Ward Walks, a Drinkable Thames, the River Wall and Borough Council
Chiswick Riverside councillor Gabriella Giles reports back
Cllr Gabriella Giles
November 30, 2024
The life of a councillor is never boring, and this past week was no exception, in that Tuesday evening was the last borough council of 2024. As usual, your Conservative Councillors in Chiswick demonstrated that while we may be a small group within the council, we can be an impactful voice for residents. But there will be more on that later.
Ward Walks
To focus on more local issues, I met officers of the council on the 22nd of November in Strand on the Green to undertake what the council calls a Ward Walk.
There have been a number of issues around Stile Hall Gardens, Oxford Road South, Chiswick Village and Wellesley Road that have resulted in the need of officer attention, and with all the best will in the world, sometimes it’s important to get officers out of their offices and into the community to show them why residents (and Peter and myself) are upset about the state of affairs.
Joined by members of Hounslow Highways, the Community Development team and the Safer Community Team, I was able to explain some of our frustrations around personal safety, the conditions of roads and showcase the locations of projects such as the Strand on the Green School Street (consultation now open), and the desire to make the footbridge at Brooks Lane step free.
While we had a productive two-hours on a very chilly Friday afternoon, I hope that some of the issues we discussed will now be progressed at some pace.
Following that meeting, I hopped on the 65 to head to Kingston for the launch of the Mayors for a Drinkable Thames, which has been set up by my vice-chairman on the Thames Landscape Strategy, Cllr James Manthel of Kingston, following the successful walk by the founders of Drinkable Rivers last year.
It was a great event, and we were joined by the Mayors of the six partners of the Thames Landscape Strategy from Hounslow, Richmond, Kingston, Spelthorne, Elmbridge and Runnymede. We met representatives of local river user groups and discussed the need for citizen science projects to encourage local water testing so that all users can safely use our River.
There will be more on this in due course, but it was fantastic to hear what has been happening further upstream than Chiswick, as we know that what happens there will have an impact on us too.
Following that, I went along to the Christmas Market at Syon House, which was beautifully lit up and was very successful in creating a bit of Christmas Spirit.
Strand-on-the-Green River Wall Really Is Falling Down
Since late October, I have been liaising with residents about a specific part of the Strand-on-the-Green river wall. While discussions have been ongoing since 2021 with the Strand-on-the-Green Residents Association (SOGA) and the council about the need for engineering works on this stretch, both SOGA and I have been rather frustrated by the glacial rate of progress on this project.
I do welcome the announcement earlier from the council that they are going to invest money into surveys, and am looking forward to joining the project board which I have been told is due to start in December, but we are yet to receive any confirmation of this.
However, in the meantime, areas that were highlighted in a 2023 survey as in need of attention have continued to deteriorate. Since October, I have met and spoken to multiple council officers about the wall outside of Compass House which has resulted in the regular flooding of properties. This is not something that anybody wants, and while I have assurance that the council is looking into this as a priority and has set up a specific project to fix the wall, I have yet to see any tangible action other than barriers being erected.
I’ll leave you to be the judge of how effective this is as, when I passed by this week, this was the state of affairs just after a high tide.
Photo from river foreshore
This is a project that I keep a very keen eye on, and will continue to work with officers from the council and residents to make sure that this area is no longer neglected, as the investment of £300,000 over the past 20 years has not been sufficient to prevent the deterioration of the wall.
Borough Council
I said earlier that your Conservative Councillors in Chiswick continue to be an impactful voice for residents, and this was certainly in full show at Tuesday’s Borough Council. While the administration had chosen to put forward motions that tell the leader of the council how to do his job by writing letters to central government and South Western Rail (SWR), Councillor Jo Biddolph and I put forward a motion to support our small businesses and charities in Hounslow.
Unfortunately, this was amended by Labour, who chose to include party political sentiments, and removed any actions that would have delivered any tangible actions.
Ahead of that, Councillor John Todd spoke very soberingly on the council’s Treasury Management Mid-year report; questions followed from Cllrs Jo Biddolph, Ron Mushiso and myself, all asking Cabinet member Tom Bruce about development plans for the borough, specifically in Brentford, and even one question was practically repeated word-for-word by a Labour councillor! Councillors Peter Thompson and Jack Emsley spoke very strongly against the motion titled “A Budget to Fix our Foundations” where the predominant action was to congratulate the Chancellor on her budget.
Contrary to the accusations of just doing what CCHQ had told us - which is not how the Tory Party works - Jo and I had spent some time writing our motion “ Supporting Hounslow's Small Businesses and Charities Amidst Increased National Insurance Contributions”, to which I alluded above. We had also spent a lot of time preparing our speeches - another part of our work that Labour thinks others do for us. Which others?
The third motion, proposed by the administration, focussed on South Western Rail, and supported the comments for the nationalisation of this service as expressed by former Secretary of State for Transport. Once again, the main resolution was to request the leader to write to the CEO of SWR, requesting a meeting. We found this somewhat frustrating as a group, as surely this should be part of his day-to-day job?
These are a few of the reasons as to why Cllr Ranjit Gill and I amended this motion, and yet another example of how, as a group, we work together as an opposition group in Hounslow to provide an alternative viewpoint to the somewhat unimaginative thinking of the current leadership in Hounslow Council.
Hope you have a great week, and thank you for your attention.
Cllr Gabriella Giles
gabriella.giles@hounslow.gov.uk
07966 270823
CONSERVATIVE COUNCILLOR SURGERIES
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 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 Gabriella Giles gabriella.giles@hounslow.gov.uk 07966 270823
Cllr Peter Thompson peter.thompson@hounslow.gov.uk 07977 395810
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