Forum Topic

Council leader felt 'harassed and threatened'

What a complete idiot this man is, people feel so strongly about an issue so they try to talk to a reluctant local representative who throws a wobbly and says he felt 'harassed and threatened', well now he knows how the rest of us feel at our treatment by Hounslow Council. It's like being in a permanent state of war with these twerps.If the Dear Leader and his colleagues had an ounce of political nous they'd have stopped to consider the sizeable backlash the decision on wheelie bins has caused. There are some of us for whom they work well, but you really do have to consider that some areas are not suitable for these, and try listening to people's real concerns. Just brushing criticism to one side and refusing to engage is hardly the action of a councillor in tune with his constituents.I have just had a letter through my door also on a subject that people in Isleworth are up in arms over, the closure of Church St. something else where a sizeable public meeting showed its disagreement with this barmy decision, but which they are going to blunder on with anyway. Then they insult us all by having the absolute gall to say that 243 people responded to their 'informal consultation' and 60% of those supported the closure! That works out to 145 people, are they kidding? When by their own calculations this will push nearly 2,500 extra vehicles on to the Twickenham Rd. and down other residential streets! 'Harassed and threatened?' Well, you have your answer - try listening to people and not being so bloody arrogant!

Vanessa Smith ● 3548d90 Comments

I haven't received my Wheelie Bin yet.  I don't want it, it is totally inappropriate for my street. I have written to the Council, written to Amrit Mann and Guy Lambert but I have little confidence that will do anything.The street is busy, with people rushing for the train - they sometimes walk in the road anyway because the pavement is so narrow.  Now they will have to walk in the road to avoid the bins - I hope no-one gets run over.If I refuse it they refuse to collect my refuse!  What to do?  I would like to hurl it far away - but where?I love Brentford, have just moved here but I don't hear much good said about this Council and now I'm seeing why. I don't fancy being arrested or having to dispose of my rubbish myself - which is the advice our lovely Council have given me.  What can I do? - my friend with impaired vision says that he can't visit me if we have bins all over the pavement - simply can't navigate up the street. My elderly mother will have to stay away from my house on bin day, can't risk her tripping up on the bins.  As for having friends to visit on a warm day and sit in the garden - well would you like to sit near a smelly bin with rubbish that hasn't been collected for two weeks - it can't sit in my front garden, no space, so it will sit next to my patio garden table and then I will have to yank the stinking bin through my house each collection day.  No thank you!Oh and we're going to get our refuse monitored. And pay a stealth tax of £50 to get our green waste removed. Watch out everyone  - this is a bigger issue than just Wheelie Bins.

Kass Stewart ● 3537d

I do agree that Cllr Hearn has a valid point. It is Cllr Mann who is the real culprit here and will be the person liable for wilfully ignoring safety concerns and guidance from professional bodies.Where were the Conservatives if such eyebrows were being raised at Cllr Manns flawed ideas? Why were other Labour councillors also not realising this is a disaster route?Why did the conservatives not make this an issue at the time and raise the profile through various media?It takes a band of residents with no political colours to motivate driven by the passion they have for the area in which they live, because they/we have been completely ignored and let down purely to suit policy.So if Councillors are told to stick their heads in the oven then they do so without question?Thats not what the electorate expect in 21st century Britain and it's simply not good enough.But Cllr. Curran lives here, in the same type of house and has the same dangers inches from his front door. The risk is as great for him and his family as it is ours. Be it airborne infection from propagated 2 week old waste or from fire or damage.THat does not make it alright then.He is in a far better position than clearly the rest of us whom Cllr Mann and his charges refuse to engage. All he has to do is point out the shortcomings and very real risks that everyone else in the district had concerns about and are very real.The ward councillors are hamstrung, one was not involved at the time, but all are towing the line on policy, no-one asked or probed what was going on at the time.Even now details just emerge in drips.

Raymond Havelock ● 3547d

For once Vanessa I agree with you - listening to people is the key to all of this. Otherwise why have local government at all?However as to the rest of what you say I cannot and will not agree - those of us (of all parties) that have worked with Steve Curran know that he has many admirable qualities and that the words "complete idiot" are just inappropriate. He has a very tough furrow to plough. The man you should perhaps be pillorying is Cllr Amrit Mann the Lead Member responsible for "rolling out" the Wheelie Bin strategy. I attended (as an observer like any  member of the public) the Overview and Scrutiny Committee where Cllr Mann explained the strategy. I was not impressed. My ward was part of the wheelie bin pilot scheme and I was not happy. However if the same care and consideration had been applied in Brentford and elsewhere as was applied during during the pilot scheme I think that the outcome might have been somewhat different.  People have queried the electoral process that produces these results. I would say come off it - Brentford is a very special place. Not so long ago it was home to a brand new political party that forced the Council to take Brentford Football Club's need for a new ground seriously and even managed to get a councillor elected.Nor has Brentford always been represented exclusively by Labour Councillors. It is entirely possible that you might still have at least one Liberal Councillor if Gordon Brown had not called a general election on the same day as the local elections.  I fought Brentford Ward for the Conservatives in two elections (before getting elected in the East Brentford ward) and I know that many of its residents are of an individualistic frame of mind who can be led but are seldom pushed into anything. Long may that continue. 

Cllr Sam Hearn ● 3547d

The Bully is always the coward. The coward is always the bully.But having taken a walk around this morning I noticed the endless examples of dangerously positioned wheelie bins in his own street and the complete scarring of what was a rather pleasant small street. Pure civic vandalism and in a conservation area as well.But above all, the dangers of wheelie bins are there, for all to see, and that includes those of a criminal disposition.One police officer was aghast that these have been placed around a venue at such a time of security risk.  He had not got the manpower to check inside them.Stand on one of these bins and you can access the upper windows.A neighbours son actually demonstrated to me yesterday how you can use these as a step straight in to a forward opening upper window - which a lot of these houses have.You would not leave a step ladder outside your house. But these are better than a stepladder. and so big they can be wedged against walls and sills.But this 'Threatened man' is quite happy it seems, to place his own family in danger as well as his fellow neighbours.His own wheelie bin cannot fit into his frontage. His garden gate can't even close.So what a complete numpty - putting his own family and home at risk.Just like a certain politician feeding his kid a burger. Russian roulette.He should be worried about that rather than a 5 min act of humorous symbolic protest.His blinkered stupidity is matched only by his other brain challenged colleagues who rubber stamped a policy without giving safety and practicality and the environs any sort of thought. The whole policy is flawed, too much detail is missing with too many warped and questionable statistics and data.Which is why there should have been a proper boroughwide consultation and a much wider debate about the exact recycling situation.Glass and Garden waste make a profit. Glass prices fluctuate but the garden waste is consistently profitable.  So why are residents being made to pay for it without explanation?  More deflective answers as usual?Why is there not a nappy charge?They failed to question the validity of a completely half baked consultation with a miniscule response.It is little wonder that so many things in Hounslow never quite work as they ought.The officers pull the wool over they eyes of  people who hide behind policy and politics to conceal their utter stupidity. The only people more stupid are those who vote for such idiots. I'm afraid that's most of us.

Raymond Havelock ● 3548d