Forum Topic

Re-Open Church Street Now! - Public Meeting 10th March at 1.00pm

The Brentford and Isleworth Conservative Association have issued a flyer detailing a public meeting to be held on the 10th March at 1.00pm.Venue -  Royal British Legion, 5 North Street, Isleworth, TW7 6BT.The heading reads Re-Open Church Street Now!

Brian McMillan ● 2890d31 Comments

Interestingly, on Sunday afternoon we took a walk from Brentford Lock to Richmond Lock through Syon Park and via Church Street at about 3pm.  Church Street was pretty deserted and loads of available parking at the London Apprentice. Quite a bit of fly-tipping on the corner next to the river though so area looked rather disgusting.Possibly a fly-tippers delight now that its a quiet cul-de-sac?  It struck me though that the London Apprentice was practically empty whereas it used to always be heaving on a Sunday afternoon and you would struggle to find a seat.I am aware that friends of mine from St Margarets won't meet us there, because its too much hassle with Church Street closed, but does anyone know what the Landlords feel about the closure? How is the business affected? 

Steve Taylor ● 2870d

" Its closure has led to more congestion (but less pollution, according to the monitors) on a very congested main road. That was anticipated and inevitable in the short/medium term, as happens with all road closures. I believe it was the right thing to do for the environment and that in due course people will come round to that point of view."Duh...why would people come round to the view that so much more congestion on Twickenham Road is a good thing when their children are choking to death and the road is constantly jammed now (both ways) from morning to late evening?  Why would people think its a good thing to get log jammed on the way to West Middlesex hospital? Emergencies, missed appointments, stress,  costs to the NHS....the list goes on and on.

Steve Taylor ● 2877d

It was never going to be much of a challenge anyway Ian, unfortunately.  For me the campaigners missed a trick.  They could have fielded a candidate(s) of their own and stood half a chance of causing an upset, but it seems they allowed themselves to be conned into supporting a Conservative campaign instead. Now that campaign would appear to have fizzled out even before the election period has formally begun.  The Tories do this all the time, they have no interest in succeeding in Isleworth themselves and the extent of their ambition seems to be to ensure that others don't either.

Phil Andrews ● 2877d

That probably puts the tin lid on the Tory challenge and the whole Church St issue, unfortunately for the anti-closure campaigners - bar any remaining legal action they might have in their locker.

Ian Speed ● 2877d

Well she's back, but she would appear to have had a bit of a makeover...https://www.brentfordandisleworthconservatives.org.uk/isleworth

Phil Andrews ● 2878d

The group photo has been removed from the local Conservative website so you could well be right...https://www.brentfordandisleworthconservatives.org.uk/isleworth

Phil Andrews ● 2878d

I hear tell that one of the potential candidates who 'organised' this meeting is no longer a candidate at all! After the disgraceful display of ignorance and language she used about a council officer I can only say it seems a sensible decision.

Vanessa Smith ● 2879d

If your account of events is even half accurate it would appear to add even more credence to what I have long been saying - that Conservative candidates outside of Chiswick are being thrown to the wolves by their own local party leadership.There is simply no reason why party leaders should not have been able to properly brief their own candidates on this most important local issue.  Serving councillors, of which they have eleven, have access to officer support and would have been in a position to demand a full briefing had they so desired.One also needs to ask why the apparent reluctance to criticise local Labour bigwigs, preferring instead to target officers as a soft option.  This would seem consistent with the almost fawning attitude of leading local Conservatives when mentioning Curran or any of his coterie, and their preference instead for invoking Councillor Amrit Mann as the bogeyman whenever the need to name names absolutely cannot be avoided.You read it here first - Labour candidates in Chiswick and Conservative candidates outside of Chiswick have become the fall guys in a squalid carve-up which has the effect of denying all the voters of this borough a meaningful democratic choice.

Phil Andrews ● 2886d

Have not long returned from this meeting - Oh dear! Total lack of a clear and concise Agenda, with properly organised Q&A which necessarily turned into interruptions and some shouting. Extremely nasty comments about council officers - and one in particular, which were unfair and I think, untrue. Officers cannot defend themselves publicly and as I pointed out are there to support and advise councillors. Councillors make policies - officers action those policies. If -as claimed councillors are being overridden by officers then that's entirely their fault and they have no business standing for election. As for the opening claim that the Church St. closure was a Labour plot and Church St. residents were innocent dupes in this - well - talk about fantasy. If this is the best that the Tories can offer - innuendo, aspersions and a distant relationship with the facts then God help us all. Labour are going to walk this - and many of us think that they're abysmal to put it mildly.

Vanessa Smith ● 2886d

So your personal opinion Mr Lambert was & still is that it was the right thing to do as a Brentford councillor & you voted accordingly, flying in the face of 70% of the local Isleworth people consulted who needed it left open.Lambert’s Folly indeed, will always continue to haunt your tenure i’m afraid. But i’m sure it will be water off a duck’s back to someone with your idea of democracy.

Robin Dickers ● 2887d

"just as others should stop saying it's because I was whipped."If you weren't then you bloody well should be!

Vanessa Smith ● 2887d

So you are a visionary?  (Ed - is there a pmsl smiley on this thing?)

Phil Andrews ● 2887d

I've clearly said why I voted for the closure many times, so please don't say I haven't. A very narrow historic street was being used as a rat run. Its closure has led to more congestion (but less pollution, according to the monitors) on a very congested main road. That was anticipated and inevitable in the short/medium term, as happens with all road closures. I believe it was the right thing to do for the environment and that in due course people will come round to that point of view. If you disagree, you're entitled to your opinion but you're actually not entitled to keep repeating the mantra that I won't tell you why, just as others should stop saying it's because I was whipped.

Guy Lambert ● 2887d

What I find so worrying and very indecent is that whilst we all make mistakes, we can normally finally recognise these mistakes and try to correct them or at least apologise.The fact that the vast majority have shown conclusively  that the closure of Church Street is a total environmental and traffic disaster should be sufficient reason for the Councillor from far away to apologise and beg forgiveness. Yet instead he opts for despotic behaviour and, although he can never actually provide any logical or reasonable reasons for voting closure, he proudly proclaims that he would vote the same way again.  He won't say why, he can't say why,  but he will stick his heels in like a naughty child just because he can. Oh dear,  how the Community Engagement program  fought for for so long by the ICG, and finally agreed by the Conservatives, has been shelved by the Labour despots. Simply for spite!  What a bunch. 

Steve Taylor ● 2887d

Not whipped, but vengeance was certainly wreaked at the subsequent selection meeting wasn't it?  Any idea what was so important about Church Street that it necessitated such drastic repercussions Guy?Myra Savin and Tony Louki are not Isleworh ward councillors, of course, so the point made in respect of them is irrelevant.

Phil Andrews ● 2888d

As I have said many times before, the Church Street matter was not whipped. Myra Savin and Tony Louki (from the Labour side) voted against. As I have also made clear, I voted according to my own views on the matter and would do so again. I suppose I should be flattered by the idiotic 'Lambert's Folly' as it came up at the very first area forum I had ever attended as a councillor so it seems I hatched the plan independently and persuaded people to back it before I was even elected!

Guy Lambert ● 2888d

"Well look what they did to Lynn Green, and she only abstained!Which is strange really, as road closures are voted on at local forum level and are usually accepted as matters of individual judgment rather than being whipped.  So what made this one so different do you think?"I think there's more to that than we've realised, I'm not a conspiracy theorist but this stinks, why someone from Cranford? I don't have a problem by and large with someone from out of this ward if there's no credible local candidate but in this case there was. Neither of the other two have engaged with local groups like Lin has, Sampson's contribution has been the Church St. brigade, Ed's was generally 'get up a petition'. When will the regional Labour party wake up to what is going on in Hounslow? Do we have to see something like the Lutfur Rahman scandal over in Tower Hamlets before some action to restore an acceptable democratic process is taken?

Vanessa Smith ● 2888d

"Well look what they did to Lynn Green,"Aah yes....so the sheep get to bleat another day as long as they follow mindlessly.

Steve Taylor ● 2888d

Well look what they did to Lynn Green, and she only abstained!Which is strange really, as road closures are voted on at local forum level and are usually accepted as matters of individual judgment rather than being whipped.  So what made this one so different do you think?

Phil Andrews ● 2888d

"the closure was a policy decision made by members."and the policy was??  Do as you are told and don't have your own mind if you want to be a Labour councillor.

Steve Taylor ● 2888d

So there were awards for defending Lambert's Folly ??

Steve Taylor ● 2888d

Whatever the involvement of this particular officer the closure was a policy decision made by members.

Phil Andrews ● 2888d

And wouldn't that be 'accepted'?

Vanessa Smith ● 2888d

"Mark Frost has excepted awards for shutting down a through road."What awards?

Steve Taylor ● 2889d

I don't know about Lambert's Folly, but I tend to be guided by Andrews' Law, viz. no matter how bad the incumbents may be - in order for them to lose somebody else has to win.  Therein lies the problem.

Phil Andrews ● 2889d

The proposal of reopening Church St is a huge kick in the teeth to the self-serving committed interest groups funded by TfL. Mark Frost has excepted awards for shutting down a through road.He admits a majority wanted to keep the road open but went ahead anyway, at the meeting we will show the evidence. The pushback has started ! 

Philippa Auton ● 2889d

Do you not think Labour will be punished in the local elections because of Lambert's Folly?

Steve Taylor ● 2889d

Ah! But Iain what brave soul - and they'd be a minority anyway - would vote against? It would still need a majority overall.

Vanessa Smith ● 2889d

Vanessa - this is not quite true as the closure does not have 100% support amongst Labour councillors (even though some of those faces are changing). Tony Louki, for example, is standing again in Osterley and voted against the permanency of the closure last year. So did Myra Savin, even though she is standing down.

Ian Speed ● 2889d

Even if - by some quirk of fate - the Tories won Isleworth - to be able to reverse this decision would mean getting it through the local forum and the full council, which in turn means they'd need an overall majority. A triumph of hope over experience if ever there was one. Also as I pointed out to the Conservative canvassers there a damned site more to this area than the Church St. farce.

Vanessa Smith ● 2890d

I'm sure we are all grateful for the notification.The residents leading the fight against the closure could have taken advantage of the local elections to mount a viable independent challenge to the local Labour clique, tapping into local anger at the high-handed manner in which one councillor's pet project was imposed upon them against their wishes.  Indeed at one point there was talk of them doing so.Presumably they have been talked into backing a no-hope Conservative challenge instead?Yet again we witness an example of how the Conservative "opposition" acts to snuff out any suggestion of an organic, community-based challenge to the hegemony of the self-serving ruling clique which uses the Labour Party as a cover for its control freakery, preferring perpetual opposition to allowing any manifestation of community self-determination.Well-meaning Conservative voters are being conned into thinking they are issuing a challenge to the clique when in reality they are sustaining it.  They deserve better.

Phil Andrews ● 2890d