The Frustrations of Chiswick Life Ruled by Silver Tongued Explanations
Chiswick Gunnersbury Councillor Joanna Biddolph reports back on her week
Cllr Jo Biddolph
A corporate memory of forgetfulness
I’m typing this to the beat of the base at Gunnersbury Live!, one of this summer’s largest events in Gunnersbury Park – three concerts, two weekends in a row, up to 20,000 a day, with Rex Orange County tonight; R üf üs du Sol on Saturday, 20th and Electric City on Sunday, 21st.
The CIC (community interest company) that runs Gunnersbury Park fails us with its lack of corporate memory, inflicting lessons-still-not-learned on residents and businesses event after event. Stakeholder meetings, meetings for residents, involving businesses … the same points are raised at them every time. Despite silver-tongued reassurances made at these meetings, the same problems arise every time.
It's not only about noise from performers. Open space closed for months for spread-out events; set-up and de-rig routes that run behind residents’ homes along noisy tracking continuously from 8.30am till 10pm; bright lighting affecting wildlife and disturbing sleep (sometimes it’s left on all night); appropriately-sited loos outside the park; thorough litter pick-ups; and, my regular request, for The Loop [] or similar to be present to test drugs and save lives (we know drugs get into these big events and at Gunnersbury Park and should protect people who attend them – the list is depressingly familiar.
Litter by Gunnersbury Park wall
The CIC and its suppliers should, in my view, by now have a checklist of points every event organiser needs to accommodate. I have long thought that the council’s, and the CIC’s, approach is to wear us down so that we become mute. My calls for a community engagement manager to be employed by the CIC (which is where the corporate memory should be stored) have been ignored. So, too, has my call for a community consultative committee (I’ve been banging that base drum loudly since 2018). And this year, the Festival Republic phone number for residents to ring was published without it being checked – it didn’t work. It’s as if Festival Republic were a first-time festival organiser, not one that has been going for over 30 years.
Planning applications are for “a temporary change of use of the park” and that’s the point. We all know the CIC needs to raise money to run the park but – it’s a park, not a venue. So it was with considerable dismay from residents that the Hounslow licensing panel recently approved a long-term (in perpetuity, in effect) blanket license to hold nearly 100 events a year, some for 29,999 people (if residents hadn’t experienced Lovebox at 40,000 they’d think this was too many). Residents asked for a one-year or two-year licence, to test the management and effect of so many events, and such large events, in a year, but were ignored.
There was more silver-tongued talk and two discussions determined to distract attention from the main points. At an earlier meeting, we’d been told that a key point was too complicated to explain to us leaving me wondering if mansplaining was better than notsplaining. If anyone knows how Line Array systems work, please let me know; the unexplained hinted-at claim was that they prevent sound from travelling beyond a geographical point but that doesn’t come up in Google and it has not been tonight’s experience.
The intention seems to slide information past us rather than tell us the facts, hear resident’s concerns, find a compromise and mitigate. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it. And please don’t get me going on cancel culture …
Housing and building what we need
If a council tells tenants that they only qualify for a one-bedroom flat then, of course, that provides the argument for building more shoebox flats. In my just over four-year experience as a councillor, I’ve learned that Labour councillors don’t understand that this is skewed thinking. It isn’t demand-led; it’s based on the council’s definitions. And it’s limiting our tenants’ lives, ambitions, hope. As I listened during Saturday’s councillors’ surgery to another tearful, fearful parent – living in wholly inadequate temporary accommodation … temporary for 14 years – my heart broke yet again. Two children one of whom has special needs; parent and sibling with serious illnesses; tiny flat where the sitting room has been divided to create a space called a bedroom; no space for a desk for school work; mum sleeping on the sitting room floor; one child sleeping on the sofa; mould on the walls that doesn’t go away despite repeated cleaning with bleach … moving them to another one-bedroom flat (all that they are allowed) is not giving them a life. I believe we have a duty to do better.
Commercial waste and recycling for shops
There is some good news. Potentially. (You wouldn’t expect me to be wholly delighted at first stage, would you?!) One of the requests made in the retail report produced by our Chiswick Shops Task Force in July 2020 was for the council to provide a waste and recycling service for businesses, making better use of its then state-of-the-art materials handling depot and making our roads less unpleasant to walk along. Two years later and … the council has introduced a commercial waste and recycling service. I’m doing my bit to promote it to shops and to encourage pick-ups at times of day that limit the need to put out waste overnight. The new scheme costs more than private providers – the council’s collection vans are staffed by two people, not one, to share the heavy lifting – but am hopeful that we’ll have fewer private services littering our pavements with sacks, or heaps of cardboard, or overflowing bins over, or past, which we have to step on our way out for supper.
Rishi Sunak was here and we were buzzing
It isn’t often that councillors discuss internal party politics publicly but the Conservative Party’s leadership election is being played out on a world stage. My family in America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa are just as intrigued as those in London, Kent and Nottinghamshire. Some in our local association think that, when in government, the leadership election should be by the parliamentary party to avoid the public spats that were hallmarks of the early hustings and interviews. If it had been like that, Rishi Sunak would have become prime minister on 20th July and would already have put in place policies to deal with the cost-of-living crisis. Instead, one member one vote prevails and even the internal party events around the UK have been televised, warts and all. I’ve watched several, and will be at the London hustings, the last of 12 organised by Tory HQ, on 31st August. If you would like to see the best, I recommend the public debate, The Battle for Number 10, run by Sky News and broadcast on YouTube during which Kay Burley adeptly got to the heart of both candidates’ characters and policy approaches.
The candidates have of course developed and expanded their comments and proposals since the first hustings (which I attended, it was specifically for Conservative councillors) and that, alone, seems to me to be reason enough to have a longer process involving all party members; we all need a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) reality check. I’m firmly on the left of the party and am disappointed that we don’t have a candidate who voted Remain to look at Brexit from a pro-European perspective. But vote for one of them I must.
Rishi Sunak at Chiswick meeting
There was an electric buzz in a corner of Chiswick Gunnersbury ward on Friday, 12th August. Rishi Sunak was coming. Over 60 of us crowded into a large double sitting room, spilling out into the hall, sitting on the stairs, standing just outside the double doors into the garden, and grilled him. Supporters of Liz Truss, fans of Rishi, undecideds – all asked tricky questions and made suggestions.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer during the height of the pandemic, Rishi was imaginatively interventionist (for which read One Nation Tory) recognising that financial support for local retail/hospitality/service economies (such as ours in Chiswick) and for SMEs and business generally was essential. The furlough scheme, grants, access to loans, the suspension of business rates, Eat Out to Help Out … all helped to keep our independent shops, bars, cafes, restaurants, health, beauty, service businesses going (though not dry cleaners who had and are still having a very rough ride). Rishi is acutely aware that they are all at risk again so he has pledged to suspend business rates again. The triple lock returns to pensions next year. But it’s not enough and he knows this.
Conservatives favour low tax, small state government but left wingers like me have long argued that, at times, an increase in tax for those who can afford it is acceptable to support those in need. So, we don’t prioritise cutting tax when increasing support is paramount – such as now. In this election debate, Rishi’s timetable for lowering tax – after the crisis – wins on that. There is widespread muddle about his proposed fine for missing NHS appointments. As he stressed here, its purpose is not revenue-raising; it’s a deterrent. I get it – when my mother was a county councillor on the Surrey health authority she drummed into me never to miss an appointment; if I really couldn’t go, I should cancel so someone else could fill the slot. These and other reasons – including Rishi’s phenomenal and inspiring energy, his big and agile brain, his warm and personable personality, his determination to tackle fairly the serious challenges we face – are why, in this hashtag world we live in, and as I’ve already said on Twitter, I’m #Ready4Rishi.
Councillor Joanna Biddolph
Chiswick Gunnersbury ward
joanna.biddolph@hounslow.gov.uk
07976 703446
SURGERIES IN CHISWICK AND GUNNERSBURY
We are back to our usual routine of holding face-to-face surgeries in Chiswick and in Gunnersbury.
Chiswick: Every Saturday from 9.30am to 10.30am at Chiswick Library (the eight 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 Chiswick Gunnersbury ward councillors takes this surgery).
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
Thursday, 25th August at 7pm: Planning development presentation
Tuesday, 1st September at 7pm: Overview and scrutiny committee
Thursday, 8th September at 7pm: Planning committee
Tuesday, 6th September at 7pm: Cabinet
Tuesday, 13th September at 7pm: Chiswick Area Forum
Tuesday, 20th September at 7pm: Borough Council meeting
CONSERVATIVE COUNCILLORS
Chiswick Gunnersbury (was 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
Chiswick Homefields ward
Cllr Jack Emsley jack.emsley@hounslow.gov.uk 07977 396017
Cllr Gerald McGregor gerald.mcgregor@hounslow.gov.uk 07866 784821
Cllr John Todd john.todd@hounslow.gov.uk 07866 784651
Chiswick Riverside ward
Cllr Peter Thompson peter.thompson@hounslow.gov.uk 07977 395810
Cllr Gabriella Giles gabriella.giles@hounslow.gov.uk 07966 270823
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August 14, 2022