I Am Sailing Stormy Waters

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert reports back

Brentford West councillor Guy Lambert

February 5, 2025

This will be a very short one because a) I have not done much this week b) I am going on a short break in Paris looking at old cars, starting in the middle of the night on Wednesday morning. I will be sailing with DFDS (P&O are no longer a possibility for me) and I spend £15 extra to enjoy their superior lounge which gets me a free snack, drinks etc etc. Well worth it! I doubt it will be fantastically busy in early February though the amount of passengers often surprises me.

As I said, I have not been very active this week. I did have a coffee with a retired sea captain, previously in my ward before the boundary changes. He’s a fascinating man, very much a man of the political right. We avoid too much political talk though each of us put a stake in the ground every time we meet, just so we understand each other.

Later on Friday I went to my current favourite cinema since the demise (I hope temporarily) of Watermans, ActOne in Acton in the converted library. I was seeing a film called Vermiglio, about a village in Northern Italy at the end of WW2 and it was very captivating. Given my hearing weaknesses I actually like foreign language films because they have subtitles! Obviously I could understand every word in Italian but I’m too deaf. Remember I’m a politician and never tell even a white fib about my linguistic talent. There was great excitement whilst I drank my coffee before the film started. Suddenly the restful café (pictured) filled with the dulcet sounds of the fire alarm, all the people who had been in the cinemas and finally some hunky firemen. Well they were firemen, but to be honest I did not explore their hunkiosity – I leave that to those with different tastes in blokes. After a few minutes they said it was a false alarm (no big surprise) and we filed into the cinema.

On Sunday the weather was pleasing and it seemed a nice day to cycle into the centre. I have a fancy to visit ‘attractions’ such as museums and I remembered it is many years since I visited the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. Last time I was there they were celebrating the replacement of steam underground trains with electric ones. Progress is constant, and by the time I’m 130 they will replace the signalling on the Piccadilly line to allow it to stop at Turnham Green, something of great excitement in Chiswick (as it has been for 35 years at least).

It is quite a small museum (fine with me) but plenty to keep you amused. A few pics that caught my eye

A friend of mine once moved house to a lace called Brill in Bucks. He told me Brill was an abbreviation of Brill on the Hill, Brill is an abbreviation of Bray Hill so where he was actually moving to was correctly called Hil Hill on the Hill. He gave me an unlikely story that it had a Metropolitan line station, and this map proved it.

There was a lovely picture of a Ukrainian couple sheltering in Kyiv station

And one that made me giggle of platform living with mod cons

There were of course a lot of pictures of our own underground in 1941 etc but I was caught by this picture of a new train (and new fashions) on the (I think) District Line

As I suggested, I don’t have much to report this week, though I have progressed the usual smattering of local casework. In the good old days I would have been out canvassing to support the new Labour candidates for the Syon and Brentford Lock ward and Brentford East but I am no longer welcome in the Labour Party.

Indeed, on Monday I had a letter from the Labour office in Newcastle which told me

“ You are, therefore, no longer a member of the Labour Party and have been removed from the national membership system. You will no longer be entitled to attend local Labour Party meetings

You may apply for re-admission, but you must submit this application directly to the National Executive Committee (NEC) for their consideration pursuant to Chapter 6, Clause I.2 of the Labour Party Rule Book, which provides:

“…… the application shall be submitted to the NEC for consideration and decision. Such applications shall not normally be considered by the NEC until a minimum of five years has elapsed. The decision of the NEC shall be binding on the individual concerned and on the CLP relevant to the application.”

The NEC will only relax the “five year” exclusion period in what it deems to be exceptional circumstances.”

It’s probably against the party rules to copy this, but the good news is that causes me no difficulty. I am now above the law, like Donald Trump.

I have clearly upset the local leader and some of his cronies and the result is they have managed to get rid of me. It has become a major sin in the party I still support to be a decent, hard working councillor with a lot of local support and a passion for improving my town and the life of local people, and all this is far more of a sin against the party than doing very little for many years.

All that I can do is urge local people to support the Labour candidates. They are both people I know and they live locally. Both, I am confident, will be very valuable additions to the local service and much better than any independents with murky pasts (me excluded from that comment 😊 )

As far as our empty properties owned by the council, there is little I can add. There is no visible activity in ‘Block D’ and the retailers I know still have no lease and will have to go through a number of hoops before they are allowed to occupy. They will also have to pay a minimum fee of £6000, made up as follows (more for larger units):

Initial review of tenant proposals £950

Subsequent reviews following any alterations by tenant £500

Plans approval for tenant to proceed £250

Pre-construction checks on tenant contractor, review of insurances and review of tenant contract terms £650

Inspection of tenant construction works (fortnightly per visit) £825

Finalisation of landlord approval, review of tenant certification and co-ordination with landlord building control. Final inspection of tenant works. £1,500

I don’t think they were told about these costs before they decided to come to Block D, but now they have no option other than to pay. It is of course reasonable for the council to check that the fitout is to an appropriate standard but in all the times I took out commercial leases (I used to manage about 40 commercial properties for Honeywell throughout the UK) I don’t remember ever being asked to cover the costs of the landlord’s prudence checks.

I fear that some of the potential tenants (or all of them) may be deterred by these costs on top of their own costs in sorting out their fitting out costs. Given that Hewson Books has closed (I hope temporarily) and other Ballymore tenants either have not committed or do not appear very busy I am increasingly fearful that Brentford will take a long time to have a vibrant town centre.

I also think that some at least of the council flats have yet to be occupied, though I have been unable to get any data about that. But a lot of the flats look dark at night,

Councillor Guy Lambert