Alan,You begin by saying you are "acting in everyone's interests". Rubbish. You act in the interest of the Labour Party, and, sadly, in this Borough, it appears that Labour has concerned itself mainly with the people that vote for it.I have not run a campaign "to have Chiswick break away from the rest of the Borough". Inaccurate. I merely expressed the views of many of my constituents in the Turnham Green ward that they believe that Chiswick should never have been placed with Hounslow in the first place. Why is this so incomprehensible to you? Just look at any map and you will discover that Chiswick is much closer to both Hammersmith and Ealing than Hounslow. There was very little logic employed by the boundary drafting civil servants when they put Chiswick in the same Borough as Bedfont way back in 1964, was there?Under your Labour regime of 35 years standing, Chiswick was treated pretty badly. Chiswick was very useful for the raising of revenue, but, in comparison with the rest of the Borough, had little money spent on its public services in return. The Chiswick Child and Family Centre was closed down by Labour, so was our Pensioner's Luncheon Club. Chiswick has never had a public-funded theatre or arts centre and Chiswick was the only part of the Borough to be denied CCTV by the Labour Council. Parling charges are higher in Chiswick, as are council tenant's rents. Chiswick showed its true feelings in May when it put your party in fourth place, behind the Liberal Democrats and the Greens in all of the wards.Under the new council administration we will ensure that ALL parts of the Borough get an equal slice of the cake, and that includes places at the west of the Borough, like Hanworth, that equally feel forgotten. Cut? Oh yes, there will be cuts, but not from public services. That is what the Labour Party did year after year, whilst at the same time crippling ordinary people with massive tax rises. Do you remember your annual increases in the costs of meals-on-wheels? The elderly had to fork out directly for Labour's poor fiscal management, didn't they? No, we shall be looking to make savings not from the front-line services, but from the huge bureaucratic army of policy advisors and paper-pushers that your party recruited to run the Civic Centre. You mention the Lampton Conference Centre and immediately, and disgracefully, try to imply that I am a racist. Charming...and so typical of your local party. If in doubt, try smearing somebody as a racist. To answer your question: no, Alan, I have no "problem" with Asian weddings, or any other weddings for that matter. I do, however, think that there were far greater priorities for the Borough in terms of capital spending. Have you seen the state of Strand-on-the-Green school? Do you know about the toilets that the kids have to use there? Have you visited that school down in Heston where the kids have to study in portacabins? I guess not, otherwise you would not support wasting £4 million of public money on the "conference" centre. Oh, by the way, Labour were so good at managing our money that they decided to spend £4 million on this white elephant without even bothering to draw up a business plan. What this means is, that as soon as the centre is constructed it becomes an immediate drain on the revenue budget. I wonder what services you were intending to cut to pay for the running of this joint, Alan? You will just have to wait with baited breath to see how we intend to deal with this situation, but I can promise you that we are not going to allow it become a drain on the public purse.Finally, on the schools question: if the investment by Labour has been so huge, how on earth do you account for the chaos in both Heston and Strand-on-the-Green schools?
Cllr. Adrian Lee ● 6900d