Brentford Deserves the Same Class of Road Blocks as Chiswick

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert reports back

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert

August 2, 2024

So off I went, fairly early on Friday morning. Not much going on on Friday so I thought I would spend the afternoon moseying around old haunts of mine. When I was a wee student, 17 years old and a similar number of stones I would get into my minivan (or whatever my steed was at the time) and hotfoot down to Ilford or Hornchurch where I lived as a student. The A41 Chester, Whitchurch then the A5 Brownhills, then Coleshill, Ryton-on-Dunsmore where they made Hillmans then Dunchurch and the delight of the M45 then the M1 down to the North Circular. Whizzing. A Minivan would do nearly 70 on the motorway so usually I arrived after about 4 hours for a bit over 200 miles. All motorway more or less door to door these days so surely I’ll be there in 3 1/2hours. Haha. It took me more than 7 hours and a lot of stressing. Much easier and not much longer going to Dijon a couple of weeks ago. OK, not really true but driving in France was a dream. Well surfaced roads, very little traffic jams, no road works. Driving around rural Cheshire and my old haunts in Merseyside reminded me of the roads in Hounslow. Everyone moans (me included) but independent assessors say the Hounslow roads are the best in London and going elsewhere in London and outside demonstrates that it is true.

This country has been thoroughly messed up by 14 years of austerity – NHS, courts, police, roads, council services in general, rivers, prisons, railways. The list goes on but I’m boring myself as well as you. I’m worried our new government really needs to find some answers to some of this fast because my home country has been wrecked.

Ah well, my old spiritual home, Oulton Park where my family came many times to watch motorbikes or cars racing, is very unspoiled. In the middle of nowhere, set in parkland and rather gorgeous. As well as us watching racing my father founded a club called the Car and Motorcycle Drivers Association and we spent a day every summer there with people from around the country doing driving exercises, including me getting a chance to drive slowly around the sacred course where Stirling Moss, Graham Hill and Jim Clark were regulars. My father died in 1971 and I guess the Association didn’t last. The competition was the Institute of Advanced Motorists which I was surprised to find was in Chiswick when I was first around here. My father was very withering about the IAM but I suppose he was biased.

All I can find now is the badge once proudly found on the front of members’ cars. I don’t know who created the Latin motto.

Lots of lovely old cars racing and just mooching about, as oldsters do. I spent some time in an auction there which was interesting, mainly for the insane prices – some ridiculously high, others surprisingly cheap. This Roller did not get a big bid. It had apparently been in the legendary barn kicking its heels for 32 years and somebody brave will try to revive it.

Perhaps these 8 track tapes spied through the window might inspire them.

Thinking about it, the tapes may be worth more than the car.

A bit of Wirral – Teenagers used to bathe off the beach here when I was a kid.

As you can see. It would be challenging now because the silting up of the River Dee estuary apparently started in the 1100s – probably before - and is now complete, at least on the Wirral side with any serious body of water a mile away.

Parkgate, nearby, was an important port from the start of the 18th century, in particular as an embarkation point for Ireland and the likes of George Handel and Lady Hamilton (of Nelson fame) sailed from there allegedly.

Try that now. The old mooring rings are still visible in places on the sandstone quay wall.

There were plenty of old cars in the car parks at Oulton Park. This pic gives you a sample, plus how the circuit looks.

This of course has very little to do with Brentford, but I do like to ramble and you are not forced to read it!

Anyway I was back on Monday and didn’t have a lot on. I caught up with emails and a bit of casework and spent the first part of the week cycling around the ward, generating a lot of FixMyStreet reports and other things.

Salman Shaheen raised the matter of the barrier on Whitestile Road, which still looks very sad. I have been grumpy about this since it was first built as just a bit of pavement. As I anticipated a lot of people simply drove over it so I got the traffic team to add some planters. These were not properly anchored and small enough for people to drive past, especially if they had moved them a bit. So I got them to add some bollards, though I still thought that would be inadequate. Plus the contract I was assured had been let to someone to maintain the plants seems to have been let to someone with a green finger as well developed as mine.

Some imbecile has decorated the planters with the name of someone who may be a distant relative of the Mayor of London. Salman wants them removed and replaced by bollards. I want them replaced by something like we build in Chiswick.

Really, Brentford deserves this as much as Chiswick does (at least) and I am sure we can find people to maintain the planting as they do in Chiswick (and in the Market Square and elsewhere)

Another genius left a load of mess on the pavement in Mafeking Avenue and seems to have painted the pavement white. Hounslow Highways tell me it has been cleared though I haven’t looked yet.

Perhaps it was a dusting of snow, but not very seasonal.

On Wednesday evening I went to a presentation about how we are trying to improve the Area Forums to attract more people – and importantly more diverse audiences. Not really connected to that, Emma and I have been talking about surgeries. We still have them in Digital Dock on Sundays but the one that Lara and I used to have in the library we gave up on, because nobody ever came unless they were specifically invited.

We are thinking of having a more informal surgery (they are not all that formal to start with!) in a café or pub or park, as much to chat about the town and our aspirations. Anybody likely to be interested – it would be good to hear from people.

Talking of hearing from people I was delighted to hear from no less than 3 locals about Louisa Clayton, who I mentioned in last week’s blog. Apparently reports say James Henry & his wife Louisa lived in number 3 The Butts which I’m told is now the Rectory for the parish of Brentford. They were connected with Fellow Morton & Clayton the canal carriers. They were the largest canal carriers in the UK and following the nationalisation of the canals in 1948, made their first trading loss in their history and went into voluntary liquidation in November 1948. The government acquired their boats & other assets in January 1949.

Another part of the family was Forrester Clayton. He stood for the Council in 1912 and didn't get in but was elected in 1915. He was a special constable during WW1 and became the chief of the local services. He was a JP and member of the Middlesex County Council and even went to the US to represent Middlesex at an international Road Congress. He was a Conservative as were most of the men running Brentford at the time so some things don’t change - they still like fancy meetings in exotic places on the taxpayer!

The little canal branch beside the Holiday Inn once ran inside one of their warehouses. [I always thought that might make a nice swimming pool if someone sorts out Thames Water]. I have various sources for more info which may be beyond my small brain and here is a picture – more available if interested.

Talking of History, I noticed there is a notice outside The Weir that JMW Turner used to live there (I suspect it was the White Horse then, or even the Blue Mammoth). Why on earth do we not have a Turner Street or similar in Brentford? Brentford High Street: Joseph Mallord William Turner (bhsproject.co.uk) Hmm, he seems to have been partially named after a duck but someone couldn’t spell.

My other big issue at the moment – there are others but I haven’t get back to them recently – is what is happening to the people who live or work in what’s left of Charlton House and Albany Parade. Many will move to ‘Block D’ on the High Street or the new houses on Windmill Road but I am seriously frustrated that this has not already happened. There is also no result for the traders, many of whom are cherished in Brentford. Working on it, urgently.

Councillor Guy Lambert