Weekly Update From Councillor Guy Lambert

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Visits Space Way twice and investigates mating habits of ducks

Commercial waste firms seem to be failing

Our first ever ‘virtual’ public meeting, the Planning Committee, went ahead on Thursday evening. As luck would have it, there were only three applications to consider, with nobody from the public (or applicants) speaking on any of them. I must say from my point of view it went extremely smoothly and we were able to agree unanimously on all the applications, so it also didn’t take long.

I have had feedback from a few people who watched online – I don’t know how many watched in total – and they were all positive. They realised that the fisticuffs that normally break out in planning meetings were ruled out due to social distancing, as punching someone in the snoot whilst staying 2 meters away from said snoot is a bit unsatisfying. One of our fans was a former councillor of this parish who said he had attended about a dozen such meetings with different councils and this was the best yet. But what I take away from that is a little depressing: it seems when you cease to be a councillor your life gets even sadder.

Friday morning I get a call from the 55 th and soon to be longest-ever serving Mayor of Hounslow, the redoubtable Tony Louki, inviting me to join him and Steve Curran taking some pics of the Middlesex flag in preparation for Middlesex Day on Saturday. This commemorates the heroics of the West Middlesex Regiment at the Battle of Albuera in 1811. Not a lot of people know that.

Tony and Steve have started at Brentford Lock but we repair first to The Butts, where elections took place when only the very best (or very worst, according to taste) were allowed to vote, then to Wilkes Road – named after our early and radical MP John Wilkes.

I then thought it would be nice to see Mr Melvinator, whom I hadn’t seen for the duration of hostilities (though we talk frequently on the dog and bone) and he was pleased, I think, to be coaxed briefly into the daylight. No prouder man of Middlesex nor of Brentford exists even though there’s a touch of Geordie buried in Mel’s history, around the time of the Battle of Albuera I think.

On Saturday I made an exception and joined a political seminar with comrades in ‘Open Labour’ – a group of Labour people, and in this case councillors, who are on the ‘soft left’ of the party. We were addressed by Steve Reid, shadow Local Government minister and a former Lambeth Councillor. Oh how I wish we had him as our minister rather than the egregious Robert Jenrick. I was delighted to see my Hounslow cabinet comrade Candice Atterton on the call as well, as we discussed how to rebuild local government as we emerge slowly from the COVID fiasco.

On Sunday morning I had an impromptu visitor to my balcony. Being always an attentive host, I offered her some plants from my window boxes (actually, no offer was needed, she helped herself). She stayed for quite some time and I surmised that she was trying to avoid a boyfriend who was lurking on the balcony below. This led to a bit of Google research on the mating habits of ducks, which on reflection I think I would have preferred not to hear about.

Bright and early on Monday Pegasus is cajoled from his stall for a trip to Space Waye to see how the reopening of our public tip site goes. All is calm and nicely distanced as the first customer is let in at 8am – apparently the queue started just after 6 – but the roads outside are pretty busy and council officers, later reinforced by Hounslow Highwaymen, are managing the queue, including encouraging people to come back later – or not at all: the reopening is supposed to be for essential use only and to a casual observer some of the stuff being dumped didn’t look all that essential.

One of the site staff observed when I revisited on Wednesday that people seemed in the main to be quite happy in the queue. He surmised that sitting in a car doing nothing was a welcome change from spending time with the other half/kids etc.

Tuesday morning it’s bins again – our regular West London Waste Authority update. Everybody has opened same day, same hours except Hillingdon who went a week early. They like to go their own way and in true Conservative style repel immigrants: the other boroughs accept waste from wherever you live but they check your immigration to Hillingdon status. We all have much the same story – long queues but everything being managed and mainly working OK.

In the evening my other regular engagement, with cabinet and senior officers. On Corona, things still going OK (if you can really say that) locally with no deaths in the borough in the last 2 days, 20 active cases in West Middlesex and 14 suspected – only 3 confirmed - in care homes. We hope to start track and trace on Thursday, using an app and humans.

The main discussion is on schools. Tom Bruce, our lead member, arrives late having been in a long meeting in his own school where he teaches (in Richmond Borough). You’ll be surprised to learn (not) that this is a big challenge and I see that Tom has issued a press release which tells the story far more eloquently than I ever could.

We also agree a set of roles cabinet members will take to try and support the recovery, working hand in hand with officers. Well, I should certainly say hand in glove.

On Wednesday morning I’m back at Space Waye, shooting movies for the council web site on this occasion. The queue management is now down to a fine art but there are still long waits, sometimes to dump very little. Apparently there have been one or two bits of argy bargy – queue jumping (a bit pointless, because when a queue jumper gets to the front of the queue the gate doesn’t open 😊) and a few professionals with large estate cars and MPVs trying to avoid visiting the other side where they have to pay. These guys have to deal with this kind of nonsense every day and I make a mental note I should visit sites like Space Waye more often, even when there isn’t a war on.

In the afternoon I meet with Katherine Dunne, Hanif Khan and our head of traffic to discuss emergency measures to protect and promote walking and cycling, and discourage unnecessary use of cars as we move from an era of calm to an era of potential widespread gridlock as the economy reopens with drastically reduced use of public transport. We have an ambitious set of measures which will come very soon – one or two things have happened already – just as soon as we can finalise design and access signage, barriers, cones, whatever. Every council in the country is doing something similar and road signs are the new PPE. Most of these will be experimental – implement fast and modify later if problems arise – rather than going through lengthy consultation as is our normal practice. This is urgent, and we have been granted emergency powers. There will be announcements about this very shortly and I am not going to pre-empt them.

After that we have our first Labour virtual branch meeting. I missed most of Steve’s update as I was cooking and eating my tea. I probably knew what he would say anyway, and I heard Ruth’s input and some questions and discussion.

During the course of the week I had an email from British Airways reminding me I have a flight to Greece booked for late July and inviting me to upgrade to business class for a modest fee of about the same as I already paid for economy. I was not tempted, though I must say I’m beginning to feel I need a holiday. Yesterday, for the first time since this started, I did not get a leisure/exercise bike ride, though going to Space Waye and back takes me best part of an hour on the bike. Not sure I’ll get a proper ride today either, which would do nothing for my alleged sanity so I’ll log off now and see if I can catch up and fit in a ride before I join a webinar to hear about how Nottingham is going carbon free, this afternoon.

 

Cllr Guy Lambert

May 22, 2020