to find a way of replacing him, which is quite a challenge.

Not much on for the weekend but I did go up to Saint Paul's Church on Saturday for their green fair which was a lovely event with great attendance by so many of the people who make Brentford special. Because my right hand is a bit challenged I'm trying to use Microsoft’s dictation tool but I wonder how long it will take me to convince them but I live in Brentford not Bradford as they prefer. The system doesn’t recognise ee by gum either. I love what has been done to that church over the last few years. It is a pleasure to go in there now making even heathens like me welcome and feeling the church does great things to help the local community.

On Monday via teams I had a session with the leader the executive director and the director of environment to talk about various options that we have to improve the way that we look after the street environment. Of course like all councils and all council services we still live in a world of austerity. What we're trying to do is making the best we can of limited resources. Across the country we starve the public realm of resource so despite Hounslow being repeatedly assessed of having the best streets footways and street lights in London we still challenge ourselves to do better. In the last administration we eventually found £4M pounds to improve streets that, while safe and compliant with official standards did not look as councillors and residents wanted them to, and we will shortly be announcing how the £2M pounds we set aside to improve pavements during this administration will be organised.

In the afternoon we had an away day in a school in Cranford involving the cabinet and senior management of the council. Getting to Cranford is quite a challenge for those of us who currently are incapable of either cycling or driving and to whom the buses in that part of the world are a mystery. Fortunately our leader offered to be the chauffeur for the two crocks, me and Katherine Dunne, and Rhys Williams who conveniently lives somewhere handy for the chauffeur’s route. The day's agenda was partly on reflecting on what we have achieved in our first year of this administration and more importantly looking forward for the enormous challenges that await us given continuing reduction in central support, continuing enormous inflation and a growing and ageing population. We are as a group ready to engage enthusiastically but it won't be easy.

Early on Tuesday Lara and I met for the first time with our new ward police leader Sergeant Ali. Personally impressed as I am with Sergeant Ali I shall miss Jim Cope who's been our local Sergeant for a couple of years and has made a big improvement to our local policing. Later in the morning I met up with the Melvinator (or the Melbourne Aitor as I can probably forgive Microsoft dictation app for). We were planning to meet in the waterman's but forgot that it would be closed so Mel and I met in the park With leader on housing Sue Sampson joining us by phone. We were looking for a better way have to use our sheltered accommodation for older people and this was a very productive discussion.

In the evening it was our formal council meeting up at Hounslow House and for the first time in eight years I was late for a council meeting as I misjudged the efficiency of the bus service. It was quite a long agenda although mainly not very controversial and the one that caught my eye was a motion moved by our new councillor Emma Siddhu for us as a council to adopt the Fair Tax Declaration, something that is close to my heart and I'm delighted that we progressed with this as I suggested rather weakly some time ago. Our Conservative chums were mostly supportive but a couple carped and one either voted against or abstained I can't remember which. Us labour types believe all of us should pay fair tax and for me it greatly influences where I spend money, in particular I support that shining company Richer Sounds, provide excellent audio and TV goods at a fair price with the excellent service you get from employees who have had the company given to them. Richer handily have a branch up the Brentford end of Chiswick.

I'm a bit limited in how much I get around at the moment without a bike or a car to use - or at least a right arm that is of any use but I managed to walk up to the junction between Windmill Road and the A4. Earlier in the week I'd had a very frosty conversation with people from National Highways who have resumed their work to the supports for the M4. Nobody denies that these works need doing but amongst other things I don't see why creating a barrier right across the centre of Brentford is necessary, doing it with no consulting and virtually no notice and no interest in the impact on local people. On this occasion they were quite apologetic and said that they had avoided have closure of Windmill Roadd during the day. Trundling up Windmill Road to my horror I found the road was blocked and approached a sizable posse of National Highways people in a sour mood (me, that is).

The headman immediately apologised and claimed this had to be done for safety. I dispute that and told him it was a matter of choice: if Windmill Road was the M4 have and the people of Brentford mattered they would find a better solution. Didn't get me anywhere beyond them saying they would rearrange their programme to minimise the disruption but I have little faith in that and they providing weekly updates was the best I could negotiate. If we could crown a succession of Kings could defer it for ever, because I was genuinely flabbergasted that the recent 3 month delay was because they were told by the Department of Transport to stop for the coronation which never even came to Brentford. I know why Private Eye calls the department DaFT.

A man from TfL was part of the party as he is very aware of the problems that Ealing Road junction is causing us all. He has no power to change it but he certainly understands my position and this is the same position that most people around here share. He talks of a new permanent solution to the Ealing Road junction but that solution was mooted years ago, was rejected by the TfL board and never heard of again. They are thinking of reviving it but as I pointed out that is going to take years and we need an immediate resolution of the problem.

All this does nothing for my blood pressure but in the evening I was with friends at the Brentford and Syon Forum at the Free Church. A new format with Dan in the chair and a lively evening though perhaps too much of it was about Lime Bikes! Still we had some excellent engagement and the whole thing seemed to me a great success.

This morning I had my first opportunity to enter the hallowed site of Junction 2 in Boston Manor Park. Quite a lot of people from the organisers. I have my doubts about whether we should have left so much of our lovely park to this event and I think between the organisers and the council there should have been much more engagement with local councillors (I'm biased) and local residents. I have good and bad memories of jct 2 and I think it worked much better when we had extensive engagement with the local community. I have been making this point rather noisily within the council and I hope it has been heeded. Salman Shaheen, who is the key councillor, was here today and at least the two of us know what they're planning. Startling thing is how many people are engaged in setting this up I was told there were 150 people on site during the construction whereas I always used to imagine these things were organised my three men and a dog.

After all this excitement I was off to West Middlesex for a new X-ray a chat with a consultant and then not unexpected news that they want to do an operation on my broken collarbone. It seems this might take place on Saturday which is a little bit alarming but I'll be pleased to get it out of the way If it goes ahead.

In a break with tradition here are a few pictures from my week all at the bottom of this column mainly because it will be easier with my current limitations.

Is this the first time in history that 2 Bentley convertibles have been seen fighting for a parking place in Brentford assisted by a councillor's misplaced finger?

Here’s a bench in the Brentford Library garden. People thought the bench never happened but here it is. I was not aware of Dave Evans but I'm very pleased to have heard his story and seen him remembered.

This is not a bunker for the Russian army but a temporary stage in the woods at Boston Manor Park known as stage 3

Here is the happy team from junction 2 and their centre of operations

Here's some notices and some wizard things to do in Boston Manor Park this summer

Enjoy

Councillor Guy Lambert