Southfield Ward Forum has Rats!!!

Tonight's Southfield ward forum was lively, especially when we were talking about Ealing Council and its rubbish collection (adjective, not the noun!)

We had a great discussion about rubbish and how the Council and its contractor Enterprise was still failing to do its job correctly. It should collect our household waste, recyclables and sweep our streets efficiently. Instead the figures for the past two months show that it is failing misrably.

For example when I was told things were improving figures showed that in Ealing borough the contractor was doing its job worse in October than September. Hardly improving things. The Liberal Democrats believe that Enterprise should be fined and fined 'large'. They are letting down residents in most parts of the borough, especially Southfield.

Topics raised in this 'rubbish' (noun not an adjective) discussion were:

• One resident after moving some uncleared leaves on Woodstock Road discovered a dead rat. Very nice. Not.

• That a number of residents put our their waste on the wrong day. Ealing Council needs to be better at informing residents about the arrangements for the collection of waste and recyclables, especially those who have recently moved into the area or those who do not read English as their first language.

• The fact that many streets were swept BEFORE the household waste had been collected - leading to lots of extra waste being left on the street.

We had a visitor from ARK Priory Primary school to update us on the new school that is sited where the Priory Community Centre was sited. A number of questions were raised and the following were some of the main points raised:

Priory Community Centre

• When the school is built it will have two classes, each of 30 pupils where being located near to the school is an advantage.
• The company, ARK, are not from a religious nature but one of charity and education. Let's hope so.
• The Head of the school will be selected in the next week or so.
• There will be one teacher and one assistant per class.
• They have made a committment to having after school activities and breakfast clubs.
• When I asked about whether the displaced community groups, who can not get places at any other Acton based facilitiy, they will have the chance to rent the school in the evenings for a not-for-profit price. Quite right!

We then had the local police team who as usual gave a lot of great crime advice...

Gary Busuttil with the local police team

• Do not leave the curtains open with all the presents around the Christmas tree available. Again easy for a villain to spot possible homes with lots of presents to steal
• If you get a present at Xmas, make sure you tear up the wrappers as some criminals will notice the cardboard box for a plasma TV and then potentially break in and streal the said item.

If you want to know details of the next ward forum meeting please tweet me at @CllrGaryMalcolm or email me at southfield@ealinglibdems.org.uk