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Call Ins: Scrutiny Committee told of exclusion of evidence and investigation demanded

A very interesting Facebook post on OneChiswick today.  Significant questions arising as to governance of process and exclusion of evidence for the Call Ins tonight.  From the page:"It has been brought to our attention by many Residents, who having prepared and submitted extensive evidence in regard to the two Call Ins by Cllr Richard Eason and Cllr John Todd, have received notifications that the evidence has been excluded from your briefing packs.  No good reason has been offered.  Many have gone back to challenge and have decided to copy you all directly with that evidence.As you will appreciate, many residents diligently prepared evidence that would help members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee carefully consider whether the following applied when the Cabinet Members involved considered CEX 496 Streetspace Programme:1. Inadequate consultation with stakeholders prior to the decision;2. Inadequate evidence on which to base a decision;3. The action is not proportionate to the desired outcome;4. A potential human rights or equalities challenge;5. Insufficient consideration of legal and financial advice. It is evident that whoever has been involved at an Officer and Councillor level in reviewing the submissions has excluded much correspondence that addresses the 5 points above.  Do please look at all the evidence that has been sent to you directly by residents as it represents a picture of what is going on and why it was right for Cllrs Richard Eason and John Todd to call this decision in.Given the seriousness of this matter, we will be raising it with the Chief Executive and Head of Legal for LB Hounslow, and will be asking that a Complaint be formally registered and that an investigation started, post this Call In, into the procedures put in place for preparing material for your briefing pack.  Further you will, we are sure, be aware that this matter can be formally taken to the Local Government Ombudsman if the responses are unsatisfactory after the Council goes through its internal review processes."

Chris Soze ● 2163d23 Comments ● 2163d

Staveley Road School Street

Part of email received from LBOH todayWith regards to the Staveley Road school street for Chiswick School, this will also not provide residential access. However, this is only in operation for two hours a day from Monday – Friday, at all other times residents are free to drive along this section of Staveley Road. Burlington Lane remains open to traffic at all times. More on this school street scheme can be found here: https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20053/transport/2181/south_chiswick_liveable_neighbourhood/8  Please note that these are trial schemes and therefore we are keen on receiving your feedback on these measures throughout the trial period, which will be reviewed before determining if they should continue beyond this time, or be changed or removed – therefore, should you wish to share any feedback/suggestion(s) that you believe could improve the scheme, please feel free to share them with us via the Streetspace Feedback page.  More information on the background to the projects can be found here, along with a list of FAQs; https://tinyurl.com/southchiswick  Chiswick School StreetThis School Street scheme will introduce A “No Motor Vehicle” access restriction on a section of Staveley Road between the A316 and Burlington Lane. Road users will be made aware of these restrictions by the placement of a “no motor vehicles” sign with the times these are in operation (8:00 – 9:00am and 2:45 – 3:45pm Monday to Friday). These restrictions will not apply to buses, delivery vehicles or school staff. Residential exemptions will not be issued as residential properties are not located within the scheme area. This closure of the road at school start and end times further supports the additional closure measures on Staveley Road, to remove a high proportion of through traffic that uses the road to connect between the A316 and A4.  Access will be retained to the street for those residents and students who are walking or cycling. A copy of a letter explaining the scheme in more detail can be viewed below, alongside a copy of the plan showing the extents of the scheme.Planhttps://www.hounslow.gov.uk/downloads/file/2817/chiswick_school    • Expected implementation date: November 2020     • Interim review: Feb/March 2021     • First formal review: May/June 2021

Bernard Allen ● 2175d41 Comments ● 2163d

Are Hounslow Cycling misrepresenting members numbers to Scrutiny Committee?

Has Hounslow Cycling a membership of 10,000 or is that the London Cycling Campaign, for the whole of London, across 33 boroughs and 9m people?  Looks like it must be the London Cycling Campaign from their website.  It would be helpful to know as it is clear from a recent submission from Hounslow Cycling to the Council that they are clearly trying to infer that it is 10,000 in Hounslow rather than the whole of London. This question has arisen from simply having watched Social Media feeds last night and this morning - that alerts the reader that it is quite clear that something is going amiss with the inclusion of papers for the Overview and Scrutiny Committee set for Monday.  So I decided to go to the Council website and track down the documents to see what all the fuss was about.You can do this too at:https://democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk/documents/g12025/Public reports pack Monday 30-Nov-2020 18.00 Overview and Scrutiny Committee.pdf?T=10If you get to page 65 onwards to page 81 you can see submissions from external parties.  From what is being said on social media 16 pages simply does not represent the number of submissions that sought to provide evidence on the 5 key points for or against the reason for the 2 call ins: Inadequate consultation with stakeholders prior to the decision;Inadequate evidence on which to base a decision;The action is not proportionate to the desired outcome;A potential human rights or equalities challenge;Insufficient consideration of legal and financial advice.Appears that those saying there is clear evidence to back the call ins are most disgruntled. It is also interesting to observe that 2 identical submissions from Hounslow Cycling are simply partially copied. Was that a form letter sent in or a copying error made by the officers.  One of those says "Hounslow Cycling is the borough group of London Cycling Campaign, a membership charity with 10,000 members".So the question is as a member of the Scrutiny Committee do I read that as it is Hounslow Cycling that has 10,000 members or do I know that it the total membership of London Cycling Campaign, across 33 boroughs and 9m people?   About 0.11% of the population.  So what is the answer? 

Chris Soze ● 2165d11 Comments ● 2164d