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I could not make it to the Southall Broadway Ward Forum

Sat 16 Jul 2016
A lot of people turned up for the Southall Broadway Ward Forum meeting on Tuesday and were not very happy about a lot of different things.

It should NOT be assumed that just because somebody did not turn up to the meeting that they don’t have serious problems. They may have had good reasons.

If a problem is not looked at promptly, it can escalate into something far more serious. Then it becomes far more difficult to resolve.

One or two fruit stall owners, on Southall Broadway, have been making the lives of residents a misery. This has been going on for FAR TOO MANY YEARS and is NOW being addressed.

These are the steps that lead to this situation:

(1) House owners are not allowed to extend their houses as much as they want. Yet ALL the shops on Southall Broadway have been ALLOWED to build on every inch of space they have at the rear.

(2) They have been extended so much that there is NO space for their rubbish bins inside THEIR property.

(3) The ground floor shop can be converted into as many as 5 separate businesses. The front pavement can be let out to someone else. A fruit stall in this particular case.

(4) The 2 top floors can be let out to tenants.

(5) How many business bins, rubbish bins does this ONE property need and where will they be placed?

(6) What if the fruit stall owner decides to behave irresponsibility. How? He only has a stall at the front of the shop. He has no storage area. So, he uses the SHARED back alley as his storage area. He has a lot of stock. He also dumps his empty cardboard boxes and other rubbish here. He also stores the large business bin there.

(7) There is hardly any room for the tenants who live above the shops to enter/leave their property. The area stinks of rotten fruit. Where do they put their black rubbish bags? The back alley is full. So the only other place is the pavements nearby – yards away from the town centre. Is this acceptable behaviour by a single stall holder?

(8) Where do the 5 other business in the shop place their rubbish? The back alley is full. So the only other place is the pavements nearby – yards away from the town centre. Is this acceptable behaviour by a single stall holder?

(9) All this stock/rubbish is NOT stored next to the shop wall. It is stored against the opposite wall. That resident cannot use his garage at the back of his property. He can smell the stench of rotten fruit from his front and back garden 24 hours of the day. The rotten fruit waste even seeps into his property. Does the fruit stall owner give a damn? No. A gutter on the road, right in front of this resident’s house gets regularly blocked due to waste from the fruit stall holders. Do you know what rotten fruit smells like?

(10) How would it have felt, to have spent your final months/years in that situation, unable to sit in your front or back garden for any amount of time? How would you feel, if your parent/grandparent had to endure that diabolical situation. “I would not be able to come out of the house, let alone sit in the garden.”

(11) The business bins leak – rotten fruit waste in the back alley. It is placed on the street for days and can be seen leaking. Wet waste comes out of the black bags in the alley.

(12) Lots of residents have seen people URINATE in the back alley. Some have even been photographed. They urinate all over the place. They have even been seen to URINATE on the main street (next to the back alley), yards from the town centre. I have seen a drink/drug/homeless person do so on a bench on Southall Broadway in the peak hours. Is the fruit stored here SUITABLE to be SOLD on Southall Broadway?

(13) All it takes is a bit of rain or wind to create a bigger mess around the area. The business bins are overfilled and open – prompting others opportunists to dump as well. There is usually some rotten fruit left behind after the collection, next to the (regularly blocked) drain. You would be fined £50 for dropping a crisp packet or ice cream on the floor.

(14) The behaviour of a SINGLE mini business is forcing others to dump rubbish on the pavement and ruining the lives of decent law abiding citizens.

(15) ALL this can be verified by speaking to ANY resident that lives there or walks past.

(16) Back alleys, close to Southall Broadway, are favourite place for drunks and druggies to gather. Where do they go to urinate? Empty beer cans are visible on the pavements for ALL to see.

If these people had any decency they would have stopped years and years ago. Even telling them to go ***** themselves has had no effect on them.

For years the residents heard and heard and heard “Oh, it’s private land, the Council can’t do anything.”

Then they heard “Oh, it’s a shared communal area, we can do very little.”

The ONLY thing they should be ALLOWED to leave is their BIN against THEIR wall.
They should be prosecuted for using the back alley as THEIR OWN property.
They should be prosecuted for selling fruit UNFIT for human consumption.
They should compensate the family who have had to endure their stupidity.

Excuses:
First excuse was – we don’t leave our fresh stock on the pavement for hours.
Second excuse was - we don’t store any fruit overnight.
Third excuse was - the stored boxes contained rotten fruit – stored 24 hours a day – 7 days a week.

The only way to get it (mostly) resolved was to PUT the BARE facts in front of EVERYONE, again and again. This situation should not have been allowed to deteriorate to this extent.

Is there any point in bringing this all up? Yes. There is no point in deluding yourself and brushing it under the carpet just for the sake of your foolish pride.

As soon as you clear some rubbish from the pavements – more soon appears.You need to be aware of what you don’t want and what will happen if you look the other way (for too long).

Hopefully things won’t go back to the bad old ways, now that EVERYONE knows.

See for yourself.

Note: The efforts of EVERYONE involved in sorting out this issue are GREALY appreciated by the local residents.


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