Station Gardens Pavement Battle Continues

Councillors pledge to continue campaign against tarmac

Chiswick Riverside Councillor Sam Hearn has lambasted the treatment received by residents of Station Gardens in Chiswick from the Council’s new Highways contractor, Hounslow Highways.

In a written response to local Councillors at the Chiswick Area Forum recently, Hounslow Highways explained their decision to replace existing paving slabs with asphalt because the street was not in “the Conservation Area or Heritage Area as established by the LBH Conservation Team”.

Cllr Hearn described this as "a bureaucratic nonsense. Station Gardens is the only street in the area that will lose its paving slabs."

A 128 strong petition was gathered from residents of the street and their close neighbours arguing for the original paving to be put back. Councillor Hearn said at the meeting;

“Residents feel victimised by Hounslow Highways and are appalled that their petition has been ignored by Councillor Colin Ellar.”

Fellow Conservative Councillor Gerald McGregor continued the attack saying, “Hounslow Highways are showing arrogance by not being at the meeting and cannot therefore be held to account.” Following this, Chiswick Conservative Councillors passed a motion demanding that a Hounslow Highways representative be at every Area Forum until the contract ends.

Latest figures reveal that Hounslow Highways has received over 20,000 enquiry/complaints since the project’s inception in January 2013.

Mary Macleod with Councillors Sam Hearn, Felicity Barwood and Station Gardens residents

Residents have complained about the shoddy workmanship by Hounslow Highway’s contractors; water pooling on uneven surfaces, old kerbstones replaced with damaged new ones, concrete left in front gardens and the failure to deal with a longstanding road alignment problem. In addition, one of Station Garden’s new LED street lights has been erected inside the canopy of a large street tree.

Mary Macleod said on a recent visit to the area : ‘Hounslow Highways has done a terrible job at Station Gardens. The investments into roads and pavements across the Borough from the PFI contract were meant to improve the local street scene. On this street the local infrastructure has actually been degraded.

Station Gardens before the changes

Station Gardens now

We asked Hounslow Council for a comment on the matter of Stations Gardens.

February 7, 2014