There were many important issues raised on Tuesday at the Southall Broadway Ward Forum meeting such as the Southall Gasworks update.

The chair Councillor Nagpal wanted to mention 4 items of information she had received from St James, the developers of the Southall Gasworks site. But she only managed to get one across before the residents started to express their views.

She said St James was going to install air quality monitoring equipment at the site. But the Beaconsfield Road residents wanted to know why so much dust falls on their cars every day. There is “so much dust that our plants have died”.

There are signs on the roads saying that Beaconsfield Road will be closed for 6 weeks. Why? The residents were NOT informed. They assumed it was due to the Southall Gasworks project.

Councillor Nagpal assumed that the residents knew that Beaconsfield road was at some stage going to be widened at the South Road junction and this was the reason the road was being closed for 6 week.

The council, councillors and those carrying out the work did not bother to update or inform the local residents. They assumed that they should have known or phoned up to find out.

Councillor Nagpal said that St James will not be carrying out the work at peak times in the morning and school hours in the afternoon. One resident pointed out that St James had earlier promised that there would no weekend work. So why the change?

There is a sign on South Road, for traffic turning right into Beaconsfield Road. It says no lorries over 40 tons. What will be the size of the lorries?

The residents insisted that the ward councillors get in touch with St James and find out what is happening and why they are not keeping their promises. Councillor Nagpal was happy to arrange a meeting between St James and the residents.

This was not good enough for the residents. They wanted the ward councillors to have a meeting with St James and update them. They wanted the councillors to represent the citizens and not take a back seat. The residents view was “You are our representative. You sort it out.”

When a resident pointed out “You work for us”, the chair Councillor Nagpal replied “You don’t pay our wages.”

This eventually amounted to “They are not listening to us. You are wasting your time” and a few people started to leave. Councillor Nagpal’s response was “Feel free to leave”.