Lift plans for Greenford station axed

Bad news about Greenford station. In a letter to Ealing Council last week, Richard Parry, Managing Director of London Underground, said TfL would have to defer indefinitely the project to install lifts in Greenford Station for financial reasons, despite having already started the building work.

I know that TfL have a real funding shortage at the moment, but the work has already started and it’s going to take money to undo it. 

Leader of Ealing Council, Councillor Jason Stacey, is on the warpath. He fumed,

This is an utterly ridiculous and disgusting decision and one that I will be challenging. It beggars belief that TfL will still have to spend money on reversing the substantial work that has already been carried out at Greenford station. I believe the duration of these works will take approximately nine months. In these tough times, would it not make more sense to finish the work rather than write off months of wasted work and taxpayers’ money. This is not the way to operate in a recession and quite frankly I’m appalled with their reckless attitude. Commuters who use Greenford Station have been campaigning for more than 20 years for lifts to be installed and there has been no consultation with the council or local residents about this decision. I am calling on TfL to make public the figures surrounding the works at Greenford underground station so we can all see just how much public money will have been wasted should this decision stand.

It looks like the campaign to get a lift at Greenford will have to rumble on.

Tetra Paks to hit green boxes

Ealing’s Conservative Council has announced the latest extension to the kerbside recycling collection scheme – Tetra Paks can be included in the green box from 7th December.  Currently there are facilities to drop off these drink and food cartons at Ealing Town Hall and a few other sites, but this will make it much more convenient.

The Council estimate that this step could divert up to 400 toones of rubbish from landfill each year and will enable us to make further progress in improving our recycling rates.  Back in 2006 we inherited a miserable recycling rate of only 19% .  After just over three years we have:

• extended the food recycling scheme across the borough
• included cardboard in the green box
• set up plastic collections
• made garden waste recycling free
• extended recycling collections to flats

This has increased our recycling rate to an impressive 37.5% – the residents of Ealing really did vote blue and went green.

Hobbayne Public Meeting goes smoothly

I spent one evening last week at a public meeting to discuss the possible expansion of Hobbayne Primary School.  The need for places in the Ealing and Hanwell area is still growing so we’ve been talking to a number of schools about expansion. 

The current round of public meetings have had a much different atmosphere compared to the early meetings I attended at North Ealing and Little Ealing. These meetings were quite hostile with worried parents often refuting the need for additional places or demanding that other schools should be considered for expansion.  Parents in the latest round of consultations seem to accept the need for places and are aware that many schools have already been asked to expand.  There are still concerns from residents about the disruption and how the expansion will impact on their children’s education, but the meetings are much less controversial.

Catchment area for Hobbayne Primary (in green)

At the Hobbayne meeting the main concern seemed to be from Framfield Road residents – particularly over issues surrounding traffic, parking and noise from the construction works. 

One issue that I think we will need to address is that of catchment areas – the residents on the north side of Framfield are outside catchment despite it being only a few yards from the entrance to the school.  Changing catchment areas is really opening the proverbial can of worms, but this is one anomaly that needs resolving.

Mrs Gibb the Vigilante

My bike was nicked on Thursday night. Admittedly I hadn’t locked it, but it was on my porch, right next to the front door of our corner house overlooked on two sides.  The front room curtains weren’t even drawn but that didn’t stop some little oik waltzing up my garden path and taking my bike!

It isn’t even a very good bike – it was pretty cheap when we bought it some 20 years ago. A few months ago  it was parked outside Ealing Town Hall next to Cllr Colm Costello’s bike – when we came out, Colm’s had been stolen but my poor old clapped out machine was still there.

It may be past its prime, not looking as good as it once did and be a bit worn out (aren’t we all) – but I liked it and I was pretty hacked off – but at least it gave me an excuse to buy a new one after all these years.

The next day my wife and son were having a cup of coffee at Munson’s when three lads cycled by. 

“That’s dad’s bike” said Samuel. Louise didn’t have her mobile with her, so they set off to follow this gang wondering what to do.  In the end she opted for direct action, stormed up to the three lads and demanded that they return the bike to her as it was her husband’s which had been stolen the night before.  Now Mrs Gibb can be quite scary when she gets going, so it’s no surprise that they meekly handed back the bike.  Apparently, one of the lads had told the other two that his mum had given him it as a present last night – I think it more likely he’d helped himself, especially since Louise recognised him as having loitered around our street earlier in the evening.

Anyway he’s hardly the brightest button in the box to nick  a bike and then ride around on it in the same area – not while Mrs Gibb is on the prowl anyway! 

And my excuse to treat myself to a new bike is gone.

Parenting Conference is a success

I helped open our second parenting conference at West London Academy in Northolt on Saturday. The event seemed to go well and was launched well by some young people from Apple in Acton who did an impressive dance routine.  The event was aimed at parents with children in the 10-16 age range (so very relevant to me).

This year’s key note speaker, Warwick Dyer, was very good but he ran out of time in his presentation. It was quite refreshing to hear him argue that the cause of most children’s behavioural difficulties is their ineffectual parents (I paraphrase). He stressed the importance of making sure there were “consequences” for poor behaviour. These could be quite small, eg part of their pocket money withdrawn – but don’t withdraw it all or you won’t have any more action to take. Basically the relationship with parent and child is a battle for control – and you can’t let the child win or your life becomes hell!

If you want to read more about his views Warwick Dyer has a book on the subject (don’t they all!!) – Mercury’s Child.

Manchester was a success

I was in Manchester last week for the Conservative Party conference. It was the best conference I’ve been to for a number of years. There was a great atmosphere; it wasn’t Kinnock at Sheffield triumphalism and complacency but a genuine excitement about the opportunity we have and the hard campaign that lays ahead. 

We had a raft of policy initiatives and a very brave speech by George Osborne who turned political orthodoxy on its head. Most opposition parties don’t go into an election campaign with pledges of cuts in spending and tax rises – but because of the desperate state of the economy, that’s exactly what George has done. I hope that the British public are ready for an honest appraisal of the medicine that’s necessary

Turkeys do vote for Christmas

The closed Greenford Green Post Office -will more follow?

Post Office workers have voted to go on strike. Businesses in the run up to Christmas will now be desperately putting plans into place to find alternative routes to get their products to customers. Businesses will make an even greater push to go paperless – electronic invoices etc. Will this business go back to the Royal Mail after the strike? Of course not! So the situation will get worse: more jobs will be lost: the business will shrink further. Will it eventually lead to even more post offices closing as people use them less to send parcels and pay bills?

Now I clearly don’t know enough about the internal negotiations between management and unions to say who’s at fault – but it usually takes two to tango. The one thing I do know is that a strike is the last thing that this business in particular needs.

Irish Vote Yes

The Lisbon Treaty cleared one of its last hurdles with the Irish voting yes at the second time of asking.  18 months ago the Irish rejected the constitution (sorry) Treaty, but No doesn’t mean No in the wonderful world of the EU.  A “No” means next time. 

Despite promising the British a referendum on the Treaty, Labour realised that the British people would also vote no and were unlikely to be cajoled into voting yes (no matter how many times they asked).  So all of a sudden the referendum idea was dropped like a stone. The Conservatives also promised a referendum and we are still keeping to that commitment for the time being.  The Treaty still has to be ratified by the Poles and the Czechs.  The Czechs have to take it through their constitutional courts and  this could take 3-6 months.  If the treaty has not been ratified by the time of the next general election, we will still hold a referendum.

Clearly if the treaty is ratified then the whole position has changed and we have to reconsider the best action to take, but David Cameron has consistently said that he will not let matters rest there.

One thing I certainly don’t want to see is President Blair of the EU – to have him come back as we hopefully finally get rid of Gordon Brown at the next general election would be too much to bear and would not do much  improve the British people’s view of the EU.

Further Consultation on Primary Expansion

Hot on the heels  of the Ealing and Hanwell consultation on primary expansion, we are now launching the consultations for Greenford, Northolt and Perivale and Acton areas.  The six week consultation starts on the 2nd October and the online questionnaire can be found on the Ealing Council website.  After the Ealing consultation we agreed to go to statutory consultation on adding a form at Hobbayne and half a form (going from 1.5 to 2.0) at both St Marks and Brentside.  We’re also considering an additional form at Oaklands where I recently attended a public meeting with parents.

Birth rates are rising across the borough and the council has to plan for this growth.  We know more primary school places are going to be needed and, through this consultation, parents and local residents can tell us where they would like to see them created.  We want to ensure that we not only have enough school places for local children, but also that these places are delivered with the needs of local families in mind. I encourage you to go and have a look and let us know your opinion.  It should be available online by the 2nd.

Celebrating Educational Achievements

Friday night saw one of my favourite events of the year – the Looked After Children Education Awards Ceremony.  In its eleventh year, this event celebrates the efforts and educational achievements of all the young people in the care of the Council.  We give certificates covering the entire age range, from early years through to post graduates.  We have young people on masters degrees and some who’ve just passed 12 GCSEs.  There are other young people that have had such dysfunctional upbringings or have had severe personal problems so that just getting to school on a regular basis is a great achievement – and we recognise this sort of effort as well.

I was joined by the Mayor of Ealing, Cllr Barbara Yerolemou, with whom all the young people have their picture taken.  The initial event 11 years ago was held in the Mayor’s Parlour with a handful of people.  Now we’re in the Victoria Hall with hundreds of young people, their teachers, carers and social workers.  In particular we have the LAC education team and staff of the Horizons Centre who put a tremendous amount of work and effort into supporting the youngsters.

Because of events like this, the dedication of all the staff and the effort of the young people, Ealing has some of the best exam results in the country.  Ealing Council also supports the children in our care at University with a generous grant – and as a result we have 16% at University – significantly above the national average at a dismal 6%.  In fact across the country children who’ve been in care are more likely to end up in prison than at university – we’re determined to buck that trend in Ealing.