Blog 545 17 September 2026

This will be the last of these for a while, because next Wednesday I will be embarking at Dover (if white blokes in black uniforms allow) for a holiday which involves me driving to the heel of Italy, spending a week there, and returning on Thursday 8th October. Those who have been round for a bit will remember 4 years ago I planned a visit to the same place but ended up passing 3 weeks in hospitals. I hope this trip avoids such pitfalls!

I will likely be blogging my travelogue on my blog site https://www.guylambert.blog/ if you're bored and of course BrentfordTW8.com are welcome to publish it but they are usually wise enough to refuse as it has nothing to do with Brentford.

It's been a particularly uneventful week , though with a couple of highlights and lowlights. I missed my regular Brentford surgery which I should have attended on Sunday. I had another task that day.

Before we get to the weekend, a bit more about Holly House. The amenity area at the back has been beautifully tended to by the residents in a lot of the narrow corridor at the back of the building, which now looks good after the scaffolding has finally departed. It has new insulation, pleasing new paint scheme, though it is still a bit let down by the lack of attention by the council to the garden areas you can see at the bottom left.

But Holly is nearly there and I can't resist this.

It would be a more engaging world if all building contractors wore winklepickers, even these very conservative Prussian blue crocodile skins (probably not real!) like the manager at Niblock seems to have endless choice.

Back (or forward - you choose) to Sunday. It was the Hounslow Green Party Annual General Meeting where we elect our officers. Our treasurer, our communication person and our two job-sharing 'coordinators' had said they were standing down. Us councillors (and other members) were perturbed by this so we put ourselves forward, me as treasurer and Rick as coordinator. Jasmine has too much on her plate and decided against being our membership secretary and we have excellent other people who do that. It's always a bit nervous when an election is looming for internal roles but, as so often is the case in the Green Party (I am learning) it all continues with great good comradeship and a lot of laughter.

On Monday I went to Townmead recycling centre in Kew: I choose that because it is nearer than Hounslow's Space Way for me, and it retains its booking system which Hounslow have oddly stopped using. So I spent a minute on the website booking a slot. When I arrive the man on the gate recognises my car registration and simply gives me a thumbs up. It was actually very busy and full of cars, but I was away in 15 minutes having got rid of all my junk. Well, of course I still have a lot of junk. I'm a human.

On Tuesday we had a meeting about the library and 'community hub' and particularly the neglected garden and felled (or about to be felled) trees. I have talked about the trees before: I hate they are being felled but we had to agree with it and are focused on getting a better garden and library in the aftermath. Pleasingly both Salman Shaheen (who is lead for parks) and Ajmer Grewal (Lead for libraries) attended together with Craig and me, and various officers. I think we have a consensus about what to do, but I'm still concerned about how it will play out. They will plant new trees at the appropriate time (I believe this is late autumn, or winter) and I am demanding they be mature trees rather than saplings. I am also demanding most of the tarmac area is consigned to history. Craig and I do not precisely agree but we want to see a plan for this, which Salman supports, but for both those ambitions the question is budget. The council is well able to find the budget if they care to do so, so that is actually the question.

I went there this morning (Thursday) Many have gone but there is a huge one right on the corner still I think due for the chop.

Sad. This Horse Chestnut (why horse?) has been pollarded and will be fine once it regrows.

I was wondering whether 'pollard' was named after a motorcycle mechanic I used to work with, Bert Pollard, but it seems it came from the expression poll which meant cut your hair. So a pollard was someone who had had his hair cut. Some think I should become a pollard, but I'd prefer to become a drunkard, thank you.

Later we had an update of sorts about developments in Brentford and thereabouts This picture (yes I can barely read it either).

I can't say I learned much but the striking thing is that of the 17 Partner-led sites as far as I can see only one of them (Ballymore) is moving forward and even that got its planning permission before I became a councillor 11 years ago, and there is no end in sight. There are 1 or 2 that I am not familiar with. I know development is very difficult in the current environment. Weirdly, one is going forward fast and is nearly finished - what used to be Heidelberg and is now Printmakers Yard. Equally weirdly, this not on the list at all! You’d wonder if anyone had ever been to Brentford!

I was delighted to see the riverside path and the interior gardens etc beginning to become available this week.

Of course the big event of Tuesday was the Borough Council meeting. We had been warned (and told we had to make a decision the same day because of urgency, and keep it secret) they planned to reduce the Planning committee to 13 from 15. Fine, as it is a legal requirement and I (and the Conservatives) assumed this would be proportional. But we were told on Monday by an officer (would be too tiresome for the political leadership) that in fact they would keep the 8 Labour members and 4 Conservatives and prune 50% of the Reformers and 100% the single Green who didn't always vote as required.

Surprisingly, they had nominations for 12 spaces from the Labour and Conservative leaving the Reform and Green to apply for other committees. The officer assumes Reform will nominate one so "This means there is 1 place available on SACRE for the Green group nomination." This is the Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education. It currently has 2 councillors on it, presumably because nobody else was interested. Us greens are equally uninterested in this rarely held committee which advises schools, mainly made up of 21 members of the public and 2 councillors.

I immediately saw this was a naked stitch up to avoid anyone on the Planning committee making any democratic noise (especially me). I wrote to the CEO, monitoring Officer. Leader and privately to a number of Labour members who I thought actually believe in

democracy, saying I believe this to be unconstitutional. One Lab member immediately responded to me - just to acknowledge receipt, not saying they agreed - and another did later, but I will not name them because they will likely be victimised.

For whatever reason, the motion at council, which had already been heavily amended by the Tories, we were told would no longer cover appointments, which would be discussed separately, which I thought sounded like progress.

The meeting anyway descended into farce, because an alert Theo Dennison (who knows about these matters) said the whole thing broke the rules. This caused rants by the clearly very rattled Leader and Deputy and I felt like the rest of us were back in primary school. I considered buying Tom a packet of chalk to throw at us but I think that is out of fashion in school these days.

5 hours of my life I will not get back and it achieved very little apart from exposing the utter incompetence of the administration. What happens to appointment remains lost in the haze, but I intend to retain my place on the Planning committee which I was denied on spurious grounds when I resigned from the cabinet in 2024.

Sorry. I am rarely genuinely angry, but I was furious about this. I want this council to work properly and it will work a lot better if the administration gives up its current East Germany Politburo approach and listens to the contributions from members outside the ruling clique (including those in the Labour party).

On Wednesday I went to Trumpeters House in Richmond. I had never heard of this and made a bit of a Horlicks trying to find it using satnav. It is off the Green in Richmond and is rather splendid. I hadn't realised that this event for the Thames Landscape Trust was posh so I was severly underdressed but some friendly faces were there: the highlight was the former chair of the Brentford Community Council, Dennis Browne. I saw this week he had just celebrated his 100th birthday. It was a delight to see him - in a wheelchair but as well-informed and communicative as ever.

Also this week trouble in Hamilton Road: 4 people complaining about activities at one address and one complaining of trouble at another. A pile of rubble blocking the pavement. I walked up to investigate and found a very apologetic young chap explaining that he was replacing a patio. His client said she could not get a skip so he had ordered a lorry to pick it up but would do that at 4.30 after the schoolchildren had got home. Change of mind by me and I think also neighbours!

Later today we have an update from TfL about the proposed London Orbital railway. Not a new railway but (I hope) a new station in Lionel Road South and access to the Elizabeth line and national rail via new trains connecting Brentford (and Hounslow) to the rest of the planet in a new way. This was talked about a decade ago when the new stadium was starting and with a following wind it might overtake HS2 assuming there is no need for a bat tunnel in South Acton.

Now a lovely bit of news. I heard just yesterday my friend and former ward councillor partner Lara Parizotto has won a truly impressive prize.

I pinched the bottom part of this picture from Brentford TV. I was so sad when she was chased away from the council far too early, partly because she was starting her charity but mostly because she was frustrated with the Labour administration here (sound familiar?) She is not a councillor anymore - better things to do! - but has the good sense to be a Green member now.

I'll be back on here on I suppose the 15th October. If you're fretting in the meantime, Craig will be here (and may blog himself) and if you're seriously bored look at my travelogue blog. You may be able to explore strange new worlds (like Italy) and seek out new life and (new) old civilisations and hear of your councillor boldly going where no man (except Italians and visitors) has gone before.