Matching the Achievement of Brian Lara

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert reports back for the 400th time

Cllr Guy Lambert

September 29, 2023

Well this is a momentous week for me, because like Brian Lara I have scored 400 (blogs). I don’t know how many blogs he has done and to be fair I have not yet scored 400 runs in a test match. A bit like Tony Hancock and his respond to answer whether he was a doctor – he hadn’t bothered. I feel much the same about test cricket. I did reach double figures many times at school so the talent had obviously been there, if I had bothered.

The trouble is, I have to think of something else to say, which is sometimes the difficult bit of writing a weekly blog, especially as someone with a memory of which a sieve would be embarrassed. Friday was the day of a regular meeting with The West London Waste Authority. This involves going to Harrow, which is probably a perfectly charming place but it seems that to deter visitors they make access very horrible: dangerous and hilly on a bike, and invariably blocked in a car. Anyway, I got there and we got through the agenda fairly quickly. There is probably a lot of change coming to the recycling world, as there was an Environment Act finished in 2021 but the government don’t seem to know what to do with it, and lots has happened yet. Now the Prime Minister has recently appointed himself an expert in this area, probably because he doesn’t seem to like anything that would improve the environment. David Cameron had an expression for this which he called Green C - oh I don’t recall the word he used. Whatever, inflation is very challenging for waste people (lots of electricity and diesel fuel are involved.

In the afternoon I met a woman who was thinking about becoming a councillor. I told her it was the best profession on the planet and only those with the highest IQ and charm should consider this path, unless they are Conservatives. She went away to reflect, but she would be an asset to our council.

Before that I had visited a home where some genius had fitted a new door. It’s not often that I think “I could have done that better” but I reckoned I could have surpassed the skills of whoever fitted this door on behalf of a Housing Association. It’s not yet clear if we can get this fixed, but we’ll get there eventually.

Saturday came, and I had decided to go and give a little help to the heroes of the Cranford Action Group. Our friends at TfL, or their verge clipping contractor, had done one of the infuriating things they do from time to time – mowing the verges and central bit of the A315 without bothering to pick the litter first. So what was an object if little beauty such as a plastic bottle, was now a plastic bottle in 246 shreds, which is 246 times more time-consuming to resolve. So I spent an hour or 2 messing around with a litter picker and a bag on the central reservation of this not particularly picturesque dual carriageway. Somebody was supposed to send me a picture, but they didn’t so posterity is deprived of the evidence.

I made a very rare visit to a theatre – at Riverside Studios – because a friend of mine was starting on her career as a starlet doing an amateur show there. As she’s slightly older than me it might be a bit late to start her assault on Hollywood, but there’s no shortage of talent so who knows.

On Sunday, two events I couldn’t miss. First was the BAM – the Boston Manor Arts Market at (surprisingly) Boston Manor park. This was very lively with a lot of stands and people there including a lot of the Brentford usual suspects – much more of an event than I expected and shows the park is now really on the map in a much more established way than it used to be.

The Greener Living Festival came to the rec ground on Thames Road Chiswick, a regular haunt of mine when my daughter was about 3. Hasn’t changed much and the show was not exactly packed but the stall holders told me bravely that it had been lively earlier. I think there were as many councillors there as ‘ordinary’ punters whilst I was there but it was fun, especially as my council colleagues were busy handling a snake and a gecko which normally live in Bedfont Lakes Country Park.

I’m far too much of a wimp to play that game.

On Monday I finally discovered what was planned for the former Methodist church in Clifden Road. It has been unused for some time and they tell me they are now in the process of selling the site for redevelopment. Quite what is likely to happen is not clear – the planners have not been consulted as yet, but the church expect the sale to go through soon.

I also went up to Boston Manor for a coffee at the Potting Shed, which is always a pleasure, and I stopped off on the way home to see what’s going with the very unpopular development next to the Boston Café. I was accosted by someone who lives in Church Walk, behind, and she has trouble breathing because there is so much dust being created, and the trees which were supposed to be preserved have been chopped and the promised fence hasn’t appeared. There is a new fence on the pavement at the front which has made it all very restricted. The planning enforcement people are on the case and the last I heard a temporary stop notice has been served on the contractors and the owners of this plot. The temporary stop notice halts any physical works within the site for 28 days. In the event the owner or contractor fails to comply with the temporary stop notice, they are at risk of an immediate prosecution. If you think that is untypically well-constructed, that’s because I cut and pasted from the planner. I have a feeling this book has a lot more chapters yet to be written.

On Tuesday I started the day with a visit to Rose Community Centre where the FoodBox is centred. Hadn’t been for far too long and it was good to pay a visit. Worried about how things are working out as the most active volunteer has ‘retired’ but we have good people taking over his role and the volunteers I met seemed very well organised and keeping those parcels going out smoothly, so I was greatly reassured. I will be looking in fairly regularly whilst the organisation goes through big changes.

Then I was off to Feltham to the opening of the launch of the Community Hub at the Feltham Assembly Hall. This is a new initiative, aimed at bringing council services nearer to the residents and we will be doing this around the borough. The event was quite packed, and there were a lot of stands showing various services

Pictures are of the good and the great who were on the stage giving talks and answering questions. After a while I snuck out, as I had to get back to Brentford and the Eye Boutique to get problems with my glasses addressed. Ah, to be young again with tip top eyes and ears!

In the evening, out to Hounslow House to get the periodic grilling from fellow councillors on the Overview and Scrutiny committee. Lots of questions about our recycling, street cleaning, weeds etc. Difficult services to get better with no extra money. We got a mainly supportive response and it was great to hear councillors praising the people doing the thankless tasks of cleaning and dealing with the like of weeds on the street. We have some excellent people doing this, including the well-named Angel who normally looks after central Brentford. She told me this week that she’s off on a 3 week holiday so whoever fills in have a high standard to keep up!

Wednesday was fairly clear, with just a Teams update about Lampton companies, but plenty on on Thursday. First thing was a service to celebrate the 150 th anniversary of the founding of St Paul’s school. I’m no church enthusiast but it would need a much more stern nature than mine to not enjoy seeing enthusiastic primary children – very well rehearsed and full of exuberance – having fun celebrating their school. A privilege.

Talking of anniversaries, it’s just over a year since I had my health event which put me AWOL for several weeks and meant that my week in Italy didn’t happen. Well. the same trip is coming round again and all being well I am heading out on Sunday which means you lucky people will be spared from a blog next week (unless someone wants to step into the breach).

I have a couple of meetings today and a surgery on Saturday then I will off to Heathrow early on Sunday (assuming BA don’t decide to cancel the flight, as seems to be the habit now.

Councillor Guy Lambert