Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

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Hounslow FoodBox needs some evening delivery volunteers

We’re getting into the Silly Season, with normal service partially suspended, and my diary taking on unusual patterns. I have some friends of mine from Vienna staying with me on and off (they base themselves here then go off to see other friends and their cousins). They have a realistic view of my culinary expertise so the local restaurants take a pasting whilst they are here.

Any road up, last Thursday was a rather complicated day. First off it was an update on the ‘Pothole Pledge’. The number of potholes reported since we started the campaign is up by around 50% but the vast majority are potholes that would be fixed anyway, even without the pledge. These are now scheduled to be done, usually within 56 days, or 28 on major roads. However we are gradually teasing out some of the extra ones which we will consider under the £2M extra funding we’ve set aside. We expect a lot of these to be what’s known as ‘delamination’ where tarmac has been put in a thin layer over concrete, and we are certainly getting a few of those. Keep reporting. The answer from H Highways should always be, at present, either ‘we’ll fix it’ or ‘we’ll add it to the list for the pledge’ but we’ve had to scold them once or twice for saying the traditional ‘not deep enough’. If you report and get that message, let me know.

Then it’s FM360 – the housing repair subsidiary of the council - for their board meeting. This goes on rather longer than I can afford the time for so I have to imitate a News of The World journalist, make my excuses and leave. They are doing OK but I’m pleased to see they are surfacing things which can be improved, and working to do so.

No time for the Osterley station exhibition – I gather from Tony Louki that Osterley residents are not transformed with joy at the proposals – because I have to get to the FoodBox for a Trustees’ meeting. It is mad busy in there, though us trustees time our meetings for after the volunteers have departed as we would be in the way. We are serving an unprecedented number of people, mainly caught up in the Universal Credit fiasco and it’s astonishing what our volunteers do, some of them working virtually full time for nothing, others using cars to deliver to people over in Feltham etc who have no means of collecting and getting food home. We have also had unprecedented support from not only the supermarkets (Morrisons, Tesco, Asda) but also local businesses (GSK, Audi, MGR Removals, Hounslow Highways) loads of schools and a sports club which people tell me is quite well known locally.

Don’t shoot me if I missed you – so many are helping and the ones I mention are just the ones that come to mind. We’re looking for people with cars who can pick up fresh food from Tesco in the evenings as we’d really like to include more of this in what we provide. Let me know if you can help!

Friday morning I’m off to the ‘Topping out’ ceremony for Eden House, the first building built on council land by Lampton360 and our partners EcoWorld. 75 new flats in the centre of Hounslow, of which 30 will be traditional council flats with traditional council rents. Still a while before it’s ready to occupy but great to see it basically built.

Then it’s off for a massive lunch with Hounslow Highways at the Grosvenor House, no less. This is the annual lunch of the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation (Posh Boys from the Blackstuff). Massive in the sense there are literally thousands of people there and the first time I have darkened the doors of Grosvenor House which is somewhat Tardis-like. Makes a change and an enjoyable event. I’m always a bit conflicted about these freebie lunches but we have quite an agenda with Hounslow Highways and it’s good to have a long conversation with their senior people, including the big boss from Switzerland who seems to speak about 200 languages but is too busy to arrive for the starter or stay for dessert. Probably off to practice his Hungarian somewhere.

Continuing my sublime to ridiculous theme, it’s back in the Scout Hut on Saturday morning for our www.thamesbank.org Credit Union strategic meeting. Very good too, though a couple of board members couldn’t make it and we have 3 new ones starting soon. Members can be reassured that the CU is in capable hands, present company excepted. If you’re an employer, sign up for payroll deduction – there are real benefits to your staff, costs you nothing but a tiny bit of admin and you’re supporting a local co-operative. There are still far too many people paying way over the odds for loans to doorstep and internet lenders and notorious rent-to-buy shops.

Sunday is another posh lunch, this one I’m paying for because I take my guests and daughter to the Walkie Talkie in the City to have lunch on the 36th floor. Lunch was OK but too misty to see the Brentford Towers, so we had to make do with Tower Bridge.

Monday morning I’m in The Verdict café with Steve Curran, a man from Ballymore and someone called Merlin, Duke of London and his dad Algy, Romance of Rust. He’s not really a Duke, that’s his business name. We are talking about Ballymore’s plans, partly because I have been keen to hear more about what’s happening or about to happen. Well, for now I have to keep somewhat schtum about some of it – it will all begin to come out in January – but I’m genuinely excited about things which are starting to move in this town. Merlin and his dad are in the classic car restoration business (amongst many other things) and it’s very possible that Merlin is actually a genuine wizard, judging by what he’s up to in the formerly derelict spaces behind the Brewery Tap. Councillor Curran was rather taken with this car, which matches his status (he thinks) and his age (I think). All I can say at this stage is, expect the unexpected starting to happen in the heart of Brilliant Town next spring.

In the evening, another visit to Caspari with friends from Ferry Quays. They have stayed on the management committee so I catch up with all the gossip around the estate. The spare ribs are excellent, and the portion stretches from here to Isleworth.

On Tuesday I have a meeting with Jan Lennox, the Director of Watermans, to advance my understanding of the finances. A good meeting – I really need to get to know Watermans better and gradually getting there.

In the afternoon I take one of my Austrian visitors who is missing her cat to the shiny new Terminal 2 at Heathrow, then return with my other Austrian (born and bred in Bethnal Green) to witness how real democracy works. He is one of the one members of the public who attend our cabinet meeting in the public seats. He looks a bit lonely, but is deeply impressed by the obvious political talent he sees in front of him. Afterwards we repair to my flat with Cllr Louki who was lurking for a lift and have a competitive evening watching recorded University Challenge (let nobody suggest my life lacks glamour). Louki however gets 14 answers correct vs me and my friend Gerald who get 7 between the 2 of us. He will not be invited again.

Wednesday I’m down at the FoodBox again, preceded by a high class cup of coffee at the Brentford Café, where us trustees sign cards for our wonderful volunteers. I then have to pay in nearly £700 in donations. When I were a lad you could pay money in at any bank using a Bank Giro Credit but these days I have to go to Chiswick where the nearest branch of Lloyds is. Still, the bike ride probably helps my fitness before fatness ambitions, and the paying in machine is pretty cool.

In the evening it’s a beer or 3 in the Black Dog with former councillor Sam Christie, over from the Big Apple and working as hard for the community as a number of members who are still on the council. She brings her mate Steve Curran with her as a chaperone, I suppose.

I’m off to a Labour party Christmas do shortly, then another library task and finish group this afternoon, and that’s me done for 2018, bar emails and what have you. I will be in the warehouse at Crisis (formerly Crisis at Christmas before the government made the crisis a 365 day one) next Thursday so if you’re expecting Santa to drop a blog down your chimney next week you’ll be disappointed. Don’t cry too much, the rivers can’t take it.

So, if you’re daft enough to be reading this, be of good cheer. Have a Merry Christmas, and look forward to 2019, when the centre of Brentford really begins to move forward.

Cllr Guy Lambert

December 21, 2018