The Council's Budget, the Customer Journey to Housing and Gunnersbury Park

Turnham Green ward councillor Jo Biddolph reports back on her week

Cllr Jo Biddolph

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As a new councillor it seemed odd to join the overview and scrutiny committee which, I assumed from its name, seemed it should be made up of long-standing councillors who knew where the bodies are likely to be buried. In fact, years of experience can make a councillor complacent, or compliant, or indeed both if you're a Labour councillor with ambition. Newer councillors can bring a different perspective. I've valued, and mostly enjoyed, being a member since 2018 and working for the most part non-adversarily, even being chummy with some Labour members. There were two scrutiny meetings for me this week as its housing and environment panel (of which I'm a member) met on Monday and the full scrutiny committee met on Tuesday.

The customer journey to housing

This year's deep dive by the housing and environment panel is on the customer journey – what it's like for someone seeking housing, or re-housing, in the context of long waiting lists and complicated, sometimes desperate, lives. It is the trickiest, unhappiest cases that keep this councillor awake at night, conscious that residents also won't be sleeping for worrying about when, or whether, they will be allocated the housing they need. Our survey is now live. If you know anyone who is seeking council housing, has recently moved into council housing, or who has contacted the council or an agency about their housing needs, do ask them to take part. We're concerned that residents with tales to tell will worry about telling it like it is. We want their no-frills candour.

The meeting included a presentation and discussion on the other side of the journey: the work of the housing officers fulfilling the council's allocation policies. An interesting fact emerged: between them, the team speaks 25 languages from Algerian Arabic to Yoroba. You can watch the whole meeting here.

Planning for the future

Over at the full scrutiny committee the next day, we were presented with colourful charts, idealised images and terrifying targets (26,700 new homes, 30,400 new jobs) in the council's new planning strategy. There were references to "our ambitions" (not yours, not ours as residents, theirs). There were no references to new needs resulting from the pandemic (such as more space to support working from home). There was a marked absence of any mention of community, people, residents – it's build, build, build. The policy was written before the pandemic and, in my view, didn’t meet the bold claim that it incorporated horizon scanning. As it is already with the secretary of state, I fear it's condemning us to a future of yesterday. Watch the meeting here.

A progressive budget?

In yet another bloated scrutiny committee agenda, the other huge issue to scrutinise was the council's budget with a large bundle of papers (234 pages long) delivered to my door on the day (we had it online earlier, of course, but it's not the easiest document to read on the screen). I was compelled to agree with the leader of the council when he asserted that it was a "progressive budget". A glance at the presentation showed very starkly that the council's forecasted "savings gap" is indeed "progressive"; it is getting progressively worse rising from £7m in 2022/2023 to £24.4m in 2024/2025.

Take another deep breath and imagine by how much council tax will increase, on top of the 2.99% increase you'll be paying from May. Since May 2018, council tax rates in Hounslow have increased by over 18%.

You can watch the meeting here or read the papers here.

Waste and recycling chit chat

Online meetings can be fraught not only with muting and un-muting (there is a delay in the click so councillors often click again, making themselves mute again) and worrying about appearing disinterested when looking down to make notes (it seems so rude, without the wider picture that a physical meeting would convey) but also with watching the chat. You never know what insults might appear before the unwary sender deletes it. I spotted a boastful comment from cabinet member for waste and recycling Guy Lambert who followed it up with what he does so well – exploiting the non-sequitur.

Picking our way past heaps of waste sacks and piles of cardboard on our pavements irritates residents and gives our once-lovely town a bad reputation. Residents of flats above shops are asked to put out their purple sacks the night before they are collected (twice a week) but with many transient tenants, and landlords who don't necessarily inform them of the rules, sacks appear on pavements every day of the week. As a stop-gap (well, that's how I see it, as a long-standing advocate for better) Cllr Lambert has brought us more ugly plonked street furniture – plastic grit bins into which residents of flats are asked to put their purple sacks. Some do. Some don't. It's work in progress.

What it isn't is a step to reduce waste and increase recycling (still not available for residents above shops). It is about collection. So, when Cllr Lambert posted information in the chat, claiming large increases in the borough's so far dismal recycling rate he added that he had been "rolling out 'grit bins' to provide contained places for waste generated by flats above shops". In response to my point that the grit bins were about collection, not reduction, he replied saying, "We are focussed on reduction, but I prefer less mess on streets". So do we, Cllr Lambert, but what about reduction, in the context of 12 years of no improvement in the recycling rate?

Actually, there is some good news, though again it's about collection. Through the Chiswick Shops Task Force retail report, Ensuring a Thriving Retail Economy in Chiswick, we have repeatedly asked Hounslow council to provide a daily commercial waste service, timed so no-one has to pick their way through sacks and heaps on their way out for dinner. Cllr Lambert added a comment in the chat that the council will launch a commercial waste service in 22/23. At last. I hope it meets our ambitions, not theirs.

Chiswick Gunnersbury

Turnham Green ward expands at the local elections this May, to become Chiswick Gunnersbury ward incorporating not only the whole of Gunnersbury Park but also residents whose houses back onto the park on the south side of Popes Lane; the row of shops just beyond it and the residents living in flats above them; and the residents living along Lionel Road North. The three of us – Cllr Ranjit Gill and Cllr Ron Mushiso – have been active since before we were elected in our representation of residents' views to the community interest company (CIC) that manages the park.

Residents living there and in the Gunnersbury Park Garden Estate, as well as in parts of Chiswick, have experienced the worst of the effects of huge festivals (drug dealing, nitrus oxide cannisters spread around, door-free urinals, slews of waste plus, of course, noise) but spare a thought for the residents who live on Lionel Road North, backing on to the park. The many large vehicles needed for setting up and derigging events trundle heavily in through the north-east gate turning south, immediately behind their houses, running along a noisy track, down to the distant festival site, for days before the event and afterwards. I've commented, on an event due to take place this year, that the arrival time of these impactful vehicles should be later than 8am, out of respect to these extremely local residents.

The issue would be solved if the south-west gate were used (there are no houses backing on to the park along that route) but there are difficulties with turning off the A4, turning into the park and inevitably, funding. On Thursday I received a reply from the CIC director to my most recent request for this route to be explored in earnest; he wrote: " I am well aware that the current load in/out arrangements are far from ideal – for both residents and for events organisers. I hope we will be able to finally revisit this with some constructive, practical alternative options via an agreed, revised masterplan in time for summer 2023". So, no reprieve this year but some hope. Let's hope it isn't dashed, as it so often has been.

Meanwhile, the way the park is run is to change, merging The Gunnersbury Park and Museum Development Trust and the CIC, a management model explained here by chairman of the friends of Gunnersbury Park James Wisdom. I continue to argue for a consultative committee to give local residents and organisations a direct and formal say in the management of the park. It works well for other open spaces even larger than Gunnersbury Park and would be a very visible way of showing that locals' views matter.

It's our Gunnersbury surgery this weekend, a very different format from our Chiswick surgery in that it's a group get-together with residents raising community-focussed questions rather than individual concerns. It's been a worrying time up in this part of the ward with a serious traffic incident, a stabbing, a fire and, just before I finished typing this sentence, a fight involving an arrest – all on the north-west boundary of the ward. A councillor's world is not all potholes, pavements, leaves and bollards.

Omicron update

Despite being conscientious about wearing masks and washing hands – it struck. I was lucky to have very mild symptoms, one of which, as revealed by the ZOE COVID Study, is "skipped meals". It's not loss of appetite. I spent much of the time thinking about eating, planning what I'd eat, looking forward to eating – but not actually doing so. It seems there is another symptom after recovery: since testing negative, I've been skipping through meals making up for lost time.

Councillor Joanna Biddolph

Turnham Green ward

Joanna.biddolph@hounslow.gov.uk

07976 703446

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Most council meetings are now taking place in person at Hounslow House though a few, such as licensing panel meetings, continue to be held virtually. Even if they are held in person, you can watch them live (or later) on   the council's YouTube channel  . Please check for each meeting by looking at the   agenda reports pack for each committee.

The key council meetings coming up are:  

• 8th February – 7.00 pm Cabinet Meeting
• 1st March – 7.00 pm 2022/3 Budget Setting Meeting
• 3rd March – 7.00 pm Planning Meeting
• 15th March – 7.00pm Overview and Scrutiny Committee
• 22nd March – 7.00pm Cabinet

SURGERIES ARE BACK!

We are now able to hold face-to-face surgeries again and, as before, will be available in Chiswick and in Gunnersbury. Chiswick: Every Saturday from 9.30am to 10.30am at Chiswick Library (the nine Conservative councillors take this surgery in turn). Gunnersbury: First Saturday of the month from 10am to 11am at The Gunnersbury Triangle Club, Triangle Way, off The Ridgeway, W3 8LU (at least one of the Turnham Green ward councillors will take this surgery).

Chiswick Homefields ward

Cllr Patrick Barr
patrick.barr@hounslow.gov.uk
07976 703263

Cllr Gerald McGregor
gerald.mcgregor@hounslow.gov.uk
07866 784821

Cllr John Todd
john.todd@hounslow.gov.uk
07866 784651

Chiswick Riverside ward

Cllr Michael Denniss
michael.denniss@hounslow.gov.uk
07976 703274

Cllr Gabriella Giles
gabriella.giles@hounslow.gov.uk
07966 270823

Cllr Sam Hearn
sam.hearn@hounslow.gov.uk
07833 376222

Turnham Green ward

Cllr Joanna Biddolph
joanna.biddolph@hounslow.gov.uk
07976 703446

Cllr Ranjit Gill
ranjit.gill@hounslow.gov.uk
07976 702956

Cllr Ron Mushiso
ron.mushiso@hounslow.gov.uk
07976 702887

February 6, 2022