Northolt’s looking good

I spent this morning with Cllr Hazel Ware, walking around Northolt meeting local residents and shop keepers and I must say that Northolt village is great.  The flower beds are stunning, the hanging baskets are starting to blossom and the investment made by the council through it’s regeneration fund and by the local ward councillors [...]

Stroke Unit looks doomed

Bad news on the Ealing Hospital stroke unit front.  The  Joint Committee of London Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) has voted unanimously to close Ealing Hospital’s Stroke Unit. Ealing stroke patients will be forced out of the Borough to units such as Northwick Park and Charing Cross and to units with a worse rating than Ealing.
Scandously, [...]

School places latest

I presented a report to Cabinet last night outlining the latest projections and analysis of birth rates and demand for school places – and the figures are quite worrying.  The chart below, taken from the report, shows the actual birth rates (X) and projected (+) plotted against the years they will reach reception.  You can [...]

First Ealing Youth Mayor elected

I’ve just come back from the election of the first Ealing Youth Mayor organised by Ealing Youth Action.  The field of 47 had previously been whittled down to the final 7 candidates.  Each made their final push for votes with a 3 minute presentation and all spoke with passion.
The Queens Hall was packed with around [...]

Bad Night for Ealing Labour Group

The meeting of Ealing Council was feisty last night.  Two excellent announcements by the Conservatives:

Doubling the tree planting budget
Introducing recycling in flats across the Borough

And a rather pathetic stroppy walk-out by the Labour Group.
Labour tried to hijack the recycling in flats initiative by tabling a motion calling for the same thing.  Their briefing note to [...]

More on primary school places

I made a few second appearence on BBC London news tonight, talking about school places in Ealing.  The Government is apparently going to announce a £200 million investment to meet the demand for additional places.  Sounds a lot of money, until you realise that in Ealing we’re looking at spending in excess of £50 million over [...]

Fred Perry Honoured

Former Brentham Estate resident Fred Perry had a “blue plaque” unveiled in his memory at his old home in Pitshanger Lane. A good crowd witnessed one of his ex-classmates at Ealing County School, Kaspar Hocking unveil the plaque.  I call it a “blue plaque” as it’s not an official, but one painted by  a local [...]

Summer activities for youngsters

The other weekend I supported the launch of the Summer Activities programme in Ealing.  There are some exciting activities going on, which are detailed in a couple of brochures. We’ve split the brochure this year into ages 0-11 and 11-19.  The activities are run by the council and its partner organisations, and cater for all ages and [...]

Sun shines on Greenford Carnival

It was a glorious day at the Greenford Carnival on Saturday in Ravenor Park.  We only had one brief rain shower but otherwise it was fabulous. 
The Conservative’s had a stall there for the second year in a row and we were busy all day chatting to local residents.  Steve Pound, the local Labour MP wandered up [...]

Gordon’s hopeless

Did anybody hear Gordon Brown’s performance at Prime Minister’s Question Time today?  It was truly awful.  He tried to claim the Tories were basing their spending commitments on rising unemployment because we supported higher unemployment.  We all know that unemployment rates lag recovery in the economy so even if we have some green shoots (I’m [...]