Salmonella in the Bush

There is one thing the Bush is not short of and that is kebab outlets (and fried chicken shops).

I haven't had a kebab for years, and the last time I did I was over three stone heavier which tells its own story. What might make you feel like giving it up for a while is the news that around thirty people in W12 have gone down with Salmonella. Shahi Nan Kebab, next to the bus stop outside the Queen Adelaide pub, has closed voluntarily. The usual euphemism "helping with enquiries" has been used to explain this.

Would you like chilli sauce with that?

Lib Dem conference, Bournemouth

..is where I shall be for the next few days. My job takes me to each of the UK party political conferences in in the next 3 weeks, as its an important year before the General Election.
Although I shall be lobbying on issues of peace and war do let me know if you're a fellow Busher down here, or for that matter at the Labour even in Brighton or Tories in Manchester. A lot will be going on at each of the three conferences that in time will affect life in our very own W12.
I am sure both Andy Slaughter MP and his Tory challenger Shaun Bailey will be around, and what of the W12 Lib Dems?

Art on the Underground: Central Line Stories

'The Central line draws an invisible line across London – connecting east to west, rising up like the edges of a smile at each end.'

So says Sarah Butler who was commissioned by the Tube to have a 6-month "residency" on the central line to work with staff to tell the story of the central line using creative writing. Full story here.

Hammersmith flooding: it's your problem

Tonights' meeting was presented by H&F Council as a have-a-go-at-Thames-Water meeting. Alas for them I fear their favourite scapegoat was transformed into a saint george figure this evening while they have become the dragon.

In front of a packed residents meeting in Hammersmith Town Hall Thames Water's two top men genuinely seemed to impress with their 9 year plan for sorting out flooding in W12 and W6. The problem is thus - sewers built in the 1850s cannot handle poo plus rain (London is the only place the two are collected in the same pipes) in todays' quantities. So when we have heavy rain it's either got to go in the Thames or your house if you live in certain areas. Brutally simple.

Cllr Nick Botterill, Cabinet Member for the Environment argued at the outset that "we are on top of the problem" - this caused laughter. He bravely persevered and blamed Thames Water - at which point he was challenged for being "underhand" by the chair of Boswell Street Residents Association while another resident, who was looking at the H&F website on his palm pilot noted that the title said "flooding - its your responsibility". A good example of H&Fs' approach to residents he said. You're on your own.

Thames Water have produced a 'heat map' showing the areas most at risk from flooding in west London. H&F was a sea of red (high risk) up until the Goldhawk Road. In the next 5 years they'll be spending over £400 million trying to protect H&F from more floods.

H&F has more basement flat dwellers than anywhere else in London - 37,000 of us live in them. 54% of which are connected physically to the main trunk sewers that take waste from as far afield as Brent and Camden right through H&F and down into Bazalgette's sewage system from the 1800s. They are all at risk of flooding with foul water. But the targets of people's ire was the council this evening. It was notable that the leader of the opposition became a de-facto chair at the end of the meeting pressing the council to act on collecting more data.

Not a successful evening for Council Leader Stephen Greenhalgh by any stretch of the imagination. But I would say a pretty good one for Thames Water.

What next for Briatore and QPR?

You will have seen by now that Flavio Briatore has been forced to resign from the Renault F1 team for ordering one of their drivers to deliberately crash. To cheat in other words. As far as I can see this means one of two things for QPR - he either gets more involved in the club or decides to walk away and do someting else other than sport.

I suspect his friend and business partner, and an equally strange man, Adolf Hitler fan Bernie Ecclestone will have a large influence on his decision. And as QPR appear set for another season of drudgery would their walking away be any bad thing?

Back in the Bush

just arrived back - a strange feeling this morning I was driving through the backstreets of Kampala and I've just got out of a taxi in leafy W12. Great to be back. Normal blog service is resumed!

Super Sewer: Boris overrules H&F Council

Answering questions yesterday from GLA members, Mayor of London Boris Johnson was asked directly whether or not he had met with H&F Council over the need for the new sewer to stop the thousands of tons of, lets call a spade a spade, raw poo spilling into the river every time we get heavy rain.

Boris is clearly irritated by his Conservative colleagues at Hammersmith Town Hall. Very irritated. In his answers he does not dispute that the council's opposition to the tunnel is described as "ill-informed" and states that he has "required" our Council to recognise the strategic need for the tunnel to be built. I actually don't know whether he has the power to formally overrule the council but these answers sound like he does.

In his first answer the Mayor actually says he is "optimistic" that H&F Council will support the project. Which roughly translates as a message to COuncil Leader Stephen Greenhalgh to "drop your silly opposition sonny and do what you're told".  Given our esteemed council's die-in-the-ditches-fight-them-on-the-beaches approach to this, complete with letters that we have all been sent as residents at our expense, can we expect a spectacular U-turn from the Council to be in the offing now?

It's all shaping up nicely for this public meeting later this week. Hope to see some of you there.

The full questions and answers from the Mayor are set out below. They were published yesterday:

Thames Tideway Tunnel (1)

Question No: 2452 / 2009

Mike Tuffrey

Have you or officers met with Hammersmith and Fulham to ensure that the construction of the Thames Tideway Tunnel is not delayed; given that so far this year the Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO) at Hammersmith, Lots Road, Western and Abbey Mills have discharged more than 10 million cubic meters of storm sewage - enough to fill over 4000 Olympic swimming pools.

Answer from the Mayor:

My officers have met with Hammersmith & Fulham Council.  I have also made a representation in respect of the Council’s Core Strategy Development Plan Document requiring the recognition of the strategic need for this project.

The Hammersmith area will be one of the key areas to benefit from the sewer tunnel and I am optimistic that the Council will support the project provided that appropriate assurances about its construction and re-instatement are provided. 

Thames Tideway Tunnel (2)

Question No: 2453 / 2009

Mike Tuffrey

Will you be forwarding a copy of your Water Strategy to Hammersmith and Fulham Council and asking the Leader to drop his ill-informed opposition to the Thames Tideway Tunnel?

Answer from the Mayor:

Hammersmith & Fulham, along with all other London borough councils, is being invited to comment on the draft Water Strategy.

My officers have met with Hammersmith & Fulham and set out the clear strategic need for this project whilst appreciating that there will be local concerns that need to be addressed through the design, construction management and re-instatement phases of its implementation.

16 September update - the advertiser led local press have caught up with this a day after it appeared here: you know where you heard it first folks.. I note they dont credit this blog.

Super Sewer: Brown stuff hits fan on thursday

An applicable title for where I am in Uganda at the moment, although I'm happy to say its died down now. But as I watch the brewing storm from afar over the Thames Sewage issue I can see some more brown stuff flying in W12 before too long. This thursday at 7pm to be precise.

The situation seems to me to be thus:

• Hammersmith & Fulham Tories (who lead our council) are dead-set against the proposed 'super sewer' as it will blight Furnivall Gardens. They have been campaigining against it for a long time now.


• Hammersmith & Fulham Labour (who used to lead our council until the last local elections) say the Tories are scaremongering and that the sewer is necessary.


• The Lib Dems are less prominent locally on the issue but London wide are calling for the sewer to built immediately on the grounds of the ecological damage the current situation is doing.

And on that note, its worth pointing out that I've been passed some information from one of the above parties which illustrates that sewage issued into the Thames sticks around for a long time. A very long time. The problem is that the Thames acts like an estuary rather than a fast flowing river. And the bottom line is that the sewage generally takes 80 days to get to the sea! That's a lot of poo for us to live next door to. But is there an alternative solution?

This thursday there will be a meeting in the evening at Hammersmith Town Hall which is open to the public. The meeting will involve both the Council Leader Stephen Greenhalgh and Thames Water. Expect sparks to fly. I'll be going along and hope to see some of you there too. Report will follow.

Uganda violence

Complete radio silence on this blog for at least the next few days am afraid. There has been serious violence here which started last night and is still carrying on as I speak not far from the office.

we're probably going to leave the office quite soon and go back to the compound - which doesnt have internet access. The riots have kicked off again this morning. most of Kampala was a no-go zone yesterday and it may get this way again today. Reports say between 4 and 7 people have died thus far, all having been shot. We could hear shots being fired from the venue so quite a backdrop to what we were talking about really at our conference which was about preventing armed conflict.

We can hear shots now outside more towards the centre of town so its obviously still quite tense. Over and out.