Missing A Riotous Night Out In Eastbourne!

A week in the life of a local councillor as told by Sam Hearn

Cllr Sam Hearn who represents the Riverside ward in Chiswick, is chairman of the Chiswick Area Forum. He has written this account of his week as a busy local councillor

Friday 17th July: Trying to resolve issues with the agenda for next week’s Area Forum. Carillion are unable to attend to talk about measures being taken to stamp out fly tipping. Will the Forum be quorate? Several councillors are on holiday or out of the country on business.

Saturday 18th July: At the Shillingford Bridge Hotel in Oxfordshire for a trustees’ meeting of a small charity. The hotel is on beautiful stretch of the river Thames. Unfortunately this commitment means that I have been unable to join my wife and Chiswick friends on the last leg of the South Downs walk. No doubt I will be missing a riotous night out in Eastbourne.

Sunday 19th July: Forced myself to focus and get to grips with the agenda for the initial meeting of the Hounslow Pensions Board. Still not sure that the Forum will have sufficient councillors attending for it to be quorate. The meeting clashes with the Cabinet meeting that is reviewing the decision on the Brent Leas 125 year lease.

Monday 20th July: First meeting of the Hounslow Pensions Board. My colleagues appear knowledgeable and committed. Almost everyone was singing from the same hymn book. I guess a little dissent is a good thing. We are all faced with a few months of training to get us fully up to speed. I have agreed to repeat my LGA run pension scheme training to update my knowledge and get to know other members of the Board.

Tuesday 21st July: Chiswick Area Forum: By some miracle we are quorate. Most members of the public are here for the call-in of a planning application that looked likely to be refused by officers. After some detailed questioning we agreed that the decision should be referred to the Planning Committee. This news was well received. The Police Report from Inspector Edwards appeared uncontroversial. However Councillor Lee once again raised the issue of how Councillors could feed into the setting of the objectives for the Police ward by ward. Several of the agenda items were traffic related and officer Mark Frost was on hand to present these in his usual cheerful low key manner.

Wednesday 22 nd: Interesting email-invitation from Inspector Edwards to discuss how Councillors can become more involved in the setting of Police objectives. Yet another little project that needs to get rolling in August. To Dorking Halls in the evening for a live digital broadcast of the RSC’s Merchant of Venice. There were huge resonances for a Society struggling to come to terms with integrating people from different cultures and religions. A powerful Israeli Palestinian actor was brilliantly cast as Shylock.

Thursday 23 rd July: An interesting meeting with two representatives from the international Liberty Association an organisation that is trying to extract Iranian refugees from the so called Camp Liberty that is located close to Bagdad International Airport. To the Station House for a drink with friends and family. It seems the night life of Eastbourne has lots to offer.

Friday 24 th July: Catching up with a variety of emails ranging from updates from the Lionel Road Residents Group to the problems with various noisy neighbours e.g. a prayer house and children’s tennis.

July 24, 2015