Hammersmith flyover latest: when it will re-open is not the only question, says Andy Slaughter MP

Update from Andy Slaughter MP on the Hammersmith flyover

This morning’s statement from Transport for London (TfL) that Hammersmith Flyover will remain closed for at least another week is serious and disappointing, as traffic flows increase with the return to school and work after the holidays.

The official line is that tests continue and until TfL is certain every part of the structure is safe they will not consider even a partial re-opening (eg to cars and/or for one lane only).

I had a very frank discussion with TfL managers on Thursday about all aspects of the closure.  Of course, the priority is to get it open.  I was convinced that TfL are doing everything they can to do this, and that they have a solution to restore it to full operation in reasonable time.  I was not persuaded however that we need to be in this situation, or that there is a long-term future for the structure.

The Flyover’s method of construction is relatively rare in the UK, and there are few other similar structures – for which TfL and the Department for Transport (DfT) should be grateful.  It was built in 1961 by the family company of the then Minister of Transport, Sir Ernest Marples, who passed his shares on during his time in government – to his wife!

Its strength is provided by bunches of twisted metal rods that link separated sections of the concrete together.  The tension in the structure is such, I was told, that a simple demolition job would result in parts of the Flyover being fired into the Thames.  But water, aided by salt during gritting, has rusted the cables which have begun to snap.  The surface heating that should have negated the need for gritting apparently never worked.

The decay is exponential: as each rod weakens or breaks more stress is put on the remainder and so more break, and so on.  TfL inherited the Flyover from DfT, with all its obligations, in 2000.  They say they inspected it regularly, but as the rods are encased in concrete used ultrasonic rather than visual observation.  Last summer they concluded it had about a year of useful life without repair and started looking for ways to prolong this.  On 22 December, uncovering a bunch of rods showed significant damage where the ultrasound had indicated little or none.  This begged the question, had this happened throughout the half mile structure and was it in fact so decayed as to be in danger of imminent collapse?  Hence the emergency closure.

I accept all this – my initial suspicion was that there had been a convenient closure at one of the least busy times of year.  I also accept that TfL are working to check each section of the flyover to ensure the earliest possible safe opening.  But I do not think TfL should have been taken by surprise in the way that they were two weeks ago.  Knowing the history, significance and particular problems of the structure I think they have been complacent in not diagnosing both the degree of damage and a solution before now.  This must be fully and independently investigated.

The cost, not just to motorists and freight transport, but to local businesses, will run into millions, aside from the huge inconvenience to both local and through-commuters.  Mistakes like this by TfL are neither victimless nor blameless, and unless the consequences are fully itemised they will happen again.

TfL is a peculiarly unaccountable body.  While I have been an MP they have closed Shepherds Bush Central Line for a year, closed Olympia tube station permanently on weekdays, and are in the process of destroying (through their development arm) both Shepherds Bush Market and West Ken.

So where now?  The good news is that TfL have, under pressure, come up with a workable solution to restoring the Flyover to full weight-bearing capacity.  This involves threading new rods into the concrete, which can be done over a period of weeks and months (concluding before the Olympics) with night time only closures.

There are two caveats.  Firstly, we will not know for some days how much renewal will need to be done before the Flyover can be re-opened during the day.  I will continue to press TfL for an answer to this.

Secondly, the renewal will only extend the life of the structure by seven to ten years.  I realise that those waiting in a half mile queue to get onto the Broadway will not see this as a priority, but given the time and cost it takes to achieve civil engineering solutions in this country, we had better start thinking now what will replace the flyover.  In the process I have urged TfL to look at the whole issue of trunk road traffic coming into Hammersmith.  There are still too many fatal pedestrian accidents on the A4 and A40.  Both roads run through residential areas and give too much priority to road traffic which often exceeds speed limits by 20 or 30 mph.

The Flyover is one of Hammersmith’s most recognisable and iconic structures.  It has given good service and we must now replace it with something to serve both local and strategic transport needs for the next 50 years.   But first let us support and pressure TfL in getting West London moving again.

Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith

New Year news from Andy Slaughter MP

King Street – victory or reprieve?
White City blues
Method in their madness
Developer round up
Imperial not minted
Never Feltham better
Babar Ahmad 
Air Passenger Duty
Loretto O’Callaghan
Christmas season

King Street – victory or reprieve?

Hammersmith was handed the Christmas present we most wanted by Save Our Skyline. The group’s four year campaign against the Council’s plan to ruin the historic riverside reached a crescendo in December. At the end of a four-hour planning committee, attended by 500 people, the seven Conservative councillors voted in favour of the universally-loathed scheme.  It would mean building on the cinema and Furnivall Gardens, replacing affordable homes with luxury high rise – and of course subsidising new offices for the councillors themselves.  
So SOS took the battle to City Halland the Mayor backed residents’ criticisms, forcing the Council to withdraw its request for approval. SOS were celebrating this week, while at the same time wondering if this was a tactical delay until after the Mayoral election in May.
That is certainly some pundits’ view, and many Boriswatchers would agree.  For the past four years he has been happy to rubber-stamp the maddest H&F schemes, including this one. He is also no stranger to the site’s developer, Helical Bar.  He also seems to have u-turned to back residents rather than the Council-developer on the plans to demolish homes in West Ken.
Can politicians be so cynical?  Yes. Could Hammersmith Tories resubmit the same scheme the day after the election?  Yes, but at some risk.  Although Boris, if re-elected, is unlikely to stand again after 2012 and has little to lose, the next Council elections are only two years away, and Hammersmith voters would not forget such a blatant betrayal.
So I hope we have seen the last of the towers and the footbridge and yet another Tescos.  What we get instead is another question – but one I hope will be answered by local residents not arrogant and out of touch councillors.
If, however, I am being festively over-optimistic, there is an easy way to resolve the dilemma. Vote for Ken.
 

White City blues
If the Council’s high-rise plans for the riverside and West Ken are on hold, in White City they are out of control.  I have now met each of the developers for the east side of Wood Lane – Imperial, Helical Bar and Westfield.  Each wants to build the maximum number of the most expensive properties on its site, some 5,000 in total in towers going up to 34 floors.  And because they are acting independently none is prepared to look at the overall needs of the area. So there is little or no open space, infrastructure planning or affordable housing.
This is a further blow to the Council’s plan to relocate White City Estate residents to the new development so they could redevelop the whole area around the BBC when TV Centre is vacated.  They have only themselves to blame, by giving free rein to developers before they had put planning policies in place.  Five years ago the White City Opportunity Area was part of a coherent plan with the BBC at its heart.  Now there is talk of the BBC leaving the area altogether, leaving only faceless tower blocks of flats unaffordable to even the wealthiest local residents.
The architect of the planning disaster that is Hammersmith & Fulham, is Council Leader Stephen Greenhalgh, who last week bailed out, announcing his retirement just as his schemes were beginning to unravel.  But where is he off to?  Sadly, for the residents of White City he has promised to go and sort them out.  Needless to say none of the eight (Labour) councillors for the area nor I has been consulted on what he has in store, but we can guess.  Greenhalgh has form in the area, where the original plan was demolition as at West Ken.  He is surely the least suitable person for the job, as he proved on his last high-profile visit during the General Election.
 

Method in their madness
After 2006, Hammersmith & Fulham Council set out to reduce the amount of social housing in the borough and increase the amount of high-value mainly investment property.  Whole districts were to be demolished and rebuilt, major asset sales programme began and a blueprint for legislation was drawn up.  This proposed near market in place of social rents, an end to security of tenure, dramatic cuts in capital investment and removal of the duty to permanently re-house homeless families.  These have all been adopted by the Coalition Government, and along with cuts and caps to Housing Benefit will rapidly change the social profile of seats like Hammersmith.
LBHF quickly moved onto planning policy.  In 2007 they announced they were ‘open for business’ and began to cultivate developers.  In some cases, as with CapCo in West Kensington or Helical Bar in King Street, the Council became the developer’s partner.  In Shepherds Bush Market they effectively became the developer’s agent.  In every case the Council permitted or encouraged the developer to maximise the value of the site.  This meant the destruction of established communities, especially low-density or social housing and facilities serving local people, like cinemas and markets.  These would be replaced by high-rise luxury flats.  The key to achieving what were certain to be unpopular and controversial redevelopments was a pliant planning policy and process which always gave the benefit of the doubt to the developer.  This is exactly what the Government now seeks to achieve through the NPPF and the presumption in favour of sustainable development.
The third phase of this social engineering strategy takes on a moral dimension.  Communities, like West Ken and White City,  that stubbornly refuse to sign up to LBHF’s  brave new world are labelled ‘not decent’ and  ‘inward looking’  and targeted if not for demolition then for special treatment.  In the case of White City that might involve partial demolition and decanting, or the creation of special government vehicles to reward and punish the type of behaviour the council finds acceptable.  
 

Developer round up
Shepherds Bush Market is due at planning committee on 8 February.  I have asked the Council to meet a local delegation before this as none of the promises made to shopkeepers, traders and residents has been kept.  So far they have refused.
Nomis Studios:100 people turned up to oppose the plans to squeeze 55 flats into a space big enough for five terraced houses in Sinclair Road. As with the Town Hall development, planning officers were left to justify the scheme, while developers and Conservative councillors stayed silent.
Haymarket: A major local employer, Haymarket (prop: Michael Heseltine), have succumbed to the LIP (luxury investment property) temptation, whereby employment sites can now be redeveloped for residential use.  I met them this week and they are promising to preserve the existing 600 jobs by rebuilding their HQ on Hammersmith Road, but want to knock down their other site in Bute Gardens to build 50 flats.  Sacred Heart School and some Latymer Court residents are concerned that the new buildings are just too big for a very busy and constrained area, and I agree.  But at least they are talking.
West Ken: The Mayor’s 44 objections to the Council’s plans and the scuppering of the King St development have given new heart to campaigners in West Ken, who now include groups from Kensington and supporters in the media.
 

Imperial not minted
I finally got a partial answer to my question, how is our local health trust going to cut £130 million or nearly 20% of its budget? (What was that slogan? ‘I’ll cut the health service not the deficit’). A list has been published outlining where the first £45 million is coming from.  It’s still rather opaque I’m afraid, but what caught my eye was the £6 million saved by reducing the number of nurses and midwives.  Given an average salary of £25-30,000 this means hundreds fewer front line staff.
 

Never Feltham better
Having a broken leg was not a good enough excuse (the Whips informed me) to get out of by-election duty.  Anyway, I was glad to go along to support Seema Malhotra whom I’ve known for many years and will be an excellent MP. The 8.6% swing to Labour was a useful precursor to the London Mayor campaign that will start in earnest in the New Year.
Ken’s pledge to cut fares has already got the Government passing money to Boris to keep his rises down, but it’s not enough. Since 2008, a single bus fare has increased by 56%, a Zone 1-6 Travelcard by 22% and a weekly bus pass by 47%. Ken has promised a cut in the autumn of 2012 and freezing them in 2013, a saving of £800 over his four-year term.
 

Babar Ahmad
I recently spoke in the Commons debate on extradition triggered by 140,000 signatures on an e-petition organised to highlight the case of Babar Ahmad.  He has been imprisoned in a high security prison for seven years without charge while the US government tries to extradite him.  Like Gary McKinnon, Babar Ahmad’s alleged offences were committed in the UK, but British prosecutors have chosen not to bring charges.  Under pressure from all sides the Government has agreed to look at the issue afresh.
 

Air Passenger Duty
The unfairness of APD, that charges almost twice as much tax to fly to Jamaica as to California is something I have campaigned against under both this and the previous Government.  Before the election no less a person than the then shadow treasury minister, Greg Hands MP, promised to right this wrong – and start taxing private planes into the bargain. But just before Christmas, the Government reneged on both promises.
 

Loretto O’Callaghan
I was very saddened to hear that Loretto had died in December after a long battle with cancer.  She was one of the great community heroes of H&F, working tirelessly for the residents of Queen’s Club Gardens, where she chaired the residents’ association so formidably, and the whole borough.  At the annual Garden Party only a few months ago, she was her usual lively and positive self.  She will be missed by everyone who knew her.
 

Christmas season
As usual in Hammersmith, there was plenty going on up to the wire as Christmas Day approached. 
 

• I heard some fantastic speakers from all our local secondary schools at the regional final of Jack Petchey’s “Speak Out” Challenge held at Lady Margaret’s.
• The good news when I spoke at the Hammersmith and Fulham Refugee Forum AGM was that they were still in Palingswick House a year after the council said they were going to kick them out in favour of the Free School.
• College Park residents rallied in support of their community centre and were not being chucked out this Christmas, though their future is not secure.
• I met a delegation of Israeli Muslims visiting the UK to donate £500,000, collected from Palestinians in Israel, to the UK charity Islamic Relief for its work in Somalia
• More good news at St Andrew’s Fulham Fields, where I was reading the lesson at the Christmas Carol Service.  The new community centre is a few weeks from opening and Father Guy Wilkinson, formerly the Archbishop of Canterbury’s inter-faith advisor, is to stay on permanently as parish priest
• For the third year, the Crisis centre for west London was at West London College’s Baron’s Court campus, despite previous attempts by the Council to ban it from the borough for public order reasons.  I visited just before Christmas for the opening and, even in the milder weather, there were people waiting to get in.  There were nine centres this year with 750 volunteers and double that number of guests. 
• In a new venture, 200 residents were given a Christmas meal and hamper at the Irish Centre by Barclay Hall Christian Fellowship, and I was asked to present an award to a long-term carer who had inspired others. One more example of how people in Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush are thinking of others, not just this week but all the year.

A Happy New Year to all my readers.

Andy

King Street monster only sleeping, not dead -- loathed Hammersmith Tory scheme may still go ahead if Boris wins next May

The more we think about it, the more concerned we are that Boris Johnson and the Hammersmith & Fulham Tories have essentially pulled a fast one on local residents and that the King Street development may be back next spring with only minor tweaks.

For now, with his eye on the mayoral elections next May, a panicking Boris has persuaded the H&F Tory councillors to withdraw their deeply unpopular plan for King Street. There is good coverage and analysis of this in the Cowan Report, the Shepherd's Bush Blog, the Evening Standard and the H&F Chronicle.

The Hammersmith Tories have egg all over their face. The seven Conservative councillors on the planning committee who argued and voted for the scheme have been giving a slapping, although it is hard to feel sympathy for people who rode roughshod over the wishes of local residents. By the way, these are the guilty men and women: hover over the pictures to see their names and wards:

Bizarrely, this happened in the same week that Stephen Greenhalgh announced he would stand down as the Tory council's leader next May.

Yet the King Street monster is only sleeping, not dead. The Tories' own statement makes that crystal clear: "Hammersmith & Fulham Council has withdrawn the stage II referral until further notice. It means that the Mayor is not required to take a decision at this time. The application is still live and therefore it may be referred back to the Mayor at a future date. This will be at the Council's discretion."

If Boris is re-elected, there is still every chance that the Tory plan will be re-presented with minor tweaks and then approved over the heads of ignored and outraged local residents.

King Street development deferred but far from dead. Will Boris approve the Hammersmith Tories' monstrous scheme if he wins next May?

Hammersmith Tory council has withdrawn its appalling plans for the King Street area but only for now. It is far from clear that the battle is over for the many hundreds of residents and local and national groups who have fought to prevent the construction of luxury high-rise blocks, the demolition of homes for the blind and of an art deco cinema and the loss of a chunk of the Furnivall Gardens park.


Until today, the council had dismissed all opposition out of hand. Now, however, they have deferred the scheme. The fear has to be that this is only until after the mayoral election next May.

It is worth reading carefully the statement sent by the council to the Save our Skyline campaign today. It says, "Hammersmith & Fulham Council has withdrawn the stage II referral until further notice. It means that the Mayor is not required to take a decision at this time. The application is still live and therefore it may be referred back to the Mayor at a future date. This will be at the Council's discretion." (see Chronicle piece here).

Boris Johnson was required to take a decision today on whether to let the scheme go forward. He knows that the mayoral elections are only five months away. By withdrawing the scheme for now, the Hammersmith Tories are hoping this won't become an election issue for Boris. However, after the election, there is no guarantee that they won't bring the scheme back, slightly tweaked. If re-elected, Boris could pass it then.

It looks as if the way is already being paved for this. As today's statement also said, "Hammersmith & Fulham Council has agreed to work with the Greater London Authority on a further independent rigorous assessment on viability to determine whether there is scope to reduce the height of the buildings again."

By the way, according to the Chronicle, Boris "told council leader Stephen Greenhalgh there was no chance of the project going ahead in its current form". Greenhalgh resigned as leader last Tuesday 12 December. When did he and Boris speak?

Aidan Burley fails to apologise properly, blames "other" guests at "Nazi" party

The BBC and many newspapers are  reporting an "apology" by ex-Hammersmith Tory councillor Aidan Burley MP, who, as we reported earlier, has been exposed by the Mail on Sunday as taking part in  a Nazi-themed stag party.

Under the heading "MP Aiden Burley sorry for 'Nazi' stag party guest photos", the BBC quotes Mr Burley in a statement "released through the Conservative Central Office" as saying, "There was clearly inappropriate behaviour by some of the other guests [sic] and I deeply regret that this happened. I am extremely sorry for any offence that will undoubtedly have been caused."

Sky News and others are also reporting a later tweet by Mr Burley: "Deeply regret inappropriate behaviour by some guests [sic] at stag party I attended and I am extremely sorry for any offence that was caused."

What on earth does Mr Burley mean by "some of the other guests" or "some guests"?

Is he trying to imply that his own behaviour was appropriate? That it was appropriate for him to spend an evening carousing with one friend dressed as an SS officer and another who toasted "the ideology and thought process of the Third Reich"? That it was appropriate for him to stay silent in the face of chants of, according to the Mail, "Mein Fuhrer! Mein Fuhrer! Mein Fuhrer!", "Himmler! Himmler! Himmler!" and "Eichmann! Eichmann! Eichmann!"? As the Mail says, "Mr Burley, who was standing a few feet away, was not seen to object to [being called the member for Berlin East] or any other behaviour that evening."


Aidan Burley's silent complicity in his friends' shameful antics was wholly inappropriate and he has so far failed to apologise for it. He must do so without delay.

And what it does say about the values of Conservative Central Office that they saw nothing wrong with issuing this piece of sophistry on Mr Burley's behalf?

UPDATE: Burley has been sacked as an aide to Transport Secretary and is being investigated further by the Tory party. Let's hope this is a real investigation and not an attempt to push the scandal into the long grass.

London Tories link with BNP to prevent cyclist safety debate - was Kit Malthouse among them?

The Shepherd's Bush blog has revealed an "unholy alliance" between the Conservative members of the London Assembly and a BNP-elected member to prevent a debate on cyclist safety last week. Full story here.

Was Kit Malthouse, the Tory who represents Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea in the West Central constituency, part of this fiasco, we wonder?

He chairs the Metropolitan Police Authority so you might hope that, for him, preventing accidents would take priority over dodgy politics.

The Evening Standard notes, "It is the second time the Tories have prevented a debate being held on cycle safety, having also walked out of a proposed debate on Blackfriars bridge in June."

As the Shepherd's Bush blog notes, Hammersmith has had its share of tragic cycle deaths - see here and here.

This is the motion the Tories refused to discuss:

“This Assembly deeply regrets the deaths of cyclists on London's road network and wishes to express its condolences for the loss felt by their relatives and friends. We are concerned that some cyclist deaths and injuries could have been avoided if the road network designs for the locations where these deaths and injuries occurred had been safer. We therefore call on the Mayor and Transport for London to: 
• produce a list of the ten most dangerous locations for cyclists on the Transport for London Road Network (TLRN) and all locations in London where a cyclist has died in the last three years; 
• report on any proposals that were put forward by cycling and road safety groups as part of official consultation processes for redesigning roads at those locations; and
• provide the reasons why any such proposals were rejected.”

Ex-Hammersmith Tory councillor Aidan Burley at "Nazi" stag night at French ski resort

Until May 2010, Aidan Burley was a leading Hammersmith & Fulham Tory councillor. Now he is a Tory MP. On 3 December, he attended a stag party where the groom dressed as an SS officer, friends chanted "Mein Fuhrer" and "the Third Reich" was toasted.

The Mail on Sunday has the full shocking story.  It says, "Mr Burley, 32, a senior aide to Transport Secretary Justine Greening, was filmed in a mountain restaurant during a stag do, sitting next to another party goer dressed in a black SS uniform and cap....

"He raised his glass in a toast before another guest, sitting beside the MP at the restaurant in the ski resort of Val Thorens, was caught on film making a speech in which he said: ‘Let’s raise a toast to Tom for organising the stag do,  and if we’re perfectly honest, to the ideology and thought process of the Third Reich.’"

Just before the toast, Mr Burley was filmed apparently paying the bill.

The paper continues, "Later, after moving on to a British-themed pub, some of the group, many of whom adopted thick German accents, chanted: ‘Mein Fuhrer! Mein Fuhrer! Mein Fuhrer!’, ‘Himmler! Himmler! Himmler!’ and ‘Eichmann! Eichmann! Eichmann!’"

Aidan Burley was a Conservative councillor in Hammersmith & Fulham - the council which Eric Pickles calls "the apple of my eye" - from 2006 until his election as MP for Cannock Chase last year.

UPDATE
Aidan Burley fails to apologise properly, blames "other" guests at "Nazi" party - see here.

"Aidan Burley MP, on right in blue jeans and jumper, looks on as his friend adjusts his Nazi cap"   (Source: Mail on Sunday)

Greg Smith admits Eric Pickles addressed Young Britons' Foundation but won't say if he met Bell Pottinger speaker

UPDATE:
Following the post below and after an initial Picklesite coyness, Greg Smith has tweeted us that Eric Pickles did address YBF and that he spoke on his own. He still won't say, however, whether Pickles met the Bell Pottinger speaker.


ORIGINAL POST:
Eric Pickles, Bell Pottinger, Greg Smith, Greg Hands, Mark Loveday and the Young Britons' Foundation

Local government supremo Eric Pickles may call Tory Hammersmith & Fulham council the apple of his eye but he has been surprisingly coy about admitting whether he will be at an ideological training camp this weekend run by, among others, H&F's own potty-mouthed Councillor Greg Smith.

The Young Britons' Foundation (YBF), styled a Tory "madrasah" (aka fundamentalist school) by right-wing commentators, is currently holding its annual Activist Training Conference. Mr Pickles is listed as speaking but for the past 11 days has been refusing to confirm his attendance to the Guardian Diary.

If he doesn't turn up, the Secretary of State will be sacrificing the opportunity to hobnob with fellow speaker Daniel Hamilton, who works for  lobbying firm Bell Pottinger, which has enjoyed such headlines this week as "Bell Pottinger: pressure on David Cameron to curb secret links with lobbyists", "Vicious dictatorship which Bell Pottinger was prepared to do business with","Wikipedia suspends accounts over Bell Pottinger claims" and "Rebekah Brooks? 'We helped choose her police station' says Bell Pottinger".

Hammersmith & Fulham Tories' role in this entertainment should not pass unrecognised. Director of campaigns at the Young Britons' Foundation is the above-mentioned Greg Smith, who is H&F's cabinet member for residents' services. On YBF's advisory board sits Cllr Mark Loveday, H&F's chief whip and cabinet member for strategy, and on its parliamentary council is Greg Hands, Tory MP for Chelsea & Fulham.

Now Harry Phibbs claims residents' support for Hammersmith Tory council's £7,000 jamboree

As local outrage grows that Hammersmith council wasted £7,184 on a leaving party for its retiring chief executive (see here), Cllr Harry Phibbs, Cabinet Member for Community Engagement, has told the local Chronicle that the knees-up was good for morale and "most [residents] would understand it's the right thing to do" (see here).

Cllr Phibbs was backed up by Tory leader Stephen Greenhalgh, who told the newspaper he would continue to fund such shindigs. And Tory boy Peter Graham, assistant to Fulham and Chelsea MP Greg Hands, said he didn't have a problem with the party because the council was making savings elsewhere (see here).

Labour leader Steve Cowan has made clear that such shameful waste will stop if Labour takes control of the council in 2014 (see here).

It is a disgrace that, under the shame-free Tories, it won't stop sooner.

Andy Slaughter MP: "Decision time for Hammersmith's future"

• Decision time for Hammersmith's future
• The Masterplan takes shape
• Residents vs. developers part 94
• Asset disposals
• Unhealthy finances
• Olympia: end of the line
• Good news!
• Angela Dixon

Decision time for Hammersmith's future
The most controversial development in a generation comes before Hammersmith & Fulham’s planning committee on Wednesday.  At an extraordinary meeting to be held at Latymer Upper School, the committee will be asked to approve the redevelopment of the Town Hall site by the Council in partnership with Helical Bar. And there you have the problem. Thirty pages of the committee report are taken up just listing the objectors to the scheme, which include many national and local civic groups as well as thousands of individual residents.

What the scheme will add is universally decried:

• 290 investment properties in blocks up to 15 storeys.
• A footbridge across the A4 to give the flats ‘river access’.
• Luxury officers for councillors and council officers.
• Another supermarket.

What the scheme will destroy is universally applauded:

• Hammersmith’s only local cinema.
• The views and skyline of Hammersmith Mall and riverside.
• Pocklington Trust’s affordable homes that house and support the visually impaired.
• The quiet enjoyment of local homes.
• Around a third of the open space in Furnivall Gardens.

Any sane committee member would tell the developer not to bother.  But the developer here is the planner’s boss.  The Council is the direct beneficiary of the development of its own land.  The co-developer has donated generously to the London Mayor, who has to approve the scheme.  H&F have lobbied the Mayor to exempt the scheme from the need to provide any housing for local people.
In theory the committee acts as an independent barrier to unacceptable development, but even when the Council does not have a pecuniary interest, it has a record of rubber stamping the grossest over-developments, like the Fulham Reach scheme approved two months ago.
It only takes two Conservative councillors to vote with the Labour Opposition to scupper the scheme.  We will see on Wednesday if they will.


The Masterplan takes shape
To us the Town Hall scheme is a travesty.  To the ‘open for business’ Council it is but one more step on the road to redesigning the borough, based around the five ‘opportunity’ areas.  If you have trouble keeping up with what’s happening... I think that’s the idea.  Here’s my 30 second guide to how to ruin one of London’s most popular places to live.

White City:

• The new Westfield development (north of the current mall) will go to committee in the New Year.  It combines a new retail centre with around 1,650 flats, meaning the latter will be in blocks up to 25 storeys.  The Council asked for a quarter of these to be for families decanted from the White City and surrounding estates, which it also wants to redevelop, but Westfield told me they want no more than 6% of the properties to be for affordable rent
• Imperial are expected to submit plans for phase two of their development on the former BBC Woodlands site north of the A40 flyover.  Residents already feel they have been conned by phase one, with forbidding 10 storey blocks opposite their two and three storey homes.  Worse is to come:  a 34 floor tower block, a major hotel and other commercial development, all dressed up as an academic campus.
• Helical Bar (again) are to announce their plans for the missing piece of the White City Opportunity Area, between Westfield and Imperial, on Tuesday at White City Community Centre at 7pm. I’m guessing high-rise luxury investment properties (LIPs), but would love to be proved wrong.
• Shepherds Bush Market could be at committee as early as December.  That’s if the Council breaks its word to the shopkeepers in Goldhawk Road and the Market Traders, that it would not grant consent for the current high-rise scheme until they were happy with it.  As all the shops will be demolished and the Traders have received none of the assurances about access, future rent or improvements, they are far from being so.

West Ken:

• The Masterplan for 7,500 flats (mainly LIPs, up to 30 storeys, but I’m sure you guessed that) is subject to a revised application, but the developer (the Council is again co-developer and like Shepherds Bush Market this scheme is being challenged by judicial review) wants it rubber stamped by April.  Explanation: the Mayoral candidates for Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens have all visited the West Ken and Gibbs Green Estates that would be demolished to make way for the LIPs and looked unimpressed with the plans. 

Hammersmith Riverside:

• After the Town Hall and the Hammersmith Embankment schemes comes the missing bit in the middle – a proposal by Arab Investments to demolish Riverside Studios and Queen’s Wharf and build...well in the plans I saw a couple of months ago it was mere 200 LIPs in a nine storey soviet era block of concrete.  Now, that’s just what you need as a background to Hammersmith Bridge.

Old Oak:

• This actually is an opportunity area.  A genuinely brown field stretch of land that – provided the HS2/Crossrail interchange comes here – could accommodate substantial development.  But then I saw this video the Council has produced. I have shown it to some Old Oak residents, who love their homes on the edge of the Scrubs - built as ‘homes for heroes’ a century ago.  The video portrays them as slums, just as it did with West Ken and White City, and suggests they are gearing up once again to push the existing residents out.

Fulham Riverside:

• Not my patch but of interest because of the new route for the Thames Tunnel.  As I explained in my last Chronicle column, the Council have shot themselves and Fulham residents in the foot by ending up with the main Tunnel entrance in Carnwath Road.  But their protests about lost jobs and lorry movements from the site ring hollow when their own plans are to demolish the businesses there and build a few hundred more LIPs – which of course will cause more disruption than the Tunnel.

Each of these schemes is an overdevelopment of already densely populated, poorly-accessed inner urban areas.  In combination they are a recipe for chaos both at the development phase (which could last for 20 years) and when occupied.  There is no one at present to put a brake on these schemes or insist that development serves the needs of existing residents rather than foreign or City investors, which is why we need a change of Mayor in May and of Council in 2014.     


Residents vs. developers part 94

• Nomis Studios.  The plan to squeeze 55 flats into a space big enough for five terraced houses in Sinclair Road is meeting growing opposition, and there is a public meeting this Thursday 1^stDecember at 7pm at St Matthews church hall.  This is typical of the medium-sized developments that are getting permission all over the borough.  K&C would not allow something on this scale with the extra traffic and excessive height in a conservation area – why should H&F?
• Wormholt Library.  The old library has been used as a base for local residents on the Wormholt estate for 20 years.  First they were booted out, and then they were told it would be a school, which meant building on the open space directly in front of their homes.  Then they were told their road would be closed to give the school (which faces directly onto the Westway) more land.  At the planning committee the mainly elderly residents were ignored, now they are asking for a public enquiry to keep the road open.
• White City Health Centre.  Should have opened in 2008.  This week we are told it may get the go ahead in January and be ready in 2014.  It will be a shadow of what was planned under Labour – no affordable homes, fewer benefits for local residents, fewer services and a poorer design - but still worth having. 

Asset disposals
The last round of public buildings to be put up for sale  - including the Irish Centre, Shepherds Bush Village Hall and Palingswick House - remain in public hands, if only just in some cases. But that does not mean the fire sale has stopped.

• College Park Community Centre – the only centre in the far north of the borough – is to be sold in the New Year, even though it is busy every day.  Users were given less than two months to get out – after a century of community use.  A protest photo shoot is being held at 10am next Saturday 3 December.
• Baron’s Court Library is not being sold – apparently because the Council does not have the right to do so.  But it won’t be a library either, or a Sure Start Centre or any of the other uses we were promised.  It will house the CAB, who are being forced off the West Ken development site, and whose volunteers will supervise a self-service book collection.
• A ‘reorganisation’ of mental health services is a thinly veiled attempt to move several services into a single building in Ellerslie Road to free up other sites for sale.  This has clinical implications for some of the most vulnerable people in our society, but the duty to sell trumps the duty of care every time here.
• Hammersmith Community Trust look set to lose their community centre in Beadon Road when the NCP Car Park development goes ahead.  Their volunteers also staff the Information Centre in the Broadway Centre, but that is closing too.
• The former Fulham Cross and Avonmore Youth Clubs are up for sale.  So is Distillery Lane, the former after school centre.  But parks themselves are also at risk.  Around a third of the area of Hammersmith Park will be leased to a commercial company for the next 35 years.
• But the biggest sell off is of council homes.  One of the 300 homes – that could be let to some of the 10,000 people waiting for affordable accommodation in the borough – was featured on Under the Hammer recently.  It sold for £221,000.  This, said the Council, was a good result as it has only asked for £185,000.  But the programme showed what happened next:  an investment buyer spent £6,000 redecorating and put it back on the market – at £310,000.  You can read my article about it here.

Unhealthy finances
Two months after Imperial College told me they would not close Charing Cross in their bid to save £130 million, I am still waiting for details of the first £45 million they say they have identified.  But Imperial – or rather its new Chief Executive – have been in the news for other financial reasons.  £2,000 a day is apparently the going rate for a health service fixer in these austere times. This came in the same month that H&F retired their Chief Executive from a salary of over £280,000 a year to a pension of over £100,000 a year.  They still employ the former Chief Exec of Bexley Council (from where he retired on an immediate pension of £50,000 a year due to permanent ill health) on £750 a day to arrange their more, er, sensitive development opportunities.  He is still the partner of the Chief Exec of Notting Hill Housing, who makes do with only £200,000 a year. Am I alone in finding the earnings of our local public sector fat cats obscene – especially at a time when thousands of low paid workers are losing their jobs, having their pay frozen and their pensions cut massively?

Olympia: end of the line
London Underground has a new head of strategy, so Brendan McGrath of MyOlympia and I went to see him to argue for a reprieve for the station that is closing to weekday tube passengers next month. But the new head’s strategy is the same as the old one – let’s close the station.  It seems the tube is easier to run without so many trains.  No concession, not even a less regular service or one outside peak hours.  No alternative provision like shuttle buses from Earl’s Court.  And not even a promise to re-open when the new trains and signalling come into operation (and supposedly solve the problems of congestion which justify the closure) in five years time. My suspicious mind still thinks we are the casualties of a sop to Tory MPs in south Fulham, Putney and Wimbledon.


Good news!
Don’t blame me if it’s all bad news so far.  Blame the people who are causing it – and don’t forget to vote them out, starting with Boris, who supports closing Olympia, ruining H&F, cutting police numbers and has put up bus fares by more than 50%.
In fact, most of what I do every day brings me into contact with good people, doing brilliant things for their community.  Here are a few examples from the last few weeks:

• Food Cycle at Hammersmith & West London College.  They take surplus food from supermarkets and cook meals for homeless and destitute people.
• Phoenix Canberra Presentation Evening.  A celebration of the outstanding achievement of pupils at Phoenix High School, and Canberra Primary School.
• Rotary.  Meeting a delegation of inspirational young professionals from Argentina.
• Remembrance.  A moving service at the Shepherds Bush War Memorial in brilliant autumn sunshine.
• Macmillan Cancer Care’s world’s biggest coffee morning.  A massive fundraiser hosted by Barclay’s in King Street – who also talked me through their initiatives for lending to small business.
• World Teachers’ Day.  Organised by the NUT locally to celebrate the role teachers play in the success of all our lives.
• Shakespeare Schools Festival.  Excellent performances from local schools at Riverside Studios, including Canberra and Sacred Heart.  I remember appearing there as a sixth former in 1977!
• Memorial services for two much-loved members of the local community, Jimmy Barzey at Askew Road Church and Clive MacSayton at St Michael and St George, White City.
• Opening the new St. Paul’s community centre – a wonderful building completing almost £10 million of improvements to Hammersmith’s parish church.
• Guest speaker at the Askew Business Network, which is doing so much to improve the area where I live.
• Vision Care for Homeless people.  Opening of the new optician’s service at Broadway’s hostel in Shepherds Bush.
• Awards for Broadway and first prize for the Upper Room at the Andy Ludlow Homelessness Awards, presented by the Speaker.
• Visiting Lamenier to talk to Year 6 for Parliament week.
• Hosting meetings in Parliament on conflict resolution for Kurdish and Basque groups.
• Speaking at Albanian National Day celebrations at Hammersmith Town Hall.
• The Christmas season beginning on Sunday with the Advent service at my local church St Saviour’s.
• The wonderful care I received at Charing Cross when I clumsily broke my leg.  And the many messages of sympathy and support I received.  I hope to be pretty much back to normal activity rates in about a week.

Angela Dixon
There are a few people whose contribution to local life defies commendation.  Angela stood down as Chairman of Hammersmith & Fulham Historic Buildings Group last month after 24 years.  She has been tireless and fearless in championing the borough and its heritage.  In Marie-Lou Jennings she has found a fitting replacement, but – particularly in the current climate – I am sure that we have not heard the last...

Andy