There was an excellent turn out at the Southall Broadway Ward Forum meetings held on Tuesday.

The meeting was chaired by Councillor Kamaljit Kaur Nagpal. The other councillor present was Councillor Sanjay Kohli as Councillor Sarfraz Ahmed Khan was absent.

The meeting co-ordinator was Evelyn Gloyn who replaced the long serving Dennis Frost. She laid out the ground rules for the meeting but forgot to mention that if any Councillor was not present then that fact needs to be stated at the start.

It was a badly managed and very slow moving meeting that was meant to last 2 hours. Even when lots of residents had turned up and the next meeting won’t be until February 2016, the chair still allowed private conversations off the microphone. This lead to one or two individuals complaining and even wasting more time.

It was so chaotic that it was difficult to tell if everything on the agenda was covered. After 9pm people started leaving and the meeting had to be wound up before 10pm, as the room had only been booked for so long.

Some of the issues raised were:

• Councillor Nagpal said that new rubbish collection “does work. There are always teething problems” but the residents strongly disagreed.
• Problems associated with drinking and alcohol were still being experienced by residents everywhere
• Residents were not being kept informed of the Southall Gasworks latest steps. They were not aware why Beaconsfield Road was being closed for 6 weeks. They wanted their councillors to represent them and sort out any problems. They were experiencing daily dust problems that were even killing their plants.
• Who do the councillors work for? The residents assumed that it was them. Councillor Nagpal reminded them that “You don’t pay our wages.”
• An elderly resident was told “I will kill you” if you complain about me dumping rubbish on your property.
• Youths loitering around and targeting a woman at home who have “scared the life out of me” for years.
• Residents demanding more Ward Forum meetings so that they can publicly raise their issues
• Herbert Road car traffic problem have not be resolved just because there were fewer actual complaints
• The Police and Council have to go through lengthy procedures which mean that people continue to suffer for far too long.