News from November 2008

Thursday, 27 Nov 2008

Inspection Walkabout in Hayes Garden Village Estate

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Some years ago I helped set up the Hayes Garden Village Residents Association. This covers the estate off Coldharbour Lane in central Hayes that many local people know as the railway estate, because it was contructed to house the families of railway workers. Although many railway families still live on the estate many of the houses have been sold off and there are many private rented properties.

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Tuesday, 25 Nov 2008

Another Betting Shop Planning Application in Hayes Town Centre:Enough is Enough

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A planning application has been submitted for yet another betting shop in Hayes Town Centre. This would mean three betting shops within 100 yards of each other in the town centre. The planning application is for the old Age Concern charity shop site in Station Road, Hayes.

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Multi Faith Events In Hayes

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Hayes has a long history of over a century as a multi cultural community. Each group of people who have come to settle in Hayes over the last 100 years has brought its own religion and beliefs from the Welsh Chapel goers to the Irish Catholics, Panjabi Sikhs, Indian Hindus and African and Pakistani Muslems.

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Friday, 14 Nov 2008

MPs Delegation to Meet Prime Minister on Third Runway

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A delegation of Labour MPs met the Prime Minister in the Cabinet Room of Number 10 this week to explain to him the consequences of allowing a third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow. The delegation included MPs Andy Slaughter, Martin Salter, Ann and Alan Keen, Martin Linton and myself. Fiona McTaggart MP had joined us for an earlier meeting with the PM the week before.

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Thursday, 13 Nov 2008

Heavy Bags Campaign by Heathrow Workers

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Many of my constituents work at Heathrow airport. Large numbers of them are involved in handling the bags of passengers as they pass through the airport. Often this can involve lifting and moving extremely heavy suitcases and various items of luggage, sometimes in very confined spaces. As a result many airport workers have suffered from back injuries. Anyone who has had a back injury can tell you how painful and debilitating this can be.

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Firefighters Come to Parliament about Fire Deaths

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Over the last year 10 firefighters have lost their lives whilst tackling fires and rescuing members of the public. In the year before that 8 firefighters died in fires. These are significant increases in the number of firefighter deaths compared with the average of 2 or 3 a year in the previous decade.

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Saturday, 08 Nov 2008

Yeading Community Conference

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I convened a community conference in Yeading today. In addition to the large number of residents associations and local community and environment groups that I work with or I have set up at the very local level, I have also been convening community conferences in each of the wards within my constituency. This is just another way of keeping in touch with local issues and bringing people together to tackle local problems and improve the quality of life in the area.

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Friday, 07 Nov 2008

Save Cherry Lane Cemetery Public Meeting at Botwell Church Hall at 7.30pm on 19 November

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We are holding a further public meeting about the threat to Cherry Lane Cemetery on 19th November at 7.30pm at Botwell Church Hall. The campaign is to save our cemetery from the threat of a road being driven through it by BAA as a link road to the proposed third runway and sixth terminal. The new runway will generate on BAA’s own figures at least 23 million additional vehicle movements a year. To get cars and lorries into and out of the expanded airport BAA have inevitably had to propose a new road network, including a road through our local cemetary. This is a disgraceful sacrilege, all to maximise BAA’s profits. We have mobilised a massive campaign amongst local residents and I have presented the campaign petition to Parliament and raised this issue in debates and in Prime Minister’s question time. We continue the fight against this disastrous proposal. Please do come along to the public meeting to see how you can help.

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Thursday, 06 Nov 2008

Visit to Hayes Station Site Ballymore Development

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I visited the new housing, hotel and shops development on the Station sidings site in Hayes Town Centre today. The site will contain a mixture of very high quality social and private housing. This includes a range of family sized properties and even some flats especially designed for people with disabilites Most of the new social housing will be for local families. Thames Valley Housing Association will own and manage the social housing and the properties that are part owned part rented. The new homes overlook the canal and a really lovely secure children’s play area. There is extensive CCTV on site, monitored by security staff and a property has been set aside with the aim of eventually locating a local police team for the town centre on the site. The buildings have been designed to new environmental standards with solar panels, a biomass heating system and all the garden areas watered by an eco system utilising rainwater drained from the roofs. There is a town square area on the site with shops. Already a Tesco’s Express and Starbucks have decided to locate there.

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Wednesday, 05 Nov 2008

Battle to Save BBC Jobs

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I attended a meeting with the General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Jeremy Dear, and Ofcom, the body set up to regulate the broadcasting industry. The reason for the meeting was that Ofcom is reviewing the future of public service broadcasting and will be making recommendations to the Government in the New Year about how the resources to maintain good quality broadcasting are to be raised. I have a number of constituents who work for the BBC in the nearby White City studios and in the broadcast media. I am anxious that the future of the BBC is secure and that there is no more privatisation or outsourcing of its services with further loss of jobs and reductions in the quality of its programming. I am also concerned about the cuts that have occurred in ITV, reducing ITV’s local public service broadcasting.

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Local Beekeeper Comes to Parliament for Help

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Tony Smith is a local beekeeper in Hayes. He has a number of hives in the area and produces some of the most delicious honey I have ever tasted. He has named it “Middlesex Honey.”

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