Plan to tackle potholes

Cleveland Road being resurfaced

Cllr Stacey, Leader of the Council, has announced plans to spend an additional £689,700 to tackle the plague of potholes which has hit our roads following the recent bad weather.  More than 8000 potholes have been reported and the plan is for 8 specialist teams to sweep through the Borough over 7 weeks, fixing potholes as they go.  This is all weather dependent – if we have another cold spell, we can’t lay the asphalt until the temperature picks up.  They are already out on the job; I saw a team patching up Cuckoo Lane in Hanwell today.

The underlying problem of under investment in our road infrastructure by the previous Labour administration remains.  I’ve explained before how the Conservatives have spent more on repairing our roads in the last 3 years than Labour spent on the 12 years they were in power.  The good news is that we have also announced plans to keep up this higher level of investment next year with £6.5 million earmarked.  The next list of roads to benefit will be agreed at Cabinet on 23rd February, but even with this money, there will still be too many roads in poor condition thanks to Labour’s failure to invest over such a long period of time.

Perivale investment pays dividends

As well as opening the Northolt Leisure Centre last week, we also formally opened the new facilities at Perivale Athletics track.  There is a new 300 seater stand for spectators to watch the athletes.  A new throwing area has been opened that is unique because allows both able bodied and disabled athletes to throw at the same time.  There’s also an impressive outdoor gym that both the Mayor, Cllr Yerolemou and the Leader of the Council, Cllr Stacey had a go at.

We met Dempsey McGuigan (16), a young hammer thrower from Drayton Manor High School who had just thrown 60m for the furst time.  This meant that he was now able to go to a competition in Moscow and could eventually open the door to appearing in the youth olympics.  Apparently Dempsey is one to watch and could be a medal hope in 2016 or 2020. 

Thanks to the investment made by the Conservative Counicl, Perivale is developing into a great athletics facility for the Borough.

Simply superb

With John Salisbury and Cllr Hazel Ware at the opening of Northolt Leisure Centre

I attended the official opening of the brand new Northolt Leisure Centre on Friday – it is stunning.  I recommend that you head over to the new building and take a dip in one of the two new pools (a learner pool which has a moveable floor to vary the depth or in the competition standard 8 lane 25m pool). Alternatively you could workout in the superbly equipped gym or try out the new dance studio.  If exercise isn’t your cup of tea then have a leisurely browse in the new library – there’s something for everyone.

I know residents were rather fond of the old Swimarama but you won’t be disappointed by its stunning replacement.  The Conservative Council  has really delivered a a great new facility for Northolt.

Primary School expansions agreed

At a marathon Cabinet last night (it was well after 10pm when we finished), we agreed to expand four more primary schools.  Strangely, despite the decision being both controversial and important, neither of the opposition parties wanted to speak on the subject, instead concentrating on objecting to the “privatisation” of the Borough’s parking service – you can read about this on Phil Taylor’s blog.

The schools we agreed to expand were:

• Hobbayne by 30 children per year (1 Form of Entry)
• St Mark’s by 15 children per year (0.5 FE)
• Brentside by 15 children per year (0.5 FE)
• Wood End Junior by 30 children per year (1 FE)

During the consultation there were concerns raised by some local residents that lived near to some of the schools, particularly Framfield Road near Hobbayne and Vernon Rise near Wood End Junior School.  I know that Cllr Costello has had a meeting with the Framfield Road residents and we will try and mitigate some of their concerns.  Frank Kilduff, one of our three North Greenford council candidates has met up with residents and visited roads around Wood End Junior to see the impact at drop-off and pick-up times.  At Cabinet we made it clear that we need to do some work on this to see what other options are available/practical.

These expansions are desperately needed.  We  are currently working on creating 16 new forms of entry with another 9 temporary for what is anticipated to be a peak in demand.  Most of the additional classes will come through expanding existing schools, although we are also planning a new two form entry primary school in Acton with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster.

UK economy crawls out of recession

We’re out of recession officially.  Are the champagne corks popping – I doubt it!  The economy grew by a paltry 0.1% in the last quarter but that’s on the back of a 6% fall.  We’re the last G20 country to drag itself back into growth but I doubt whether 0.1% would be classed as statistically significant.  And there is a real concern that we’ll fall back into negative growth in the next quarter.

 Gordon Brown trumpeted that he’d prepared the UK for the credit crunch; that we were in a better position to cope with it than other economies – what a load of tosh (to use a technical term).  The UK has suffered under Labour and to use George Osborne’s favourite phrase, he didn’t fix the roof while the sun shone.

March or May election?

So when will we be voting at the general election? Will it be March or May?  The odds are still on May but could it be March 25th? 

We’ve had a slight reduction in unemployment figures today but Gordon Brown is chuffed because its 400,000 less than the Government predicted.  The latest economic figures are due out soon and the hot money suggests that there will be a small amount of growth therefore officially getting us out of recession – more “good news” for Gordon Brown. 

Gordon could jump to the polls while things are positive, because what’s around the corner?

The next economic quarterly figures will be due out in April – a week or two before a possible May 6th General Election.  The recovery is rocky and will have been hit by the snow – it could well push us back into negative growth.  Is that what Gordon wants just before polling day?  The Governor of the Bank of England was saying last night that unless the Government takes strong action, the Monetary Policy Committee could be forced to push up interest rates. I doubt whether Gordon wants to make cuts or see interest rates go up before an election.

But at the same time we know Gordon is a ditherer – has he got the guts to go early? 

The bookies are offering 1/4 on May and 7/2 on March – could be worth a flutter!

Brentside’s superb performance

Latest results for GCSEs has shown that Ealing’s schools remain amongst the best in the country for helping children develop their full potential.  Ealing’s schools overall scored  1018.3 for contextual added value (CVA), which is the Government’s way of assessing children’s progress between year 7 (entering high school) and year 11 (sitting GCSE) – the score if all children make the expected progress would be 1000. Northolt’s West London Academy was in the top 5% of schools in the country for CVA (as were Featherstone and Villiers in Southall).

Special mention must go to Brentside High School who increased their percentage of students getting 5 A*-C including English and Maths from 36% to 60%.   These are tremendous results and a true testament to the excellent work that Arwel Jones (the Headteacher) and his team are doing.

The full set of results for the main schools in Ealing are given below. It’s worth noting that no Ealing schools are below the Government’s 30% floor target.

	KS2-4 CVA	% of 15 year old pupils achieving 5+A*-C and equiv inc Eng & maths
		2005	2006	2007		2008	2009
LA Average	1017.5	46%	48%	49%		52%	54%
England Average		44%	45%	46%		47%	51%
Acton High	1011.2	35%	37%	32%		35%	37%
Brentside High	1004.6	36%	29%	40%		36%	60%
Cardinal Wiseman C High	1028.5	65%	70%	74%		77%	77%
Dormers Wells High	996.5	29%	36%	25%		45%	42%
Drayton Manor High	1019.3	61%	59%	60%		66%	64%
Ellen Wilkinson	997.6	56%	55%	57%		55%	59%
Elthorne Park High	1016.0	52%	49%	55%		64%	65%
Featherstone High	1040.5	35%	36%	48%		49%	52%
Greenford High	1009.8	62%	57%	58%		60%	52%
Northolt High	1009.9	31%	42%	31%		33%	38%
Twyford C of E High	1020.4	67%	75%	66%		72%	74%
Villiers High	1036.0	37%	46%	50%	42%		51%
West London Academy	1047.7	11%	25%	24%	32%		31%

New High School to open in 2014

At last night’s Cabinet meeting I brought forward proposals to open the new high school in Ealing North a year earlier than originally planned.  The school will now be admitting its first pupils in 2014. 

This is great news for residents of north Greenford, Horsenden and Perivale who for years have been demanding a new school but have been ignored by the previous Labour administration.  Since I took on the Children’s Sevices portfolio in May 2006, I’ve been working to put this right.  We’ve purchased the old Glaxo Sports and Social Club site in Oldfield Lane North and jumped through the torturous hoops that the Government sets out for us to negotiate in the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) process.

Labour’s spokesman on Children’s Services missed the point completely and decided to have a go at the lack of consultation on the new school.  Desperate really!  This has been discussed everywhere – at ward forums, the old area committees, meetings with schools, public meetings etc etc.  The report even stated that there would be a further consultation with the public in June/July.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats Harvey Rose, who has attended virtually every Cabinet meeting since 2006 wanted to know where the new school would be.  I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve discussed it and we’ve even had a report agreing to purchase the land.  Still, Greenford isn’t in W4 so Harvey’s knowledge of the area is a bit sketchy.

Labour’s own goal

Conservative Campaign HQ reacted quickly to the latest  Labour leadership coup attempt by Hoon and Hewitt as the picture shows.  The coup may have failed but the posters look great!

Friday’s School Closures

I’m pleased to report that there is a shorter list of school closed today (see below), but I gather there are bad forecasts for Sunday/Monday so it could all change again next week.

Allenby Primary
Brentside
Clifton Primary
Costons Primary
Durdans Park Primary
East Acton Primary – Staffing
Edward Betham CE Primary
Greenwood Primary
Grove House Childrens Centre
Horsenden Primary
John Perryn Primary
Khalsa School
Lady Margaret Primary
Northolt High
Our Lady of the Visitation
Ravenor Primary
Selborne Primary
St John Fisher Catholic Primary – Heating
Viking Primary –  No staff
West Twyford
Wood End Infants
Wood End Junior