Jon's Council Diary

I still can't quite believe that the Lib Dem motion on giving fair rights to the Gurkhas defeated the Government this week. A government defeat on an Opposition motion is big enough news whatever the issue - this is the first time this has happened since the dying days of "Sunny Jim" Callaghan's hapless Labour Government in 1978! But the issue in question is more important than the politics - if Gurkhas were prepared to die for this country, we have a moral duty to let them live here. The Government cannot ignore this clear signal and I am delighted that the Gurkhas will now be treated properly.

The issue is especially relevant in Ealing as we have a significant local Gurkha community, and at last week's Full Council meeting, councillors of all three Parties united to pass a motion, which concluded:

This Council believes that, given the exceptional service they have given to the United Kingdom, Gurkhas and their families should be given fast track eligibility for either the right to remain or citizenship.

This Council urges Ealing’s three MPs to support the campaign for Gurkha rights.

At the start of the debate, councillors gave a standing ovation for a group of local Gurkhas who were in the public gallery. This reminded me of when I was present at the Liberal Democrat Conference when a large numbers of Gurkhas attended in uniform and received a spontaneous and heartfelt standing ovation from everyone present. Fifty Gurkhas handed their medals to Nick Clegg in protest at the Government's shameful failure to extend British Citizenship to all Gurkha soldiers and their families - not just those who served in the last decade.

These are men who have risked their lives and fought bravely for our country, earning an unchallenged record of distinguised conduct. If someone is prepared to die for this country, they should have the right to live in this country.

Party politics aside, Steve Pound, the MP for Ealing North, did the decent thing by rebelling against the Government on this issue, but I sadly cannot say the same about the other two Labour MPs representing our Borough - Virendra Sharma and Andy Slaughter.

The position of Virendra Sharma is especially worrying. He has remained a Councillor despite being elected as MP for Ealing Southall in the by-election. There is nothing wrong with that. After all, I will be in the same position if elected to represent the new Ealing Central and Acton seat at the next election. But two things are wrong. One is that his Council attendence record has been dreadful since he became an MP - prior to last Tuesday he had not attended a Full Council meeting and had only avoided being kicked off the Council for non-attendence by attending occaisional meetings of an obscure sub-committee - but even more seriously, this week his stance in the Council chamber and his stance in Parliament have been diametrically opposed to one another.

Cllr Virendra Sharma, who due to the vaguries of the Council's seating plan sits in the seat next to me, spoke for the motion at the Council meeting, explained that the Government would sort this out shortly. He then voted for the Council motion above, which urges Ealing's MPs to support Ghurka rights. In my speech I specifically made reference to the fact that this included the MP sitting next to me!

A week later, Virendra Sharma MP shamefully voted against the Liberal Democrat motion supporting Ghurka rights.

Do Cllr Virendra Sharma and Virendra Sharma MP ever talk to each other? Sharma referred extensively to the Whips in his speech. Perhaps the simplest answer is that he blindly obeys the Labour Council Group whip when voting in Ealing's Council Chamber and the Labour Parliamentary whip when voting in Parliament, without giving any thought to the issue at hand. If that is the case, Ealing residents deserve better.

A new study by Crossrail this week shows how much the economic benefit of the Crossrail line will be for each area. They reckon the Borough of Ealing will benefit to the tune of nearly £57 million.

The report shows the enormous benefits that will flow to our Borough from Crossrail, with stations at Southall, Hanwell, West Ealing, Ealing Broadway and Acton Main Line and I am keen to ensure it goes ahead. There will be a very large increase in the number of passengers using all these stations, and Ealing Broadway in particular is already one of the busiest stations in the country. These additional trips will have to be catered for. If we are to cut the number of cars on the roads, people will have to use buses and other means of getting to and from the station.

This highlights the urgent need for a fully integrated bus/rail/tube interchange over the underground tracks at Ealing Broadway. The total cost of this could be saved in a single year, if set against the benefits to the Borough as a whole. The Council should be pressing for immediate discussions to include this in the plans being developed by Crossrail and Transport for London, and should take the lead by appointing an independent consultant to examine how the whole of the station complex, including the empty Villiers House, should be developed as part of a comprehensive redesign of central Ealing.

As many of you know, the lamentable decision by Ealing's planning committee to approve the appalling Arcadia scheme has been called in by the Secretary of State. This was fantastic - although unexpected - news!

A Public Inquiry will now be held in Ealing to finally decide the matter.

This post is to fill in some of the background.

Council officers are currently sorting out procedures with the Government Office for London and the Planning Inspectorate.

Once this have been completed, the formal notification of the call-in will be sent out to anyone who commented on the application. I understand that this will involve 7,000 letters as it will include all the local people who signed the Lib Dem petition I collected against the Glenkerrin scheme!

The Council's statement of case would be due for submission in the middle of March 2009. No date has yet been set for the Local Inquiry, but the Council anticipate that this would be June or July.

The Planning Inspector will be able to look at all aspects of the case during the Inquiry. The final decision will probably come out in late Autumn. The whole scheme is on hold until then.

The Public Inquiry will give residents a final chance to defeat this awful scheme that would wreck Ealing's town centre, so we must seize this opportunity with open arms and make the strongest possible case.

By contrast, the Secretary of State has announced that she isn't going to call in the Dicken's Yard scheme. So the only thing standing in the way of that other awful scheme getting permission is a decision by Boris, who in turn is waiting for revised documents from developers St George who seem to be dragging their feet rather. Unfortunately, I'm no more optimistic of Boris stepping in on Dickens Yard than I was of him intervening on Arcadia! Saying "no" to a Tory Council isn't his style.

The decision letter signed by Boris yesterday has just winged its way into by inbox. Despite massive local objections, he has failed to use his powers to direct refusal of the Arcadia development.

I can't say I'm surprised. As I said at the Save Ealing Centre meeting on Tuesday,"The efforts to lobby the Mayor to say 'no' are worthwhile, but I am afraid that my faith in the likelihood of him interceding is limited. We can't just leave it to Boris!"

But I am disappointed. Earlier this week the Mayor flexed his planning muscles by refusing a central London scheme on the grounds that the developers didn't make a contribution to Crossrail. Why couldn't he have used those same powers to save Ealing from the utterly inappropriate development by Glenkerrin which is right across the road from Ealing Broadway station, which will be a Crossrail station?

I've been riding on the ghost bus today. It was rather a pleasant journey, meandering through the backroads of west and south London accompanied by friends, fellow Lib Dems, public transport exports and the world's press. The clerk in the ticket office at Ealing Broadway station was amazed that Wandsworth Road became one of the most popular destinations for a few minutes this morning.

But not one person on the bus was actually trying to get from Ealing Broadway to Wandsworth Road. We were all there in our various ways to draw attention to how absurd this once-a-week coach is, and how the sole reason for it is for Labour to avoid embarrassing publicity.

This backfired spectacularly today, as I was interviewed by the BBC, ITV London and even TF1 from France plus reporters from the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail, and used each opportunity to condemn government spinelessness on this issue. There is absolutely no way this much publicity would have been generated if the government had either retained the rail service or just taken the honest route of consulting over its closure. As Sir Walter Scott put it, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."

The Times (not the sadly demised Ealing Times) has this amazing story. My reactions are twofold...

How dare Labour remove the cross-London service between Birmingham and Brighton? The direction we should be moving in is having *more* train services that pass smoothly and conveniently through London for people travelling between the North and the South without disgorging their passengers onto the heaving tube network.

How dare Labour waste our money on this unused coach because they don't have the guts to consult people about axing this rail service? Ministers' efforts to avoid political embarrassment know no bounds.

Toran suggested a trip on the ghost bus from Ealing Broadway next Tuesday, which may not be a bad idea!

I heard just before 4pm that there were already people queuing up for tickets to the public gallery for tonight's controversial planning application to plonk a totally out of place 26-storey skyscraper opposite Ealing Broadway station.

I thought that queuing up 3 hours before the meeting starts didn't sound like the laid back Ealing style and my suspicions were proved right... it turns out that these early birds are employees of consultants paid by the developers behind the scheme, Glenkerrin. Packing the public gallery with paid stooges is a very clever tactic - albeit somewhat underhand - but it does rather prove the point that the only people that will be cheering the Glenkerrin speakers tonight will be the people they pay to do so!

Earlier this week, everyone was asking me why I've been hobbling around on crutches, so I thought I'd better tell you as well, dear reader...

Last Sunday was the birthday of a friend of mine. I'd been in Lambeth with her and some of her other friends for a Thai meal and a film. After a couple of drinks in the pub, I got peckish again and we headed for a late-night McDonalds. It was quite late now, so the inside was shut, but the drive-through was open, so we ordered on foot at the drive-through window.

A woman driving a car (which we hadn't noticed) in the queue then got irate and started shouting at us, accusing us of queue jumping. I was apologetic, but the birthday girl was rather less so. The woman in the car then got out, ran over to my friend and proceeded to viciously punch and kick her. I pulled the assailant off. Her boyfriend then got out and pulled me off. So far so bad, but no great harm done.

The couple got back in the car and I got out my mobile and called 999 to report the assault on my friend, while I stood in front of their car to stop the culprit getting away until the police arrived. Unfortunately, when I read her number plate out to the 999 operator, the woman reacted by driving straight into me and knocking me over resulting in 1 broken toe, loads of bruising to the rest of my foot, a small graze to the elbow and a cut finger.

She then drove off. The police haven't caught her yet - they went to the registered address of the car later but she was lying low elsewhere. However, the police are taking the incident very seriously, so much so that the case has now been transferred to the GBH unit of Lambeth police, so I'm confident that she'll be arrested in due course.

Since Thursday, I'm now off the crutches and am walking again - with a special shoe for the next couple of weeks.

I'll close with three random thoughts relating to this week's events. The first is that combining this and being mugged just a few weeks ago, there is a large and growing mismatch between my personal experience of crime in London and the reassuring statistics. Overall, I've been the victim of three violent incidents in the last couple of years. And many people I speak to around London also have similarly sad tales to tell. How can the statistics show crime falling while Londoners' experience is of crime - especially violent crime - getting worse and worse?

Secondly, the few days I spent non-weight-bearing on the injured foot, that is hopping with the aid of crutches, gave me renewed insight into the difficulties people with disabilities face all year round. Making my way up the steps of Ealing Broadway station, for instance, was agony. I'd been aware of the complete lack of disabled access at Ealing Broadway for years - and indeed wrote a letter about it to the Chief Executive of First Great Western at that point, resulting in a very disappointing reply that nothing would be done until the new Crossrail station is built! Briefly feeling the physical pain of the current situation, just underlines to me how pathetic that response is.

My final thought is that everybody says McDonalds is bad for your health... I guess I've now learnt that lesson!

Yesterday's Remembrance Day service at Ealing's war memorial was the first to include the names of A.H. & A.J. Robinson, two local brothers who lost their lives in World War One. Their names had been omitted when the memorial was installed outside Pitzhanger Manor in 1921 for unknown reasons, but the Council has now put this right by engraving the names at the request of their nephew.

This example of a case where Ealing Council has done the right thing was in Around Ealing and was picked up on today's BBC London lunchtime news and will probably be on the evening bulletin which starts shortly. It can be currently viewed here (about halfway through) but only the latest bulletin is shown, so you'll only be able to see it today. News isn't available on iPlayer for some reason.

I think it is important to remember the sacrifices made by the dead both from the two world wars and from recent conflicts including Iraq and Afghanistan, and I make a point of attending Ealing's annual remembrance service - in fact as a humanist it is the only religious service that I attend most years.

We've seen numerous examples of everything that Vince proposes being copied by the Government - a rapid example was the suspension of short selling introduced days after Vince suggested. This weekend the Government is flying the idea of delivering big tax cuts for those who are struggling. It took them a while to read Make it Happen, didn't it?

Why doesn't Brown just sack Darling, offer Vince the chancellorship and cut out the middle man?

While mentioning Vince, I'm pleased to plug his visit to Ealing to preside over our fundraising auction and answer our questions. Details are here. If you live in or near Ealing, why not come along and have your questions answered by the man who warned of the current recession while the rest of the body politic accused him of scaremongering?

Last night I spoke out against the proposal for a massive development in Dickens Yard, just behind Ealing Town Hall at Ealing Council's Planning Committee meeting. There was huge puublic interest in the application, but there was (in my view unnecessarily timid) concern about moving it to a larger venue, so it was held in the Council Chamber with a video and audio relay to a larger hall for the members of the public who didn't fit into the cramped public gallery. You can read what I said here so I don't need to repeat all the arguments, but suffice it to say that I think it is a totally unsuitable scheme for central Ealing and to add insult to injury only 30% of the nearly 700 flats will be affordable for local residents.

Unfortunately, the Planning Committee largely ignored my views, those of English Heritage and those of the thousands of local residents against the scheme and voted by an 8 vote to 2 majority to grant approval for the scheme. In political terms, all the Tory members on the panel (except for the Chair who would only vote in the case of a tie) voted for the application and the Labour members split down the midddle. How about the Lib Dem? Well, I had already ruled myself out of being on the panel to decides Dickens Yard because I'd been campaigning against. But in the event, advice was received that because of the campaigning that we'd done as a party, Lib Dem councillors who weren't quoted in the leaflets and hadn't personally expressed a view on this issue were also disbarred, so there had to be an empty seat where the Lib Dem councillor should have been.

It wouldn't have made a difference to the result - the Tory majority on the Council and hence on Planning means that no application can be refused unless at least one Tory votes against it - but it sets a dangerous precedent that entire parties rather than merely individual councillors are gagged to this extent on campaigning on some of the key local issues.

The Dickens Yard decision was a wasted opportunity to make the developers St George come back with a better scheme that would provide more affordable housing and proper community facilities, in a package that fitted in better in design terms with Ealing.

Anyway, the Dickens Yard scheme will now by referred to Boris and objectors are also looking at ways of either getting it referred to the Government or to a judge through judicial review, so the story isn't completely over, but eyes are now turning to the application by property developers Glenkerrin for a scheme with taller blocks next to Ealing Broadway station.

Sean O'Gorman, the Director of Glenkerrin responsible for their UK operations turned up in the public overflow hall and was apparently clapping the pro-Dickens Yard speeches. One resident who was there described it as the sound of one hand clapping. After the meeting, I was by the Town Hall doors when O'Gorman left with a sweep of his Byronic locks declaring to the assembled disgruntled residents that the result was wonderful news for Ealing, and seeming to positively revel in his unpopularity. At that point he ought to have disappeard in a puff of smoke like a pantomine villain but sweeping out of the Town Hall doors had to suffice.

So does the decision indicate, as O'Gorman's glee no doubt implies, that the Glenkerrin decision will go the same way? Luckily, there are a number of differences. The sheer height (even after they dropped the 40-storey 'Leaf' skyscraper) and impact of the Glenkerrin site is greater. It would be there for all to see opposite the Station and overshadowing Haven Green rather than parts of it being tucked away behind the Town Hall, Gordon Road houses and existing shops as in the Dickens Yard scheme.

While there would no doubt be a substantial section 106 contribution (a payment to the Council to make up for the harm of a development), Glenkerrin already own the land they propose to build on so unlike Dickens Yard there will be no capital receipt to the council. That should not be a factor in a planning decision, but it is difficult to completely remove the thoughts from the back of councillors' minds that rejecting the Dickens Yard scheme would have driven a coach and horses through the Tory Council's spending plans.

Finally, affordable housing provision in the Glkenkerrin scheme is even more pitiful - a mesely 15%. Excluding the retail at the bottom, it's a pure and simple luxury flats development.

So I'm sad at the Dickens Yard decision but hopeful that it still leaves the way open for a rejection of the Glenkerrin scheme, which would be even worse for Ealing.

Following lots of requests from a few people, especially Jennie, Toran, Helen and Mat, I'm resurrecting my blog. The point they made was that I've been writing Facebook notes and posted items that are effectively blog posts so I've been persuaded by popular demand to drag myself blinking and stretching from the cozy burrow that is Facebook back into the blogosphere.

Let's see how it goes.

I've just spotted a piece the Ealing Times published yesterday tying in to the Sustainable Housing motion at the Lib Dem Spring Conference in Harrogate. A couple of minor logistical inaccuracies crept in - I'm going up on Thursday (tomorrow) to the conference which runs from Friday to Sunday and it is biannual rather than annual, but the points about the issue itself are right, which is what matters!

Cutting carbon emissions from homes is crucial to keep pensioners warm in winter as well as to fight climate change.

In the late 15th century (OK, 3 months ago to be precise), Duncan Borrowman tagged me to think of 10 things I'd never do. As 'better late than never' is practically my motto, here goes:

1. Vote Tory. Or Labour. An accusation of tribalism is invariably used as an insult nowadays, but I'm unfashionably tribal enough not to be willing to vote for either of the old parties. Of course I always vote Lib Dem if I have a chance, but there was one occasion since I hit 18 when the ballot paper lacked a Lib Dem. It was a Reading Borough Council election, I was standing in the neighbouring ward and we were short of paper candidates. Anyway, I was faced with the choice of Labour, Tory or Green. I toyed with voting Green, but in the end I drew an extra Lib Dem box onto the bottom of the ballot paper, put a big X next to it and proudly spoilt my paper.

2. Vote for any fundamentally illiberal motion on the Council.

3. Arrive significantly early for a meeting. Not that I wouldn't like to, but I'm just constitutionally incapable of it. On the occasions when I'm not already running late, and there's a spare 10 minutes, there's always something to do to fill the gap, leaving me rushing in at 1 minute to or 1 minute past...

4. Catch a channel ferry when the Eurotunnel, Eurostar or a plane is an option. There's a more prosaic reason than Duncan's - I get horribly seasick!

5. Use the expression "one of the only". Arrrgggghh!

6. Get married again. Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt.

7. Eat marmalade. I like oranges; I like jam. Many otherwise reliable people have advised me that marmalade is basically orange jam but I can't stand the stuff. If I have toast for breakfast, and there's no jam, I just have to have it naked. (The toast that is.)

8. Become a doctor, nurse, soldier or butcher. I get vasovagal syncope. (Look it up!)

9. Do a boring IT job again. (Hopefully!)

10. Do another one of these 10 things lists.

I spent Saturday selling rotten tomatoes to people to throw at Bush and Blair... Not the actual politicians, unfortunately, but cartoons of them drawn by Doreen Zerdin. Doreen is a talented artist and a Lib Dem member in Ealing Common. This took place at 'Paddy's Party' an annual Lib Dem fundraising event on Turnham Green in Chiswick and we gave two thirds of the money raised to a Landmine charity.

It was environmentally sound as well, as the fruit was boxes of left over stock from the wholesale fruit and veg market at Western International Market in Southall which would have been thrown away if David and Doreen Zerdin hadn't persuaded the Market to let them have it. Tomatoes and figs made the best missiles. A guy from one of the other stalls even took away the squashed tomatoes that had been used as ammunition at the end of the day so that he could try to grow tomato plants for next year from the seeds!

I took the photos here, and this one shows from left to right John Mitchell (Secretary of Ealing Southall Lib Dems), Doreen and David Zerdin and Nigel Bakhai (Vice-Chair of Ealing Lib Dems).

Traditionally we've done bottle stalls at these fundraising events, but it was great to do something that was both fun and had a bit of a political element instead!

On Saturday we had planning site visits and on Wednesday we had the actual planning meeting. I like planning as it is one of the few areas where a backbench Councillor can actually change things for the better. Planning committee is a quasi-judicial process, or in other words we should make decisions based on the facts of the case - like a judge would - rather than just blowing our political trumpets. On Wednesday, for instance, no vote split along Party lines - this is in stark contrast to Full Council meetings when every single vote goes along Party lines! We were unanimous in throwing out a roof terrace in Acton that would have caused very severe overlooking and noise issues to neighbours, which made me feel like it was an evening well spent, although I was in a minority of 2 in opposing a basement in the Bedford Park Conservation Area.

I was at City Hall on Thursday for a meeting with the Lib Dem group on the GLA and representatives of other Boroughs. It's very useful for us as a small group in Ealing to learn more about what our friends in the rest of London are doing.

I've had a personal website since way back in 1998 but that is largely static content that stays the same for year on end, so I decided to join the blogging throng. The idea is that this blog will give a little insight into what's going on in the exciting(?) world of Ealing politics and hopefully do a little to bridge the gap between what goes on in those arcane meetings in Ealing Town Hall and issues that effect local people. I will no doubt touch on national politics from time to time but I want to keep it mainly local.

I did a couple of blog postings on a group blog for Lib Dem conference the week before last., and I decided to finally start my own blog when I got back. It's taken me longer than I hoped but here it is.

I dashed back from Brighton on the Thursday to attend the Ealing Police and Community Consultative Group meeting, where we heard some interesting info about Operation Rainbow and I asked about Safer Neighbourhoods staffing numbers levels to be told that the Sergeants and PCs for all the wards in Ealing should be in place by December but no date could be given on achieving the promised level of PCSOs.

Then I held my ward advice surgery on Friday. My surgery dates and venues are on the Ealing Council site. The ones I hold on Fridays are at the Grange School which is being rebuilt currently. I think having to venture on to what is basically a building site puts people off, but hopefully the new school will be completed before too long! If anyone in Ealing Common would like to come along next time to discuss a problem with the Council, please feel free - no appointment is necessary.