Phil Taylor

Another of the Conservatives’ manifesto promises moved a step forward at last night’s cabinet meeting. Approval was given for an improvement in graffiti and fly-tipping removal services to be upgraded from September.

The measures mean graffiti and flytipping on council buildings, parks, benches, signs, car parks, leisure centres or estates managed by Ealing Homes will be removed the next working day by the council.

To meet this target the council is spending around £400,000 over the next year to get the service up and running. The extra cash will pay for three new graffiti squads, one new flytipping crew and additional resources to fast-track reports.

Cllr Will Brooks, cabinet member for transport and environment said: “For far too long flytippers and graffiti taggers have blighted our borough, making it look uncared for and shabby. We are determined to reclaim Ealing’s reputation as the Queen of the Suburbs and making it a borough that we can all be proud of. The new service should improve the look of our neighbourhoods. However, it is essential residents tell us who is responsible for making it a mess so we can prosecute them.”

See council press release.

It is expected that at tonight’s Cabinet meeting the new Tory administration will make good on another of its election promises by stopping all car park charging in Council car parks at 6pm and making them free on public holidays. Also parking permits will be frozen for four years.

Cllr Will Brooks, cabinet member for environment and transport, said: “We are restoring a common-sense approach to parking charges in this borough. Residents have been clobbered with hikes in charges in the recent past and it is about time they were made fairer. We hope these changes will encourage drivers to use our car parks again rather than look for alternatives in nearby residential streets.”

See council press release.

Yesterday the Ealing Times website covered the plans for rennovation of Ealing Library which will see their book stock reduced by 50,000. A critic calls it “cultural vandalism”.

Anyone can start an internet cafe or a cafe but only the Council provides book lending and reference services. These services needs to be preserved or expanded not reduced. We have seen this issue in Northfield (see previous posting) and now Ealing.

These proposals will need a lot of explaining at the Ealing Area Committee.

Thames Water made the front page of the Evening Standard today and has been featuring prominently on TV and radio news (see BBC coverage) due to the contrast between its financial performance and its failure to meet targets for repairing leaks three years running.

In a timely debate last night the Council debated a Labour motion moved by Councillor Mahfouz which criticized Thames Water for its poor performance in respect to the ongoing saga of flooding in Acton. In another outbreak of cross-party consensus (which seems to be becoming the norm under the new Council) the motion was seconded by the Tories and supported by the Lib-Dems. It was passed unanimously. A long line of councillors lined up to throw metaphorical rocks at Thames Water.

The second debate of the evening discussed another Labour motion on street drinking moved by Councillor Dheer. Although Dheer’s motion was superseded by a sympathetic Tory motion the later was passed unanimously too.

The Lib-Dems raised ID cards. There was pretty widespread resentment across the Tory benches that the Lib-Dems were wasting our time with a national issue. The majority councillors, led by Jason Stacey, were not impressed with Lib-Dem councillors grandstanding and in particular were not impressed with the idea of wasting the Chief Executive’s time in writing letters to MPs on this subject. If the Lib-Dems have nothing to say about Ealing they might shut up. Labour councillors made half-hearted speeches defending ID cards. A Tory motion moved by Councillor Larmouth which criticised ID cards and recommended that the money would be better spent in other parts of the criminal justice system was passed although Labour voted against it.

Being the night of the England-Sweden match the press bench was empty. The councillors were given updates on the game throughout the course of the meeting by the mayor.

Good news. The Council is going to spend £240K on Northfield library. Bad news. It will have 30% less books.

On Tuesday 13th June I went to the library to attend the consultation on the new scheme. It looks good. In particular they are going to push the frontage forward, creating more space and making the library much more accessible to the public. Disabled access will be improved and there will be a new public loo which will be up to disabled standards.

I was concerned about the loss of shelf space so I asked the officer responsible, Peter Hounsell, Asset Manager in the Libraries, Information & Learning department some more questions in writing to which I got a reply today. It appears that there will be storage for 9,000 books rather than the current 13,000. This means we will spend £240K on a new library and get 30% fewer books.

The thinking has been driven by two assumptions, both of which are erroneous in my mind.

Firstly, they should remove high shelves to make books more accessible to disabled users. This seems to be a pretty warped reading of the Disability Discrimination Act which asks for reasonable accommodation to be made for disabled people. Reducing the amount of book storage and thus reducing the public amenity for all does not seem to be a sensible outcome of the DDA to me. I would be happier if I thought some real disabled users had suggested it.

Secondly, it is desirable to have more internet workstations. All very well but such services are widely commercially available and I am wary of providing more if it means that book lending is reduced. There is no private sector book lending so protecting that service has to be the priority I think.

When this proposal comes to the Ealing Area Committee I will be questioning this thinking.