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Thames Water Works on Ealing Road start Monday 22 June

Update from the recent story on the front page:Thames Water Works on Ealing Road start Monday 22 JuneThe Thames Water works commence in Ealing Road on Monday 22 June for approximately eight weeks. From Monday morning, Ealing Road becomes one-way northbound, with all southbound traffic being diverted via South Ealing Road, Little Ealing Lane, Windmill Road and A4.Advance warning signs are in place. Thames Water has hand-delivered letters to local residents on or near Ealing Road and the diversion route.  Additional temporary waiting restrictions are in place on the south-west side of Windmill Road.  Restricting parking to one side of the road will allow the diverted traffic to flow more freely.During the works, London Buses are temporarily diverting bus route 65 southbound via Little Ealing Road, Windmill Road, Swyncombe Avenue and Boston Manor Road to make use of the bus lane on Boston Manor Road and avoid congestion on Windmill Road.  In order to cater for this diversion, additional waiting restrictions are in place on Swyncombe Avenue and the operating hours of the bus lane on Boston Manor Road have been changed to 7am-7pm Mon-Sun.  Hounslow Council has hand-delivered letters to affected local residents. London Buses will deploy a temporary bus stop at the northeast end of Swyncombe Ave (just after the Windmill Rd junction).A minor improvement to the Swyncombe Ave/ Boston Manor Road junction to facilitate left turning buses has been implemented.Diverted southbound route 65 buses will stop at all existing bus stops on Boston Manor Road between Swyncombe Ave and the A4 and at the eastbound stops on the A4 near Windmill Rd and York Parade.  If the York Parade stop becomes problematic (due to the buses having to then move into lane three to turn right at the Ealing Road roundabout), London Buses will close this stop to route 65 buses.Thames Water has been told that if the works are not complete by the time of the London Mela on the 16 August then the site is to be made safe and Ealing Road is to be opened up to two-way traffic for the weekend of the event.

Chris Calvi-Freeman ● 6349d14 Comments ● 6342d

Ann and Alan Keen's empty Brentford house features on the BBC

According to the BBC News website today:QUOTE FROM THE BBC NEWS WEBSITECouncil warns MP couple over home  The Keens face fresh questions over their expenses.Married Labour MPs Ann and Alan Keen have been given a month to stop their local council repossessing their home 10 miles from the House of Commons.The pair's expenses have been in the spotlight after they claimed £137,679 for a second home near Parliament. In a letter seen by the BBC, Hounslow Council tells the couple "urgent action" is needed to explain why their main home in Brentford is unoccupied. The Keens have not responded to BBC requests for a comment. In addition, the Keens are not thought to have responded to the council's letter, sent last week. A source at the council - which is run by the Conservatives - told the BBC that the Brentford property had remained empty for seven months. Andrew Dakers, the Liberal Democrat councillor for the area, who is also its prospective Parliamentary candidate, has told the BBC that the windows at the back of the Keens' main home were boarded up and that there was paint splashed on the inside of the upstairs windows. 'Deeply ironic'If the council does not get a satisfactory response from the Keens, it then has the power to issue an Empty Dwelling Management Order which would allow the council to take possession of the property and bring it back into use. Such orders became law five years ago in order to give local councils the power to take possession of empty properties and bring them back into use. The Conservatives' housing spokesman Grant Shapps said: "It is deeply ironic that the Labour government's powers to allow the state confiscation of private property will be utilised against absentee Labour members of Parliament." The couple's designated second home is a flat in Waterloo, two stops on the Jubilee underground line from Westminster. Alan Keen is MP for Feltham and Heston while Ann Keen is MP for neighbouring Brentford and Isleworth. According to the Daily Telegraph, the couple bought the central London flat in 2002 and have, between them, claimed more than £30,000 towards it in each of the past four years. The couple told the newspaper that under the second home allowance rules, married MPs were entitled to separately claim for a property that they share and live in together. UNQUOTE

David Giles ● 6344d4 Comments ● 6344d

Big Al on the defense again

More bad press for Big Al from the local Times.I am presuning the staff member mentioned is his son David and do we know if Al even drives?MP claimed £580 on expenses for two sat-nav systems, we can reveal. The Feltham and Heston MP, whose Brentford home is less than 10 miles from Westminster, charged taxpayers £399 and £179 for the Tom Toms, in the space of six months, signing to say the bill was “incurred wholly, exclusively and necessarily” in the performance of his duties. But Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said the gadgets were not essential for Mr Keen to do his job and were a waste of public money. He said: “An MP who lives only a few miles from Parliament has no possible need for a sat-nav, and even if he lived in the middle of nowhere it should be down to him to find his way around.” But Mr Keen said: “I have one member of staff who works in the constituency almost all of the time, meeting with, arranging and organising meetings with constituents and dealing with casework from the Feltham office. The sat-navs are so helpful for finding addresses when we make home visits.” As MPs’ expenses were officially published for the first time last week, they also showed that Mr Keen made regular monthly claims of £250 for his office at home, but crucial details of what he spent it on were not revealed. Mr Keen said the money covered “a variety of costs agreed with the Fees Office”. He said: “In normal circumstances, I used to spend a great deal of my time on Fridays, weekends and Mondays working from home where I have a permanent office. “For the last 15 months or so I have rented office space in Feltham.” His other submitted reciepts included shopping lists with items such as 55p for ring doughnuts, £1.19 for crisps, and a £2.05 fajita at the Houses of Parliament. He and his wife Ann Keen, MP for Brentford and Isleworth, also regularly put in claims for their £55 weekly cleaning and ironing bill. Mr Elliott added: “Many of these claims are clearly not essential to doing the job of being an MP and frankly stink of taking advantage of taxpayers’ money. “This couple have lost touch with the real world on a huge scale.”

Paul Fisher ● 6345d0 Comments ● 6345d