Forum Topic

Reporting grot spots via Twitter

If you have a pile of grot left on your street, you can now report it to Hounslow Council via Twitter @LBofHounslow - just make sure that the location details you give are adequate for them to find it eg not 'on Linkfield Road' but 'outside 173 Linkfield Road'.Even better, add a picture too it will make it easier to find, the tweet more interesting and I'll enter it into a competition for the best grot spot of the week..If you opt to follow @LBofHounslow you'll get to see the grot that other people find too.Theo Dennison @syonward

Theo Dennison ● 4699d21 Comments

Got bored reading the argument between the two administrations, but Theo, thanks for putting up a twitter hashtag.  I've been complaining to the council about the state of the pavement/kerbsides of Ealing Road (from Layton Road to Lawrence/Murray Road - the borough boundary), and never have a reply.  This has also been since the welcome announcement of the extra £300k Hounslow are prepared to spend on cleaning and improving streets in the borough. On the north of Ealing Road (just past the Challis Road bus stop) is an abandoned car that has been lying there for months, and is now sporting a rather weather beaten sanitary towel on it's bonnet.  It would seem our neighbourhood street cleaning, safer neighbourhood etc teams have not been able to see this car for 4 months, otherwise I'm assuming something would have been done. On a daily basis I navigate my way through dirt and rubbish strewn across the pavement and clogged along the kerbside, ducking overhanging trees, and side-stepping broken pavement slabs to get to south ealing tube, and once past the borough boundary see the Ealing street cleaning teams, with barrow and brush, cleaning the pavements and kerbsides (where all of a sudden it's as if someone has turned the lights on it seems so clean in comparison).  I have seen two litter pickers on the Hounslow side in the past 4 weeks (and that was on the same day). Is there such little pride in this borough that such a busy thoroughfare for those entering and exiting the borough is so completely ignored by Hounslow Council? Is there such little pride in the borough by two of Brentford's ward councillors (who live on Ealing Road) that they don't look at the dirt and debris surrounding them, and to champion some improvement to the road they live on and the ward they live in?I shall be tweeting about the grot spots, thanks Theo.

Andrea Hall ● 4690d

F***wits is the only comment that seems appropriate!

Vanessa Smith ● 4690d

I'm trying to get my head around the mentality of paying for a camera to be installed, identifying the culprits and then not doing anything about it.Nope, try as I might it just doesn't get any easier.

Phil Andrews ● 4691d

Doesn't it make you wonder Paul? The favourite here is the furniture project, I'll bet it's almost a weekly thing for something to be left there. I think we appreciate how much going to court costs but I suspect the dividends in terms of putting people off dumping stuff through the publicity and (hopefully) a huge fine at the very least would be worth it????

Vanessa Smith ● 4691d

One of my old caseworks involved the constant fly tipping on the corner of South Street in Isleworth and eventually a hidden CCTV system was set up and caught the culprits red handed though I dont think a prosecution was ever sought by the Council

Paul Fisher ● 4691d

That's all fine and dandy but how the hell would you catch anyone dumping? Some investment in mobile CCTV to catch the filthy individuals responsible would surely be money well spent? I really don't understand why the council don't get it, you need a couple of high profile prosecutions to concentrate the minds. It costs a fortune constantly clearing this rubbish, I know that I probably report rubbish/old furniture dumped at least once a week, that must add up to a lot more than the cost of a couple of cameras...............................

Vanessa Smith ● 4691d

Looks like the SNT have been involved after the latest lot of dumping.

Sarah Felstead ● 4692d

"...maybe like your administration's policy on Hounslow Homes you felt 'leaving it alone' was the best way to fix it?"TheoFor the first three years of the previous administration I had responsibility for Hounslow Homes, and the first several months of that was spent fighting an at times quite acrimonious battle against a group of "tenants' leaders", backed by the then Hounslow Homes management, who seemed to have a real problem with my efforts to give more power and independence to tenants.  Guess which side received the active support of the Labour Group?My eventual winning of that battle heralded some fairly high-profile departures on the officer side and whilst I was not unaware that their replacements weren't necessarily politically friendly to the administration, they were at least professional in wanting to work constructively with us and between us I think we achieved some good things.At the time of the Management Review, when these battles were taking place, my inclination was to recommend to the Executive that Hounslow Homes be abolished and our housing stock taken back under the direct management of the Council.  Had the senior staff changes not taken place I most definitely would have insisted upon this, as it would have been quite absurd for a local authority to have its housing operation managed by people who refused to recognise the elected administration.My assumption was, however, that our coalition partners would have been ideologically opposed to such a move and thus unable to support us.  Having discussed this with a senior Conservative some time later I was surprised to learn that my assumption may not necessarily have been correct.One amusing aside to all this was that the union leaders at the time of the Management Review were trying to lobby members to support the management (I still have a copy of the e-mail) and to resist any attempt by myself to reverse the "half-way privatisation" that was Hounslow Homes!  There's nowt so queer as folk.That's all by the by.  If there remain problem at Hounslow Homes that need to be sorted then is now the task of your administration to do what needs to be done. Indeed the most recent Management Review, taking place on your watch, must by now have concluded and any recommendations made. The question I must ask then is, does your "progressive" administration still support half-way privatisation as an alternative to bringing Housing back under local authority control?  Or are you looking at the option of flogging off the family silver entirely?

Phil Andrews ● 4697d

''Yes, scrutiny did really useful work revealing the extent to which NPS (Non permanent staff) were being employed at huge cost without effective control or proper authorisation and yes the savings were some £5m pa - I don't have any issue giving credit where it is due.''Interesting fact considering this is 5 times the proposed Library closure savings in 2011 - does this mean the council was wasting £5m a year? And were any officers disciplined for employing staff without proper authorisation?

Ian Speed ● 4697d

Please see http://democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=72554Paragraph 5.03.

John Todd ● 4697d

Thats good to hear Theo and slowly but surely the Lampton Rd cultue will change for the better with your help

Paul Fisher ● 4699d

You know me well enough John to appreciate that if you want to hold the administration to account individually, through scrutiny or any other way on any matter you are more than welcome (whoever writes the questions).  And I promise not to sulk.Yes, scrutiny did really useful work revealing the extent to which NPS (Non permanent staff) were being employed at huge cost without effective control or proper authorisation and yes the savings were some £5m pa - I don't have any issue giving credit where it is due.But please chill out with your opposition to Twittering in grot spots - what harm will could it possibly do.

Theo Dennison ● 4699d

I don't allow anyone to dictate to me, Paul.  I am sure the officer concerned thought it more appropriate to route my reports via members' enquiries but as that involves additional time and work and ends up in the same place it makes no sense.  It did however usefully highlight some difficulties that might get in the way of other people reporting problems (and a possible confusion of requests for service and complaints), so I've made formal complaint, raised it with the lead member and we'll see what happens next.  It hasn't stopped me reporting what needs to be fixed.

Theo Dennison ● 4699d

TheoCan I ask why you and indeed any other councillors still allow Officers to dictate to you what you can and cannot do regarding environment complaints or any other matter come to that?

Paul Fisher ● 4699d

No Scrutiny Officer ever ever wrote a question for me Cllr Dennison. Your cabinet colleagues actually sulked and ended the long standing democratic challenge at Cabinet.Amongst other things this Labour administration has reduced the number of Scrutiny meetings and Committees. You have clearly  forgotten our work too on the NPS Scrutiny Review  which led to savings of  at least £5m!You I recall were (then) impressed.......

John Todd ● 4699d

I agree, it is the response that matters but a new cheap, cheerful and (better still) a very public way of reporting stuff will always help.I would have rolled my eyes at reporting stuff via Twitter a week ago - just as John T has; but two contradictory responses from the Council convinced me: I've been on Twitter one week and I'd been tweeting about reporting grot to environmentcomplaints@hounslow.gov.uk; in response the communications team talked to the community environment team and agreed to accept reports via twitter hence the new initiative.  Meanwhile 'environment complaints' decided that as I was a councillor I wasn't allowed to complain direct to them, so they started sending all my reports back to members services for them to write out again and resubmit as members' complaints.  So which is best?Now, I would encourage everyone to report any problem with Council services via Twitter @LBofHounslow, it's quicker, more public and harder to dodge - hence my post.  The more people who join in, the more likely we are to see an improved response and hopefully even John may eventually be happy.

Theo Dennison ● 4699d

Good grief.  Oh well.  Any suggestions of improving reporting to the Council by way of information, which always comes cheap, is okay by me - even if I am not using twitter.  I would always appreciate the full details of contact numbers and e-mail addresses to give myself the choice of what to use.The problem is with the response to the information, don’t you think?  I mean, there appear to be favoured ‘hot spots’ that the dumpers use.  Along from us on Northumberland Avenue there is an area at the Homebase end and along by ‘Quaker Lane’ where there are constant dumps appearing.  Who coordinates this information and then sends out the mobile CCTV to try and catch the critters in action?  I would love to see increased revenue generated from this, would seem fair to me.  Costs + fine + time.Same with environmental pollution.  Had to close windows and bring in washing late morning because of a huge caustic bonfire (builders bonfires are very commonplace burning off stuff that would otherwise have to be ££££ on a skip).  Hubby went out to venture into Hounslow later in the day and went past the site where they had set in for a day/several days of burning, several streets away.  He rang me, I rang the Council and spoke to somebody to say it was burning as we spoke and several days later I received a diary to fill in….Another house has numerous builders renting rooms and they have a never ending supply of stuff to burn, often brought to the house in the back of a van, probably from their latest site in Ealing.  I somehow imagine Ealing might have a quicker response to bonfires on development sites so bringing it back for late night bonfires is easier in Hounslow?It would take a month of continuing bonfires to complete the sheet, before anyone was interested.

Sarah Felstead ● 4699d

Thanks for the helpful plug for the phone number to report grot - yes 020 8583 3344 is the number the council now publishes so residents can let them know where there are street cleaning problems - unlike the excellent Conservative administration that didn't publish one because it wanted to achieve 'channel shift' not cleaner streets.And I though your scrutiny colleagues stopped going to cabinet because they were embarrassed that scrutiny officers wrote all their questions for them - if you want to haul cabinet members over the coals why don't you call them into scrutiny and grill them directly?

Theo Dennison ● 4699d

Consistent polished nonsense Theo. The phone number is 020 8583 3344You may wish to look at the LBH Quarterly performance figures produced to your Cabinet.Appalling, consistent poor inadequate performance and far far worse than in our Administration. No wonder you and your colleagues stopped Scrutiny Members attending Cabinet Meetings challenging this disgraceful poor performance.I don't want to embarrass you and quote your earlier comments on your colleagues performance pre your election. Not exactly an exemplar of Local authority  efficiency VFM etc.

John Todd ● 4699d

So what are you doing about it John - just sitting there moaning? Get out and report it - then moan, at least then you would have helped.It may not be everyone's cup of tea (and I've only used it for a week) but it is far quicker than calling it in, far quicker than going home or to the office and reporting it via email, there are no long tedious forms and anyone can see the state of the street you report - so they can see for themselves whether things improve.And let's not forget John, the dirtiest streets in London were created under your administration - maybe like your administration's policy on Hounslow Homes you felt 'leaving it alone' was the best way to fix it?

Theo Dennison ● 4699d

As the dirtiest borough in London we want action this day not tweets/twits and waffle Theo. Is your reporting phone line not now appropriate?

John Todd ● 4699d