Dairy Crest site: Tower planned

The Bush Twin Towers

Guess what? Our Council want another tower! This time it's the regeneration of the Dairy Crest site, which we last looked at as a result of the fire that raged there one morning, provoking a very strange day in the Bush.

The developers, Helical Bar, wish to construct a 30 storey tower, to go alongside the 35 storey one by Imperial College, to form what might be known as the Twin Towers of the Bush. I say might be, because one of the residents who sent me this information suggested it and I thought it sounded quite good. Who knows.

Anyway, there is a chance to have a look at the plans which are represented by the above image which has been sent to me ahead of it even apppearing on their own website - and certainly appears here ahead of anywhere else, so click on it to get a better view.

The details of the drop-in sessions, which are open to all, are as follows:

• Wood Lane Community Centre, in Wood Lane 3pm - 8pm March 23 
• Phoenix High School Post 16 Centre, in The Curve, 10am - 2pm March 24
• Harrow Club in Preston Road 4pm - 8pm March 26

Macfarlane Road and the surrounding streets have all been blitzed by the developers with what have been described to me as "glossy brochures" which apparently say little about the size and scale of the plans. Take a look for yourselves at the drop in session - I might even see you there.

Car smashes into shop on Askew Road

pic from @sachab

A car, clearly driven at high speed, has smashed into the front of the print shop just down from the doctor's surgery on Askew Road this morning. Locals have reported that the driver first hit more than one other car before ploughing into the shop, and then allegedly abandoned the vehicle - prompting suspicions that it was stolen but this has yet to be confirmed by the Police. I have asked them for details.

The print shop, which I and I'm sure many of you use, is a small business which has built a local reputation among the other businesses along the road for good service. This morning they'll be arriving to a scene of devastation and will understandably be very upset. If they're reading this I think I can say we all wish them a speedy return to business and getting back on their feet. 

In the meantime feel free to update your fellow Bushers in the normal way via the comments. More to come.

0930 UPDATE - some of the speculation about it being stolen appears to be being withdrawn, which is a good sign. In the meantime someone else has pointed out that people actually live above that shop, which means the flat/s will need to be checked to ensure the structure is still sound. So thoughts with them too.

Labour: West London Free School a success

Andrew Adonis

A former Labour education Minister has condemned those in his own ranks who oppose the idea of Free Schools as "mad", and points out that the West London Free School in Hammersmith is an example of a high quality school that is pushing up the bar of quality education while responding to local need.

Writing in the New Statesman Mr Adonis claims simply that Free Schools were in fact Labour policy, it's just that the Tories decided to give them a new name - "Free School" instead of "Academy" - and carry them on anyway. And he should know, he was the architect of Labour's education policies for most of the time of the last Government.

One of the key strengths of the schools, he argues, is their strong link with parents who in many cases actually set them up. This is what he says about our own West London Free School:

"parent groups can be highly effective sponsors, as is proving the case with the West London Free School, established by the journalist Toby Young and fellow parents in Hammersmith. Having visited WLFS, I say simply that Labour would be mad to propose to abolish it. The quality of teaching and leadership is very good, and the intake reflective of the local community. Tellingly, several of the parent-promoters are also teachers. 

"WLFS, together with the nearby Hammersmith Academy, a free school established under Labour and sponsored jointly by the Information Technologists' Company and the Mercers' livery company (which also sponsors the outstanding Thomas Telford city technology college in Shropshire), are new model community comprehensives helping to redress the large outflow of Hammersmith children to private schools and to state schools outside the borough. It is especially bizarre that WLFS has been criticised for teaching Latin. Why should children have to go to private schools such as the Latymer Upper School next door, with its fees of £15,000 a year, to learn Latin? And why should we accept that children are unable to learn Latin in the state system and, therefore, that classicists entering top universities overwhelmingly come from public schools"?

That last reference will be a sting in the tail for our MP, Andy Slaughter, who is frequently pillloried by his Conservative opponents in the borough for having attended Latymer Upper School and yet opposed West London Free School. The charge being, presumably, that he shouldn't seek to prevent other kids receiving the same high quality education as he did.

In fairness to Mr Slaughter he has said he wishes the school well now that it is a fixture in the borough, but the venom of the political debate on the issue is not likely to disappear any time soon. Not least because the pugnacious Toby Young rarely misses an opportunity to engage in some verbal street fighting on the issue.

After I reported in January last year that Mr Young was the "evictor in chief" of the charities formerly housed in Palingswick House in Hammersmith, which was sold to the school by our Council, he asked for a right of reply which I published here. The location of the school was just one of the many objections thrown at it at the time.

Politics aside, I am a local parent too and have heard mainly good things about the school - from people who have kids there and from others who want their kids to go there. These are not politicians or people with axes to grind one way or another, they're just local people who want the best for their children. And their voices have often been drowned out by the loudspeakers of others.

I have met Mr Adonis on several occasions and in my view he was always one of the most considered and clearly thoughtful Ministers in the Government, which is presumably why he was elevated to a senior position by Tony Blair ahead of the envious ranks of others. This, and the fact that he was once - shock horror - a member of another party, always meant that he was subjected to lots of tribalism from some of his fellow Labour peers, and I suspect this article will provoke more of the same. But Labour would be very foolish indeed not to listen to somebody who knows very much what he is talking about.

Fortuna ad schola! 

H&F Council accused of tax-dodging

The Telegraph reports that our Council has a "medium to high risk" of having to pay the Inland Revenue substantial sums of money in tax that their controversial consultant Nick Johnson has dodged by making sure he is paid through a small company he set up for that purpose. 

Mr Johnson is being paid £710 per day to pursue the West Kensington estate demolition scheme against the massed ranks of people who live there.

The Telegraph quotes the Council's own confidential report which was prepared by accountants PriceWaterhouseCoopers and seen by the BBC, which found that Mr Johnson's position meant he would normally be considered an "office holder" meaning that there was a "medium-to-high risk that there was a PAYE obligation" on the council.

Our Council of course dispute this, issuing furious denunciations every time it is reported. And yet, in the meantime, some of those same Conservatives have been furiously denouncing Labour candidate for Mayor Ken Livingstone for the heinous crime of, er, paying himself through a private company to dodge tax.

Unkinder observers than I might detect a whiff of hypocrisy.

Trust: Chelsea fans split over H&F & CFC

Chelsea Football Club and Hammersmith & Fulham Council seem split over whether the existing Stamford Bridge stadium can be extended to accomodate 60,000 fans or whether the club will have to leave the borough.

The Football Club said recently that in all likelihood our Council would turn down planning permission for a larger stadium and that therefore they should leave, having already appointed architects to look at the Battersea power station site. 

But last week our Council replied that it would be possible to enlarge the stadium and that the club should stay. Chelsea fans suspect the Clubs motivation has more to do with the failed attempt to buy the pitch from the fan organisation that owns it, infuriating owner Roman Abramovitch. 

My fellow blogger over at True Blue, a Chelsea fan site, asks the question - who do you trust? The Council or the Club? It's a question over trust on planning issues that for me has come to define this Council, with trust being in short supply from residents after being repeatedly ignored in favour of property developers - just think of the Hammersmith King Street project which is on ice (and will return if Boris is re-elected), the Goldhawk Road scheme, the Shepherd's Bush Market scheme and of course the West Ken estate. In each case a 'consultation' is launched, but the Council does what it wants anyway - and then tries to gag the planning committee that is supposed to act independently.

True Blue puts the Chelsea situation thus:

Hmmmm, do you trust the club? 

Hammersmith and Fulham council, is by and large extremely sensitive to criticism, and what it sees as political pressure being heaped upon it, especially when the next election is never too far away. 

Councillor Nick Botterill, deputy leader of the council said in his awe-inspiring way: “Stamford Bridge is Chelsea’s historic home and the council believes it should be their future home.

“We cannot comment on the financial conclusions CFC have drawn but it is very likely that any move away from Fulham would cost far more than the £600million the club claims it would cost to rebuild its current ground or the cost of upgrading and expanding the existing Stamford Bridge structures.”

So if they cannot comment on Chelsea financial conclusions, how DID they come to conclude that it would cost Chelsea FC more than £600million to move out of the borough.

Chelsea would no doubt, like it to be known that the council hasn’t come up with any figures to back up that assertion.

So who do you now trust?

The club say that they have no plans (yet) to propose a new buy back of CPO shares.

The council says its willing to talk to the club - the club says likewise.

Neither seems willing to make the first move towards meaning and binding dialogue.

For my penny’s worth, I think both sides are so disingenuous - their past actions and words are paradigm examples of this, that it is clear that the present incumbents are neither truly willing or capable of finding a solution.

A reasonable conclusion. 

Acton Depot: window onto the past

A map displaying Shepherd's Bush from 1901

Acton Transport Museum Depot is a stone's throw from the Bush, just up the Uxbridge Road (Actonians call this road "The Vale" for some reason) and turn left by Morrisons - opposite Acton Town tube. The Depot is a branch of the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden and is the home for all kinds of relics of London's journeying past.

It opens twice a year and welcomes a flood of people through its doors who seem to be either transport geeks or families on a day out. You can spot the geeks because they helpfully sport huge bushy beards and wear lots of metal badges on their hats and coats.

But who am I to mock - I'm a geek when it comes to history and this place takes you into the very earliest years of the 19th century, with real life horse drawn omnibuses that Dickens would have seen trundling over the cobbles but it also lets you re-make old acquaintances that you'd long forgotten or only hazily remember - such as the red and green old Northern line trains I remember on one of my first visits to London in the mid 1990s before they were taken out of service.

It reminded me heavily of the dramatic scenes that were recreated when I visited Aldwych disused train station in 2010, populated by superb actors and which recreated the lives of Londoners sheltering down there as the German bombs rained down death and destruction during the blitz. And provoked thoughts of the people working down there, as has been excellently presented by the BBC's Tube series currently on air.

Even the "old" Victoria line train, only withdrawn last year, now sits in a Depot berth, having proudly joined the ranks of Tube grandees.

So after climbing on a couple of old trains and buses the kids start to get fidgety. Just as well there is a miniature steam train to ride up and down on then, as well as a miniature tram! There were also numerous train sets to play with and some heavily over-priced trinkets (£7 for a tube map mousemat - it's almost as expensive as Boris has made the tube!)

In some ways this is a hopelessly out of date article since the doors hiding these gems away are now closed until the colder months and darker nights draw in again - but I first found this place after reading and article like this and just putting a reminder in my diary for nearer the time. And I strongly recommend you do the same.

Details here.

You may wish to buy a ticket online - the queue was substantial!

H&F pedestrian crossings "unsafe for blind"

The Royal National Institute for the Blind has been in touch with me to warn that there are four pedestrian crossings in our borough that lack any measures, such as audible sounds or tactile indicators, which make them dangerous for blind or partially sighted people to use.

The crossings in H&F were revealed as part of a London wide question to Boris Johnson by LibDem Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon, which revealed 347 such crossings across the capital. Westminster is the worst offender with 45 while Hackney accounts for 18 and Southwark has a total of 17. Only Kingston Upon Thames and Hillingdon are not represented on the list. 

The figures also show that there are 113 crossings which fail national safety standards by not providing the minimum amount of time for people to safely cross the road. 

One blind person, Mohammed Mohsan, said this about the crossings: 

"Many people don't realise how frightening it can be to try and cross the road without the help of rotating cones or audible sounds, you can end up waiting for ages trying to guess when the cars might have stopped.  

"I have had some bad experiences crossing busy roads in London and it would really boost my confidence if I could make it safely and easily to the other side without my heart pounding in fear." 

Hugh Huddy, RNIB Campaigns Officer, said: 

"If the green man sign on a crossing is broken, then it is marked as out of order. Bleeps and tactile cones are the way that blind and partially sighted people judge that it is safe to cross, so without them the crossing is effectively out of order to anyone with a sight problem. 

"Failing to install and maintain accessible road crossings cannot be justified. Every crossing without bleeps or tactile cones is unsafe for the UK's two million with sight loss."

Difficult to disagree. The crossings that are dangerous for blind people in H&F are:

• L.B. Hammersmith & Fulham STAMFORD BROOK ROAD - EMLYN ROAD - PREBEND GARDENS - BATH ROAD 
• L.B. Hammersmith & Fulham A219 FULHAM HIGH ST-NEW KINGS RD-PUTNEY BRIDGE APPROACH-CHURCHGATE 
• L.B. Hammersmith & Fulham A4 TALGARTH ROAD - GLIDDON ROAD 
• L.B. Hammersmith & Fulham A308 NEW KINGS ROAD - BAGLEY'S LANE‪

1200 UPDATE - With full credit to the Council they have responded to this article within a few hours. An official within the transport department tells me that they have looked at converting the crossings to be puffin crossings but that this in itself wouldn't do anything other than to give a bit more time to the blind person. And in any case the locations above are signallised so they can't be converted.

He tells me that they are "investigating the issues" and want to see TfL's plans to see if they can't be speeded up - junctions are usually updated when TfL come to renovate them.

I'm glad they're looking into this and I think they deserve real credit for being open about it - hopefully this article (and I'll be returning to the issue having spoken to local organisations representing the blind and visually impaired) will speed things up.

Fulham Chronicle & Anonymous comments

Journalists at the Fulham Chronicle seem to be behind some of the anonymous comments on this blog. Click on the image above for a full view.

A short while ago, and following a particularly abusive episode from a journalist called Adam Courtney, I was advised by several of you privately to invest in a system which monitors what are called IP Addresses - IP stands for Internet Protocol and is basically an electronic signature that identifies computers. It's all a bit big brother-ish really and in my view goes against the spirit of the internet, blogging and free comment.

But then so does anonymously posting on websites, pretending to be other people and generally being obnoxious. So I took the advice and it reveals that one Chronicle journalist seems to pay particularly close attention to the comments section of this blog. 62 visits today just from his computer to visit the comments section of an article I posted about last nights People's Question Time. Which he didn't attend.

But it gets worse - I also now have the ability to look at some of the other really nasty comments that have been put on here in the past too - and there have been some particularly vile ones -  and work out which IP address they come from. Any that came from Trinity Mirror Group IP addresses will be published and I will be writing to the editor of the Chronicle to seek his views about why he thinks its OK for his journalists do this.

Or would they like to explain themselves on here first? We shall see.

In the meantime please do continue to post your views - I am not remotely interested in people's IP address unless they start to get abusive, and that very rarely happens, thankfully.

Boris skips question on Shepherd's Bush Market

...and nearly provokes a riot.

Boris held his last "People's Question Time" this evening at Hammersmith Town Hall and it was a lively affair. Notable for interventions by the Occupy London Movement and others protesting the so-called "Super Sewer" project in Fulham, Boris also faced questions on a range of issues from cyclist deaths through to the environment and the noise generated by buses.

A wide range indeed.

I congratulated the Mayor on having over-ruled the Council on the detested King Street scheme which drew raucous applause from the crowd of around a thousand, but then followed by asking the Mayor whether he was likely to apply the same standards and rule out the equally unpopular Shepherd's Bush market scheme.

Answer there came none.

Not being thin skinned I put this down to him being a politician - but Aniza Meghani, of one of the Goldhawk Road shops set to be demolished was in less mood to be ignored. And this being a blog you can watch the exchange for yourself, which is moderated by Boris' deputy - the Conservative Assembly Member Kit Malthouse.

You can see they are both desperate to move on and talk about something else instead. One to remember when making up your mind come election day, perhaps.

(No local media appeared to be in attendance, relying instead on tweets from the event to stay informed. No doubt they'll be crediting the blog when they lift quotes from the above video for their article).