Warning: This Article Contains Picture of Me in Jodhpurs

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert reports back

Cllr Guy Lambert

March 31, 2023

Well, as predicted, waiting for a dishwasher was the excitement high moment of my life to date. Two Blokes came. They couldn’t get the bottom panel thing free without breaking it because it was all jammed but with a lot of heaving and grunting it was all done, and only someone far more fastidious than me will see the joints. So I tried it out. Terribly complicated compared with my old banger but I am masterful and I told it I was in charge, and off it went. Really quiet and the stuff comes out very clean. Mostly. But the exciting bit… I was wandering around the kitchen and I wondered why it said 1 hr 21 minutes on the floor. Apparently the dishwash wants to communicate with me. I have to look at the floor every time I use it. Fab, fab, fab.

OK Friday came, and I had asked to visit a small block of flats that Lampton Homes have bought in Isleworth. So I did. It’s called Crane Court, not to do with tall carrying machines but with a small local river. It looks modern and good outside, improved obviously by a handsome bike. Inside it’s not such a lovely story, though this lovely team help the looks and will transform the decorations.

The state of the Crane Court flat before renovation

The interior of one of the flats

Bathroom and kitchen, who can ask for anything more. We occasionally come across bad flats in council buildings but believe me, the estate of some of these private rental homes are really shocking. They will be asking me back for an ‘after’ visit. In a week or two and it will look transformed, before the tenants return. Apparently the ones who have gone back in are very happy bunnies.

In the afternoon I was home for a Teams meeting with the directors I work with. These cover recycling/waste (prices for recycled stuff are quite healthy and we’re on target to receive around £1.7M this year from the people that take our stuff to recycle it. This obviously helps greatly in managing our costs for collecting and sorting waste, and the thing I find frustrating is that well more than half the food waste we collect ends up in a black bin. Every time you dump 10Kg of food in your black bin it costs about £1, which is the difference between what it costs us to incinerate it (clean as we can make it but not that clean) as residual waste comparing it to sending to an anaerobic digester where it is turned into domestic gas (goes back into the network with the waste being used as fertilizer). Saves wasting money and stops loads of horrid methane going into the atmosphere.

Tree planting is going ahead like billy-o (is that how you spell it?) 8228 this financial year in parks, 948 given away to residents to plant in their gardens, 203 planted by Hounslow Highways on streets – 5 of them in Crowther Avenue, something I started with a determined resident a couple of years ago. Bit annoying that I lost Crowther in the re-warding! Flytipping reports to Hounslow Highways increasing for too long, went down 23% up to the end of December. So that leaves only 14,273 to bear down on 🙄 but a good start on the 25% target I have for this administration. Now, I have a long thing about hydrogen fuel, which is suddenly a lot more fashionable. It is likely to start in places like LBH where we are not dependent on public filling stations. It’s in my hard tray at the moment as I didn’t have time to go through it properly before the meeting (or this blog).

And it’s the weekend. We had a surgery in the library on Saturday morning. 3 unhappy residents about parking and some proposals we have made. This one will likely run!

In the afternoon we’re out at Cranford Community College for a labour councillors meeting. This was about environmental strategy, led by Katherine Dunne but supported by the MD of West London Waste Authority and senior councillors from Merton and Haringey who told us about things that they were doing to improve the air and the environment in general. Very thought-provoking.

Now then, no laughing, but back in September I booked up for 5 classes in what’s called 5 rhythm dancing. Then for reasons I prefer not to dwell on I spent the first 3 weeks in hospital and haven’t been ready to start again until last week. Anyway, I went, ‘danced’ for 2.5 hours and had a lovely evening. Progress. I took Sunday off but it was time to check a new piece of progress – am I fit to drive a long distance. Turned out I was fine (I went to Winchester) but the car couldn’t claim the same. I managed to nurse it home at about 50 mph and Capital Motors saw it yesterday. Not worth fixing they said (they often do – to their credit they hate wasting customers’ money). Anyway, I talked to a scrapper and decided I’d go to another car doctor in Brentford and get a second opinion, awaited today. I’ve had that silly car for 9 years and I’ll miss it if it dies.

Monday I’m out to Charlton House etc for an inspection. It does not look great but we’re planning to knock it down soon so just looking for anything immediate – nothing found.

On Tuesday morning a man knocked on my front door – a fire door inspection. There was a lot of red ink which will no doubt come back to me in my service charges. Later we had a Teams meeting discussing how to proceed with the Pavement Pledge. If you remember we have promised to spend £2M on improving pavements but a few sharp councillors have got their retaliation in first by finding the longest roads in their ward and saying they need complete resurfacing. So we could easily spend £2M on the first 2 wards and that’s not what we want to do. For me it started on Ealing Road near the junction with Albany, where there’s a short bit that has been affected by loads of utilities work and a lot of traffic. I wanted maybe 50M done (which is affordable and will deal with an eyesore) and not the whole of Ealing Road, which is mainly OK and would cost a million to relay! Anyway, I think we have a way forward and I want to get lots of benefits for what we spend.

Then in the afternoon a Lampton Group Board Teams, in the middle of which I heard the bad news from Capital Motors and had to run off to retrieve the car.

In the evening we have a (short) Cabinet, after which our millions of watchers could go back to East Enders, whereas us cabinet members were there for another 3 hours or something, dealing with a couple of complex issues we are looking for a way forward with. Watch this space.

This morning I start with a teams call with the Lampton Chairman, immediately succeeded by a teams about libraries in general and Brentford in particular. I think we could use it better and I have suggested we should consider a Friends group. A constructive discussion and I may try and chat to some possible Friends to see what they think.

This evening I’m off to West Thames College to hear about initiatives to reduce Violence to Women and Girls, and I’m hoping I’ll end up somewhere in some pub or another.

Anyway, a couple of pictures to finish your little read.

Firstly, I came upon an old photo from my days as a debonair equestrian.

My legendary manly figure and exceptional taste in clothes is not a new thing. Then, somebody kindly sent a picture of Brentford from the air, no doubt taken by his pet parrot on an outing.

Finally, in that picture there’s Heidelberg, next to our beloved car park.

Not much left and that picture which was in somebody’s office until yesterday has gone today together with most of that lovely stack of chairs. That lonely one was still there when I went past this morning…

Councillor Guy Lambert