A Non-listening Council that Dances to a Different Beat

Chiswick Gunnersbury councillor Jo Biddolph reports back

Cllr Jo Biddolph
Cllr Jo Biddolph

April 29, 2023

Dockless e-bikes coming to a road near you

Just over 10 days ago, Hounslow’s cabinet approved a dockless e-bikes scheme for the borough. As usual, Chiswick is the guinea pig trial area (alongside Brentford) – a point made by our Conservative group leader Cllr Peter Thompson who attends cabinet and can contribute but not vote. A few days before that, ward councillors had been asked to comment on the proposals, the council’s transport officers having identified sites in each of the Chiswick wards for dockless e-bike parking.

In Chiswick Gunnersbury ward, they are mostly on the road in parking spaces rather than on the pavement, but the choice of several of the locations left me scratching my head. So I consulted residents I know of in most of the nominated roads and word soon spread to others.

If there is one spot to which you would sensibly say “no, not here”, it’s the corner of a complex five-way junction where roads, all single lane, experience frequent stand-offs, both drivers refusing to reverse to let the other one through, and verbal fisticuffs. Or a junction on a busy through-route road often in gridlock, with drivers on side roads unable to turn left or right to join the main road, with near road rage and honking horns experienced daily. Yet, they were on the list. Bikes badly parked or on the end of the space will be damaged as cars manoeuvre round the designated space, and the cyclist will not be able to cycle off except along the pavement and we all know how well that goes down.

Most of the comments raised the logic, or rather illogic, of the policy. With the shambles of the Mobike scheme still firmly in memories, and the lack of any evidence that “build it and they will come” is ever going to be true of C9, many wanted to know what evidence there was that so many e-bikes will be needed and what will happen with a designated space if it turns out to be unpopular. I wondered what unpopular might mean and whether, if it were used by one nearby resident and no-one else, that would be seen as a need. And that, I believe, is what people want of an e-bike scheme – for the parking space to be right outside their front door not a few roads away. That is why we experience the dumping of e-bikes, or licensed littering as one of my councillor colleagues calls it. (One day last week there were eight Lime bikes and one Dott bike abandoned on the 12 minute walk from my front door to a bus stop on Chiswick High Road. Today, two inconsiderately parked Lime bikes made it difficult for a woman walking with a stick and a friend whose arm she needed for support on her other side, to pass.)

Overall, apart from one raving fan, a few who would welcome it and use it but considered the space to be badly located, and some if we have to have it, it might as well be here acceptances, there is deep scepticism that the scheme will work and a lack of confidence that transport officers will listen to residents’ hyper-local knowledge and nuanced comments. Oh, and it’s supposed to be a trial which is one of Hounslow council’s favourite jokes.

Photo of e-bikes outside and inside a front garden Photo of e-bikes outside and inside a front garden

Where single man go?

I’ve written before about housing being the subject that makes my heart break. Since becoming the Conservative group spokesman on housing and homelessness I have had many more than usual pleas for help, from residents all over the borough not only in Chiswick Gunnersbury ward. People living with damp and mould continues to be a heartbreaker with, in one long-running case, a landlord still not rectifying appropriately and his tenants with repeated chest infections and a flat that is deteriorating grimly around them. As I said when the landlord and I spoke, he wouldn’t live there (I’m as certain as I can be that he lives at a much higher level).

But it is homelessness that I find so very hard to cope with. On Friday evening, after the mayoral celebration (see later), my phone rang just as I flopped on my sofa. A single woman who had exhausted all her friends’ offers of staying on their sofas needed a bed; she had spent time in hostels dominated by violence, drug dealing and knife threats and was running away from her life. Two days earlier, leaving Hounslow House after a meeting, I stopped to speak to a man sitting on the edge of a low-level wall near the entrance. Was he ok, could I help? A refugee from a country near Pakistan, an Urdu speaker just starting to learn English, he had been trying to find somewhere to live but no-one would house him. After two days of trying various options beyond the council I had to accept that the system – and it’s a national system – would not help him. Unless homelessness involves children or serious health conditions, you are on your own. As the earnest refugee said, “Where single man go?”.

JC Decaux’s bitter pill of a sweetener

Next Thursday, I will be supporting residents at a call in of a planning application from JC Decaux for a massive advertising hoarding on Chiswick High Road. Unsurprisingly, the location has been chosen to target drivers – not residents – and will rake in millions for this multi-national advertising company at the cost of not much for the planning application fee. It is more street clutter plonked randomly to suit the advertiser and it is not wanted, just as residents haven’t wanted the other JC Decaux hoardings we have on the High Road and at bus stops with more to come at bus stops if those applications also succeed. JC Decaux has tried to sweeten the bitter pill of this one by adding a defibrillator to the massive money-making monolith. No one’s fooled. It’s an advertising hoarding. Other boroughs have refused them. There are other ways to instal defibrillators. As JC Decaux’s head office is in the borough, I fear its application will be favoured (and, yes, that is a reference to the fact that councillors are meant to make decisions without fear or favour).

Celebrating volunteers

It’s nearing the end of our municipal year – and therefore the end of the mayoral year. On Friday evening, this year’s mayor, Cllr Raghwinder Siddhu, hosted a party celebrating people across the borough who do so much voluntarily for their local communities. Councillors were asked to nominate people they think should be recognised. The evening started with Indian music and dancing, with several cabinet members and Chiswick Gunnersbury ward Cllr Ranjit Gill on their feet throwing shapes. It ended with the awards ceremony. Chiswick resident Richard Jennings, known for the help he gives residents who have unjustly received PCNs for parking or driving on roads with restrictions they were unaware of, was very rightly honoured as was Jill Spencer who organises the monthly litter pick on and around Turnham Green, making retrieving bottles and cans, confectionary wrappers, cigarette ends, pizza boxes, receipts and Nox canisters (the items that are most often in my haul) an attractive Sunday afternoon pastime because the session ends with tea and cakes she’s baked. If you would like to join us, it’s at 2.30pm on the third Sunday of the month starting at Christ Church on Turnham Green. If you need help with an unjust parking fine, please contact Richard on parking@rjen.me.uk .

On that point, don’t get fined in Grove Park on Bank Holiday Monday as the restrictions will remain in place, despite an earlier announcement saying they would be lifted. For full details, see the article on the home page.

Every mayor raises money for charity and it’s not too late to donate to Cllr Siddhu’s nominated charity: Polio and Children in Need. I grew up with the daily presence of polio on the streets of Bombay, a haunting memory that never fades.

Jill Spencer after the April litter pick

Councillor Joanna Biddolph

Chiswick Gunnersbury ward

joanna.biddolph@hounslow.gov.uk

07976 703446

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY  

Thursday, 4th May at 7:00pm: Planning Committee

Tuesday 9th May at 7:00pm: Overview and Scrutiny

Tuesday, 16th May at 7.00pm: Cabinet      

Tuesday, 23rd May at 7.30pm Borough Council AGM

CONSERVATIVE COUNCILLOR SURGERIES

Surgeries have been cancelled this weekend on Saturday 6th May because of the coronation. If you would like help from a councillor, please email or phone.

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). 

CONSERVATIVE COUNCILLORS and CONTACTS

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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