Category: Ealing and Northfield

The largest part of my morning was taken up by accompanying my wife to her citizenship ceremony, the last step in her becoming a British citizen. She is excited at the prospect of being able to vote Mayor Livingstone out of office on 1st May.

The ceremony took place in the Norwood Suite at the Town Hall. This is one of the smarter parts of the building and the ceremony was on the whole well run and moving even. As the participants were registering a selection of appropriate music was played including Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance and “I vow to thee, my country”. It would have been nice if Duncan, the registrars’ assistant, had been wearing a tie. At the end the usual one verse of the National Anthem was played and I had to sing on my own as I don’t think anyone else in the room knew the words. My wife was a bit sheepish about not singing. It was a shame that the celebrants couldn’t rouse themselves to at least mouth along.

The oath you have to say is reasonably full-on even for a product of New Labour:

I (name) swear by Almighty God that on becoming a British Citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second; Her Heirs and successors according to law.

I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom and respect its rights and freedoms. I will uphold its democratic values. I will observe its laws faithfully and fulfil my duties and obligations as a British Citizen.

One thing I was very impressed with was the two well turned out ladies from the Library Service. They introduced themselves during the registration and helped people to fill in applications for library cards. They then gave out completed cards after the ceremony. A brilliant service and it is great to see the Library Service using some imagination and panache to recruit new users. They managed to give out 16 library cards. Big well done.

I have just seen the latest stats from the people that check up on ECT, the Borough’s street cleaning contractors. Across Ealing 87% of streets are A grade meaning there is nothing on the street when the graders come round. They try to come just after the scheduled weekly street clean so if you see the odd discarded can or bag of crisps it has probably only been there a matter of days since the last clean.

Northfield is often top of these lists but in December we were only second at 93.3% to Ealing Broadway at 94.7%. The picture across the whole borough is remarkably consistent with the worst ward coming in at 80%. So even in the worst part of Ealing 80% of the streets are perfect.

These figures do accord with what I see walking and driving around town and with what friends and neighbours tell me. Well done to all of the staff involved. And well done to us too for not making a mess in the first place.

I have just been up to the loft at the behest of Joe from Arrest-a-Pest to look for the body of our squirrel. A week before Christmas we heard rather loud noises from the loft and realised that we had a squirrel in residence.

Having worked for pest control services like Orkin Termite Control Services or Nature First Pest Control as a young’un, and being a member of the specialist scrutiny panel looking into pest control I was interested to know what the council’s response would be. I used the website to find the number. It was pretty easy. Click A to Z of services tab, select p for pest control, scroll down to the pest control link, click link, click the contact us link and straight to a phone number. Called it up and was told they do not offer squirrel removal services in private homes. Slightly disappointing but the phone was answered quickly and the call was handled well so fair enough. Looked in the Thomson Local and found Joe from Arrest-a-pest. He would come round three times at £60 a visit plus VAT. The council’s service for rats and mice involves three visits but only costs £60 including VAT for all three visits.

He came round the same day and laid poisoned bait which consisted of about five trays of grain. On arrival he took one look at the bird feeder in the front garden and suggested that this might be the root of our problem. Joe called today to follow up. He told me what to do so I went up into the loft to check the bait and see if I could locate any bodies – many of his customers are too squeamish for this job so he pays them another visit. I decided to save the £60. In one corner of the loft the squirrel had made a nest of roofing insulation and eaten its way through two adjacent trays of poisoned grain. It did not take long to find the body. Wrapped up in a double layer of carrier bags the squirrel is now in the bin. Joe will come round and block up the holes in the roof for me next week if we don’t hear or see any more signs of the lodgers.

Our rubbish and recycling collection days will be affected by the holdays so I have re-produced the table from the council’s website below. Follow this link to get the whole picture.

The tricky bit is that Monday and Tuesday are earlier before Christmas and then Monday stays on the same day and Tuesday is a day later like all the other days after Christmas.

I have already got a card through my letterbox so it looks like the Ealing council comms people are doing their job – well done.

For the second year running our neighbouring Tory borough are promising a 3% cut in council tax, see their press release. Some people think that the Hammersmith and Fulham Tories are being a bit full-on going for lower taxes each year. Ealing has chosen a different path. Rather than going for headline cuts we are taking a steady-as-she-goes approach. We are working equally as hard as H&F to make savings – we discussed £10.8 million worth of savings at last night’s Overview and Scrutiny panel. Opposition councillors made a few desultory comments but there were no objections voiced to any of the savings being proposed.

The difference between Ealing and H&F is not in our search for efficiency and value for money it is in our approach to spending the dividend. H&F has decided to return it to council tax payer – an entirely reasonable and honourable thing to do. Our approach is to spend it on things that our council taxpayers really want – more street cleaning, better recycling, more road resurfacing and 50 new PCSOs. These are services that only a local authority can provide. We think our approach is right for Ealing. I am sure the Tory group in H&F think their approach is right for their borough.

Both boroughs are demonstrating that, for all the talk that local government is so constrained by central government that it isn’t interesting anymore, you can make a difference to your community if you have a vision. Greenhalgh in H&F and Stacey in Ealing are going down different paths but they both know where they are going.

The council is understandably pleased to have had its adult services judged to be rated three stars by the Commission for Social Care Inspection, see the council’s press release. Read the CSCI report here.

Portfolio holder Ian Green deserves credit for overseeing the continuing improvement of this service from its no star nadir in 2004. The service deserves credit for doing all the hard work.

It just goes to show you can have a sensible council tax and good services. Where Westminster and Wandsworth lead Ealing is following.

Politics can sometimes seem a somewhat opaque and murky business. Even simple information like what constituency do I live in can be hard to get hold of. There is a useful map on Angie Bray’s website showing the boundaries of the Central Ealing and Acton constituency.

Today sees the start of the new rubbish and re-cycling system across Ealing. No doubt there will be some teething problems but it must be good news that the council has committed £3.8 million to a package of improvements that will bring single day collections for all refuse and recycling and same day pick-up for missed refuse collections reported to the council by 5pm.

In my road the collection day is Tuesday and I am looking forward to only having to put stuff out one day a week. Great.

Most importantly plastics re-cycling will start today as well.

This move is really popular and will make Ealing a pioneer as the first borough to collect mixed plastic.

The story was picked up in tonight’s Eco News column in the Evening Standard.

Council leader Jason Stacey says:

It’s only a year since we first asked people what they wanted us to do to improve waste and recycling, so it’s great that we’ve been able to introduce these widespread improvements in such a relatively short amount of time.

The new services are part of our commitment to making the streets of Ealing cleaner. It’s important to us that we get the basics right and the roll out of these changes are a key milestone in our drive to improve the frontline services that we know really matter to local people.

Of course this investment means great change, not only for residents but also for our refuse and recyling teams. We’re confident that we’ve put everything in place to make the transition as smooth as possible, but I’d ask people to be patient for a couple of weeks while the new services bed in.

If you do come across any problems then please call the customer services line on 020 8825 6000. They are pretty good at sorting problems out. I call them several times every week when I see fly-tips or other streets related problems.

According to the Standard this evening Ealing Southall MP, Virendra Sharma, is off with Mayor Livingstone on Sunday for a week to India on a jolly.

You might have thought that new boy Sharma would want to do some actual work now he has returned from the three month long summer recess. Talk about lazy.

I guess that Sharma was feeling a bit guilty about bunking off so he roused himself to speak twice (on Tuesday and Thursday) this week bringing to three his total appearances in Parliament. Here is a taste of Sharma’s rather emetic style:

I rise to speak in this debate immensely proud of the record of this Labour Government in international development. As a new Member, my political philosophy and political motivation have always been to fight against injustice and poverty wherever they are found throughout the world. I therefore feel a very personal commitment to support the work of DFID and the Government in this respect. Having been born in and lived my early life in India, I know first hand the challenges that poverty and the lack of economic development bring.

Ealing Trading Standards’ work in clobbering phoney drug sellers, mainly in Southall, got national coverage this afternoon. I just heard one of our officers, Doug Love, being interviewed on the Radio 4 PM programme.

See Doug Love & co pounding the streets here.