Blog 515 5th Feb 2026

Being a councillor is often frustrating. There are big things like the redevelopment of the police station and the two connected buildings on the riverside by Watermans, the marina at Watermans Park, and the eyesore - once Brentford Nylons, once Alfa Laval and now a monstrous advertisement hoarding owned by Hyundai. In all of these there have been false dawns but at bottom, nothing at all has changed. Smaller things like the empty and barely-marketed shops, the unused former Housing office, the empty car park on Boston Park Road are also stalled. Some go in the wrong direction - rowing on the Thames/Brent which 3 months ago was a triumph and today is largely gone.

I remember after my first term, the Labour organiser asked me for the 10 most important things I had achieved in 3 years. I racked my brain, but the only thing I could come up with was getting a bin located at the bus stop outside Watermans. In fact, that humungous achievement was reversed when the Cycle lane was constructed. It may or may not be back now - must check next time I pass it.

That excessively self-flagellating preface disguises another of those small contributions to my legacy: 3 of the 5 local people who have had the council and its agents hitting them for £1000 extortion scams have beaten the rap. Still 2 to go and I'm working on it still.

My good intentions for Thursday were largely overtaken by trying to catch up with casework and correspondence, so I passed on my plans to attend a lecture at UCL described as "A Feminist Critique of the British Public Enquiry". They would probably have used long words beyond my reading age but I will see if I can find a recording if I get a moment. In the evening I missed another event and one more relevant to me --Hounslow Climate Resilience Workshop – Help Shape Our Borough’s Future! Our Borough's Future will be seriously jeopardised by my failing to shape it by sharing my erudite thoughts. Must ask Katherine how it went and if there is anything I can catch up with.

On Friday I did manage to get to two events shaping the future round here. One was a meeting on the rather slow-developing Brentford Heritage Harbour plan. A good session and there are a number of people looking to reinvigorate that, which has some relevance to deciding how to recover from the catastrophe of the non-completion of the Watermans Park Marina.

After that I had my first online meeting with the leaseholder committee at Manor Vale. I may have rambled about this before so I'll be brief, but there are new flats added to their roof which have caused (surprise surprise) problems for the leaseholders underneath these which are likely to cost loadsamoney They are uncomfortable about how this is managed, and I am doing what I can to help, as are Ruth Cadbury's team.

Then it was Saturday and I was up at Brentford library for my surgery. At 10 am. But I was greeted with this:

I was outside at 9.55 on a cold if sunny morning, as were a couple of library customers. In fact it opened at about 10.15. The librarian was one I hadn't seen before and she was very good once I got in! The senior library people explained that both usual librarians were unwell so it was opened by others. Well done, but if it had said 'opening at 10.15' it would have been much better. The old canard about underpromising and overdelivering rather than the opposite.

Nobody turned up for the surgery but a man who I had invited had explained he could not attend: he has been put into a B&B in Hayes following a no-fault eviction by a private landlord. He is in a single room with one bed with two daughters, at least one of which is a toddler. meanwhile his wife is in West Middlesex with some illness that means she is retained there. He is pretty desperate, trying to survive in a single room with 3 people, bringing his daughter somehow to nursery in Brentford. I tried to reassure him: the housing people have to find places for many people with similar problems with no flats available. People think they are unhelpful but in my experience they are determined to help as fast as they can. and their record with 'my' homeless people has been resolved fairly soon. I asked him to try and be calm and come back to me at the end of this week if nothing has happened.

Meanwhile, people who are nicely housed are apt to rant about how we don't need more flats in Brentford. Sorry to tell them - we really do.

On Sunday afternoon was the Green Party monthly meeting, which is held at the South Street cafe in Isleworth. Quite crammed with all the people who like to attend these days, plus some who call in on Zoom or whatever. Main thing was we decided to make serious campaigns in Chiswick where we have a lot of enthusiastic young members and I met a very committed man who will be one of our candidates: all our candidates there are high quality and when they are elected they will make a big difference to the tired old council administration.

Then it was time for my two days out of town. Some will be aware I am a little obsessive about old cars, and one of the things that fuels this fetish is a programme on the TV called Bangers and Cash. I have a habit for fridge magnets, started by a generous series of gestures from Lara.

That's Derek Mathewson and his 2 sons at the cntre of their empire in Pickering, North Yorkshire. They hold massive auctions of oldish and often half-wrecked cars and other junk and I decided it would be fun to take a look on their viewing day, This of course carries a risk that I might be daft enough to buy one, though in reality the Green and the suppressed accountant take over.

I was really not tempted by this Morris Minor which lives outside their showroom. This old Alvis was more of a temptation

There was even two very similar examples of these in lovely condition but I controlled myself and it is possible I may have cured the addiction.

That was Monday and Tuesday. I had a long drive back. Decided to go via Knaresborough. Why? My bestie at school was called John Hall (known to all as Link, after the lost link between humans and apes, because he had a lazy eye). He was brought up in SOuth Africa and his parents relocated and bought a now dead pub in Knaresborough. I last saw 'Link' outside Euston station where I was catching a train to Liverpool after our Army camp at Folkestone and he, I suppose to York from St Pancras. We were delighted to have left school and hee went to Southampton University to study mining (I think) and we never met each other ever again. Rather sad thinking about it.

I knew little about Knaresborough, but I found it charming. An old ruin. Not me, and the King was not in evidence at his tower.

But the view of the River Nidd was pretty wonderful, as was the town centre, and the bakery where i was seduced by an open topped pork and apple pie and middle bacon with the rind still on, which made me think of my mother cutting them off and making what one day would be pork scratchings. She would put them outside for the birds if I was too slow to intercept them.

Home for Tuesday night, having missed (getting to be a bad habit) a meeting at the RSA about the future of the BBC, though they have sent me a recording. The M1 was closed somewhere and Google Maps sent me off in various diversions including the golden groves of Milton Keynes.

On Wednesday morning I attended the coffee morning at 'My' Lambert Lodge. A good turn out of residents and a rare visit from Emma Yates. I had great difficulty hearing people except the one right next to me, which is frustrating, but visiting there is always a pleasure.

I believe it is now more or less full, which is a great improvement from the summer when there were a lot of dissent because of empty rooms combined with what residents thought a new mean approach to allowing relatives to visit.

In the evening there was an update meeting at The Vacuum Cleaner Stadium for Brentford FC to tell us what's going on there. They are very full of themselves (quite rightly) for standing at 7th in the Premier League, right behind Liverpool in 6th. This makes the celebration of Brentford muted by a certain local councillor who has been following Liverpool and its magnificent champion club since the 1960s. There was an appearance of the clubs No 1 (IMO) supporter Honorary Alderman The Melvinator. He was accompanied to the meeting room by a young lady who works for the club, which was nice. Nicer still, he was presented with a lot of club paraphernalia. He will need to relocate before long as there will be nowhere for him and Jackie to sit because of all the Bees bumf. There was talk of 73 years which I think was how long it was since BFC beat Aston Villa, or perhaps Mel attended that 73 years ago when he was ony 37 so it becomes a bit of a palindrome. Stop being silly, Guy.

Lots of interesting stuff: pleasing for me they are taking sustainability seriously

A good presentation about this and they are making real progress. I liked their humble approach to my question about how many come by car. Something like 30% which they admit is quite high but they are working on encouraging greener alternatives

I confess I had not come across wild venison and I don't think they are referring to Barry Venison who used to be a full back for Liverpool in the 1980s. Perhaps the BFC players visit Richmond Park with lassos? They do (seriously) seem to be taking sustainability seriously and have reduced their energy use and waste sharply.

Well, that's my truncated week. I am being bought lunch today which will be a pleasure but will not help my continuing ambition to reduce my corporal mass. One of the people at Lambert Lodge told me he had lost 6 stone. That beats me and my ambition is to lose another 2 1/2 to go with the 5 I have lost this year.

I have accepted an invitation to speak on Afghan Radio in London this evening. Holly wood will have to wait.