A meeting was held this evening at Hambrough Primary School, Southall to hear about and discuss proposal to make Southall a better place to live, work and shop.

The biggest part of the development is concerned with the Southall Gasworks.

Although the number of people per household is declining in London, this is not true of Southall, which is a heavily populated area.

What will be the consequences of building 3 thousand developments that will result in additional 6 to 8 thousand residents? Will that add additional pressure on already stretched services? How will the already congested roads cope?

Will the new development get all the money while the current Southall remain neglected, creating a “them and us” situation?

Will the heavily polluted land be safe? What about the air quality? The gathered residents demanded that this time they wanted access to technical information so that it can be independently verified.

Alan Jones a resident of Southall for 67 years pointed out that Hounslow is a 100 times better than Southall due to the drugs, graffiti and crime around Southall Broadway.

The audience was in agreement that Southall is no longer what is used to be and is in a lot worse state due to past neglect. The audience put it down to the “apartheid” created between Ealing and Southall. The presenters took “offence” at the suggestion only to be reminded by audience “it was true” none the less.

One of the presenters stated that he was late due to being stuck on Uxbridge road for 2 hours. This came as no surprise to all those residents present.

The “Framework for Southall” proposal, a 70 page document, which was presented as a “net benefit to Southall” will be made available on the council website in the near future.

The next step is to have more meeting with the residents.