A letter from Hounslow Council in response to the consultation on the West London Tram has voiced significant concerns about the scheme but has stopped short of outright opposition to the plan.

In a letter to TfL's Mike Bartram, Cllr. Ron Bartholomew expresses serious concerns about the project particularly the plan to divert traffic away from the Uxbrdge Road and towards Chiswick High Road. Figures given in the letter suggests this could mean an extra 9,000 cars a day in the area.

Cllr. Bartholomew states, "The Council cannot, therefore, give its unqualified support to any proposal that significantly increases the level of traffic congestion or reduces the quality of the environment in the borough. We urge Transport for London to reconsider the proposed road closures and employ alternative measures to maximise the priority and effectiveness of the proposed tram service."

However, the given in the letter to the plan in principal has led to a furious reaction from local opposition councillors.

Cllr. Peter Thompson commented, "It is outrageous that Cllr Batholomew has given his support to the plans for a West London Tram and thereby totally ignored the strong opposition to the Tram that exists in Chiswick. "

He added that the scheme would have very serious environmental implications for hundreds of thousands of people who live either side of the route in West London. Chiswick High Road saw a sharp deterioration in air quality during 2003 though this change has been dismissed as being caused by atmospheric anomalies by Hounslow Council and the Mayor.

Cllr. Thompson suggested that the failure to reject the tram plan reflected regional bias, "it is clear that he doesn't really care less about the eastern part of Hounslow. His title on the Council is Executive Member for 'Enhancing our Environment' - it is clear from this letter that the 'our' doesn't refer to Chiswick!"

However, Cllr. Bartholomew did address the issue of diverted traffic in his pointing out that revisions to the plan came at a late stage in the consultation, "This revelation is alarming and is at variance with material made available earlier this year which predicated a negligible increase in traffic in the eastern end of the borough, and in fact a decrease on some streets."

Earlier figures given to Hounslow Council had stated that the increase in traffic in Chiswick would have been minimal or in some streets the number of vehicles would have been reduced. He said that the late change had given the Council insufficient time to analyse the impact that the extra traffic would have on the area particularly in regard to the existing public transport network.

Despite spending over £1 million on publicising the consultation, Transport for London did not advertise the consultation in press distributed in Hounslow despite the fact that parts of the borough are likely to be worst affected by diverted traffic. Cllr. Bartholomew did not complain about this in his letter. Transport for London have vehemently denied claims that they attempted to skew the consultation results by distributing consultation forms outside the areas affected by the tram and were deliberately ineffective in publicising the scheme within the areas most likely to be opposed to the scheme such as Acton and Chiswick.

Hounslow Council did put forward an alternative tram scheme some time ago which would have run down the centre of the A4 between Hammersmith and Hounslow. This scheme was dismissed because a report showed that it would be less cost effective than the Uxbridge Road scheme. Cllr. Bartholomew looked to resurrect this idea in his letter saying, "The Council believes that the West London Tram could form the first stage of a strategic tram network for west London and the Borough is therefore keen to further explore the options for extensions to the Uxbridge Road scheme."

There were only 17,000 responses to the consultation a relatively low return compared to the recent consultation on the extension of the Congestion Charge. These responses are currently being processed and a report on the results is likely to be available in the New Year. Due to the omission of the scheme from the recent 5 year plan announced by Transport for London it has been speculated that the consultation revealed such a high level of opposition that the scheme will be scrapped. However, at a recent meeting in Acton the Mayor restated his commitment to the scheme saying that without it life in West London would become 'intolerable'.

November 17, 2004