Self-praising Motions and an Absent Licensing Chair at Council Meeting
Chiswick Homefields councillor Gerald McGregor reports back
Cllr Gerald McGregor
July 29, 2025
Conservative Party members in the newish parliamentary constituency of Hammersmith and Chiswick all have local ward Conservative Management groups providing a policy focus and feedback to their councillors.
The three Chiswick wards (Gunnersbury, Homefields and Riverside) are actively campaigning on a range of issues co-ordinated by Cllr Gabriella Giles who is the constituency chairman of Hammersmith and Chiswick. The result is continuous feedback from residents hugely concerned about local issues involving both councils and their policies and priorities.
Political activity, positive economic actions and maintaining social cohesion are a hugely important set of values that underly our freedoms and our democratic values and the rule of law. Your local Conservative Councillors all stand together and with you in our continuing struggle to improve the wellbeing of our society as a whole, to achieve improvements in living standards and fairness in taxation and proper levels of social welfare that assist people both out of long-term poverty and out of temporary difficulty.
The Hounslow Borough Council meeting was held on Tuesday 22 July 2025
This week I had the dubious pleasure of attending the meeting and going through a turgid agenda that missed so many of the complex issues of social welfare where parts of the borough are areas of social deprivation, so many elements of housing and schooling that need fixing and on top of that creating a new cohort of enforcement officers.
Labour Motions: Plenty of Spin, No Substance
The first meeting of the full council after we adopted the revised Council Constitution.
I would like to bring your attention to the major issue that this constitutional review has damagingly reduced democracy. The opposition are now unable to present more than two motions a year, members can only speak for 3 minutes on an agenda item, and cannot ask questions to the Cabinet (unless they are presenting a report).
Anyways, at this meeting, the Labour administration put forward three motions: one on fly-tipping, one attempting to take credit for a Government-led free school meals expansion, and one celebrating their “Summer of Culture.”
As a group, we voted against all three. Not because we oppose clean streets, children being fed, or cultural investment but because these motions were long on self-praise and short on any meaningful action.
As for culture, this is very much alive and very well in Chiswick, the historic home of the artist William Hogarth and having an active theatre (the Tabard), an active Theatre school (the Arts Education School), an active Chiswick community Cinema (which shows films and among other things, feeds from theatres and international opera houses), active festivals (Green Day and the following fortnight) and Music organised and managed and performed by superb local professionals, and local authors and journalists all supporting literature and literacy through the 17th annual Chiswick Book Festival, which brings together top authors and their readers for inspiring and entertaining events in many genres -fiction and documentary history, politics, current affairs, crime, biography, music, workshops and children’s books.
The Chiswick Book Festival is a non-profit-making community event. Since 2009, it has raised more than £150,000 for charities and for the St Michael & All Angels Church, (where I am a long-standing congregant) which runs the Festival as part of its mission of arts and community outreach. This year it will support St Michael & All Angels (registered charity no. 1133805) and these three reading charities:
Read for Good, which helps children to read for pleasure through programmes in schools and hospitals.
Read more at www.readforgood.org
Koestler Arts, the leading prison arts charity, promoting writing, reading and literacy in the criminal justice system. Read more here
Read Easy Ealing, providing one-to-one tuition for local adults who want to learn to read or improve their reading skills.
Read more at www.readeasy.org.uk/groups/ealing
See the full programme and author details on the website: www.chiswickbookfestival.net.
The Borough Meeting: Licensing Chair: Paid but Not Present
While all this was going on, something else caught my attention. One of the most significant reports of the evening was the Licensing Policy Review, a detailed paper outlining future strategy, regulatory enforcement, and the borough’s approach to public safety in the nighttime economy.
Yet the Chair of the Licensing and General Purposes Committee was nowhere to be seen. He didn't attend the meeting. He didn’t present the report. In fact, it’s now part of a broader pattern of absence:
- He did not attend the mandatory licensing training in person, despite this being essential to understanding the law and procedure.
- He does not chair panels.
- Emails from members and officers often go unanswered.
Now, I’m the first to acknowledge that councillors are entitled to take the occasional holiday, we’re all human. But when a councillor receives several thousand pounds a year in additional taxpayer-funded responsibility allowances, the public deserves better than silence and disengagement. He could have at least asked a colleague of his to read a speech out for him so we could understand his thoughts.
The role of Licensing Chair is not ceremonial. It matters. Licensing decisions affect community safety, public confidence, and the economic health of our high streets. If the Chair is not willing to show up, respond, or lead, then it's fair to ask whether he's interested in the role at all — and whether that allowance should continue.
The Conservative Group: Standing Up for Residents
Throughout the meeting, our group made it clear that we will always support genuine action, not hollow motions.
Cllr Gabriella Giles challenged Labour’s lack of a plan to deliver each of their suggestions. Cllr Joanna Biddolph stated that the council should focus on the causes of fly tipping, suggesting six pragmatic options to tackle a well-known hotspot in her ward. Cllr Jack Emsley hit the administration with reality questioning their lazy delay with the building of a new arts centre in Brentford. And I pressed, as always, for greater integrity and accountability in how our committees are led and the budget is spent (wasted?).
Residents across Chiswick tell us the same thing: they want cleaner streets, better services, and a council that takes responsibility. Not slogans. Not spin. And not silence from those paid to lead.
Cllr Gerald McGregor
gerald.mcgregor@hounslow.gov.uk
07866 784821
DEMOCRACY: DATES FOR YOUR DIARY 2025
Monday 13 October: Chiswick Area Forum - Normally at Hogarth Hall, Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfield Terrace, Turnham, W4 4JN, but moveable around Chiswick (please check the website). Meetings are open from 6.30pm allowing residents to meet officers of Hounslow Council in Adult and Child care Social Welfare, Education, Housing and Services
Council Meetings - Borough Council
- Tuesday 16 September 7.30pm
- Tuesday 25 November 7:30 pm
There is public access for these meetings via a direct lift from the ground floor to the Council Meeting Room
6th Floor, Hounslow House, 7 Bath Road, Hounslow TW3 3EB
Council Meetings – Overview and Scrutiny Committee
- Monday 18 September 2025 7.00pm
6th Floor, Hounslow House, 7 Bath Road, Hounslow TW3 3EB
Council Meetings – Audit and Governance Committee
- Tuesday 4 November 7:00 pm
6th Floor, Hounslow House, 7 Bath Road, Hounslow TW3 3EB
Anyone can attend public meetings of the council. Most meetings take place on the 6th Floor, Hounslow House, 7 Bath Road, TW3 3EB. Hounslow House is fully accessible. The nearest tube is Hounslow Central which does not have step-free access. Parking in local roads is limited.
Emergencies
You can report emergencies outside office hours by ringing the council on: 020 8583 2222.
CONSERVATIVE COUNCILLOR SURGERIES
Chiswick: Every Saturday from 9.30am to 10.30am at Chiswick Library (the seven 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 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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