New Shepherd's Bush library

A video from H&F Council about the new library, opened in the Westfield shopping centre. It does look fantastic so well done to all involved.

Victoria Line strike off

Communist Bob has called off this threatened strike. Having achieved nothing. He was probably just bored.

Council at war with Boris over congestion charge

It's fair to say there is now no love lost between our Council and the London Mayor, the two Tory administrations having clashed publicly and repeatedly over issues including the chopping down of trees (the Council want to the Mayor doesn't want them to) the Thames Tideway Tunnel (H&F don't want what they call the "super sewer" the Mayor does) and now the scrapping of the western congestion charging zone (H&F have attacked the Mayor for delaying its removal). Arguments between former lovers can be nasty affairs.

I am at the Tory party conference next week for work. I remember very well being at a campaign meeting for Boris at the Conservative party conference before the Mayoral election and seeing Boris publicly single out Stephen Greenhalgh, our council leader, who was in the room for praise. Now though it appears they have right royally fallen out and dont speak to each other, only about each other and in not very flattering terms.

The relevance of this is that this is bad for us. What does or could it mean for the Bush, and for our Borough in general, for the Mayor now not to be on speaking terms with the council, who only seem to attack or disagree with him these days? I shall report back from Manchester next week with any signs of a thaw between the two men that between them wield so much power over our neck of the woods.

Labour Party Conference 2009

I am tapping to you from a balcony overlooking the english channel and Brighton pier with the sun streaming down on me and a park just below. The cries of sea gulls and the prospect of three evenings out eating free canapes and wine..oh life is hard! Here I shall be working until mid week, before going to the Tories' shin-dig up in Manchester next week.

So any Bushers down here too please make yourselves known .. I'll probably be meeting Bush Labour MP Andy Slaughter down here for work, and possibly Shaun Bailey his Tory challenger the week after. After this vote the other night I would think Andy's chances of keeping the seat probably took a step forward, but what do you think?

Welcome a new Busher?

Please help this prospective new Busher out using the comments section, she wrote to me today asking for local views..

Hi there,
We are thinking of moving into the Sundew Avenue area of the Wormholt estate near to the bottom of the road.....please can people tell me what its like to live there? Crime how safe it it too walk around, also especially burglary/car crime? How often does it occur and will premiums be hogher by much form the sothern counties?...

 The friendliness of the residents? Something of the history of the area....i believe these houses were built in 1918...i wondered who they would have housed and why they were named as flowers?
Many thanks!

Victoria Line Strike

Our old friend Communist Bob is threatening to bring the Victoria Line to a standstill again on the 5th October with this strike on the Victoria Line over hours.

Shepherd’s Bush dwellers should remember that they can use the Overground between Clapham Junction and Stratford with many tube connections along the way. No problems are forecast on that route. I usually go to South London to work on the Victoria but the Overground gets me to Clapham Junction from Shepherds Bush in just over 10 minutes. There are lots of buses from there to all over the place. Central Line appears unaffected too.

As ever the cause is a pathetic fig leaf to cover his real agenda of proving his worth when this sort of approach to industrial relations seems increasingly irrelevant. Apparently the drivers cab isn't cool enough to do 5 round trips in one go. Bugger the passengers who pay through the nose, get crammed in, and sweat every day before work then.

Bush at Dawn

It's been quite an intense two weeks on this blog with two high profile meetings at the Town Hall among other things. So how about this to start the week-end - a picture of the Bush at my favourite time of the day: the crack of dawn this very morning as I was gym-bound! W12 is a very different place then you know..happy weekend all

Accident on Uxbridge Road?

A lot of you have been searching for details of an accident that happenned yesterday, anyone have more details?

Goldhawk Block given approval

Hot, stormy and packed. Residents from Goldhawk Road and the surrounding areas crammed the ‘small hall’ in Hammersmith Town Hall last night to hear the planning committee debate the merits of this proposed development.

The proceedings got off to a slightly bizarre start as the Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham solemnly declared that he had a potential conflict of interest as he had once accepted “hospitality” from Innocent Drinks, who are based on the proposed site and employ over 100 local people there. If the development goes ahead they will have to move out.

A sole planning officer was then handed the most un wanted job in the room – to lay out the council’s reasons for wanting the application to go ahead. Several shouts to “speak up” later we could hear her at the back of them room plough through the various objections that had been raised by residents, celebrities and eminent QCs alike. “No substantial points” were contained in letters from residents, John Humphrys had misunderstood the parking impact and the eminent QC, one of the leading planning lawyers in the country, had got it wrong because his brief was too narrow.

This was heard mainly in stony silence but then her presentation began to be punctuated by laughter as she declared that in response to residents objections the overall height of the redevelopment had been reduced by a glorious 0.5 metres, and that the materials used to build it wouldn’t stick out.

Cllr Cartwright (Labour) was asked to show a little more decorum as he addressed the planning officer but the sarcasm was dripping. The officer’s report had claimed Innocent Drinks “wanted” to move out. The officer admitted that at no stage had they said this. Even the Mayor (Conservative) questioned their assertions about parking, which they also had to concede.

But the vote when it came went the way of the Council and the redevelopment will now go ahead as planned. Residents are looking at what they can do next to save their neighbourhood, as they see it. This hasn’t gone away just yet, and come the general election I think its safe to assume that this will be a key issue. Where do Andy Slaughter and Shaun Bailey stand?