Askew Road residents win victory against cheap booze merchants Nisa

Homeless alcoholics on Askew Road are a part of the furniture these days. Usually congregating outside Ladbrokes betting shop or shuffling between there and the Co-op where they frequently buy their cans of super strength they don't really bother you, at least not in my experience, but they are a constant reminder of where we could all end up if just a few things went drastically wrong.

So when Askew Road newbies Nisa wanted to start selling booze around the clock almost as soon as they'd run the shutters up on their new shop the Cathnor Park Area Action Group, which is an increasingly active group of residents more than capable of sticking up for themselves, decided to fight it.

And the other night, with a stroke of the pen, planners in Hammersmith Town Hall responded to the concerns that had been raised and turned the application down. A small victory on a small issue you might think, and you'd be right - but it's exactly this sort of action that will hold the line against the Askew Road declining even further than it already has in recent years.

Now we need, surely, to see two things. For new businesses to come in and take down the boardings that dominate the former Rat & Carrot and Sun pubs and turn them into successful upmarket operations, and for those that so obviously need help that we always just walk past on that road to actually get it. The owner of Askew Wine proved the former can be done after taking over Bottoms Up when it was closed - surely with the right social services in place we can take care of the latter.