A Rowing Boat Without a Crew and Rowing Machines Without a Home

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert reports back

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert

September 19, 2024

The Friends of Parks event was well attended, with probably about 20 parks represented, plus Salman the lead member and the head of Parks, Gaye and some people from Lampton Greenspace. There is a lot going on in the parks world, but not much around here as we have had a lot of investment over the last few years – St Paul’s, Watermans, Boston Manor and also Gunnersbury but we were too posh with that and the Boundaries Commission decided it should be in Chiswick not Well Buggy Brentford.

On Friday morning I met a local resident who is wanting to investigate buying a bit of council-owned property to enable him to extend his house. I don’t think it’s very likely but the old saying goes – Don’t ask, don’t get!

Then I was up in Boston Manor Park again with Salman to meet with the panjandrums of the Friends of Boston Manor Park. There has been some distance over recent years though I get on well with the people and we wanted to explore how we improve the relationship and get a more productive co-operation. Went well, but we’ll see whether anything comes out of it.

On Saturday I was in Chiswick for the regular reveal of the painting on the ‘”4 th plinth” by Turnham Green station. Always a short but lovely dose of fun and chatting with some locals there. Upside and scruffy is suitable for councillors.

Then I had a lesson in how to write a book/story. You might think there’s plenty of room for improvement (undoubtedly) but this is about writing something that’s fiction, which is obviously natural territory for a councillor (as you will know). The teacher was Scarlett Thomas, who I have to admit I had never heard of, which doesn’t augur well for my expertise in this field. She has written about 20 books as well as TV etc and short stories.

I needed a couple of days to recover from this exertion but did get out a bit on Monday to have another look around Boston Manor and it’s back alley. Someone has helpfully parked a car in the mouth of it which doesn’t help access but has the big benefit that no idiot can get in there to flytip, which was one of the early tasks I took on as a councillor. Not flytipping but getting it cleared.

On Monday afternoon it was a trip to Armenia. Well the bit of Armenia including the local Bishop that has come to the old Princess Royal. But this was for an exhibition about the redevelopment of Griffin Park. The story is all here and hasn’t changed much from the previous version which never proceeded. I hope this will and it will be an improvement in the end, but we do need to be careful of impacts during the development.

I bumped into Paul Keane, our rowing expert from Ferry Quays. He, his wife and team work with many of our local schools and are making a big difference to local youngsters. He was at the Armenian place because he was delivering some rowing machines. They used to be in Max Factor but have been chucked out when the landlord emptied it. I have been trying, thus far with spectacular lack of success, despite warm words from all the responsible councillors and the MP, to find a proper home for Brentford Boat Club which Team Keane now runs, and its equipment, classes etc. It upsets me we can’t make real progress despite good intentions

Then home for a Teams event with us councillors responding to questions from people from Brentford Voice. We have some of the answers but some of them are still not clear. We work away at it.

On Tuesday afternoon we had a slightly heated discussion amongst the trustees of Hounslow Community FoodBox. There has been little difference in demand for help which has always stayed strong, but our income – both money and food donations – has fallen quite a lot and we need to remind people that this is still important. If you have a spare tin of tomatoes or tin of spare cash you can drop some money here or drop your spare food etc at the Rose Centre.

In the evening we had Borough Council. I have little to do there these days and frankly I find the politicking which inevitably plays out there rather tiresome. Obviously needs to be done but not an event where you learn much beyond what’s in the published papers. All here or there’s lots of videos on the council site if you want something exciting to watch. Oppenheimer eat your heart out.

Today I had an online thing about Road Safety, then I was hoping to meet the Estate Manager here where I live but he had got his knickers in a twist, Well, maybe not, but definitely his diary so it didn’t happen.

Wednesday evening a quick visit to the Brewery Tap for the Brentford Voice pub crawl (does a crawl in one pub count) but I couldn’t hear much, had a Blog to do to avoid howling and wailing across Brentford by people with no wisdom provided whilst I jet off to Jersey on Thursday morning. I can’t get my act together for a ‘proper’ holiday but I’m enjoying long weekends, this one with a couple of close friends– one who lives there and one who flies in from Torquay.

Oh, today’s picture. We heard some kerfuffle in the Noble River Brent. A rowing boat which probably was not called Marie Celeste was nevertheless deserted. Very hard to manoeuvre a long rowing boat by pulling and pushing it with a dinghy but it provided some entertainment for onlookers (well, at least me and my friend).

In the end they got an oar out!

Councillor Guy Lambert