Why was there confusion about the date and venue of this meeting of the Southall Broadway Ward Forum meeting? The response is, there was none, as the next Southall Broadway Wad Forum Meeting is always listed on the Agenda of the previous ward forum meeting?

The previous ward forum meeting was on Thursday 10th July 2014. It lists on the Agenda that the next ward forum meeting will be on 18th September 2014. This was not the case. It was held on 30th September 2014. What is more, the date on the Ealing Council website, for all Southall Broadway Ward Forum meetings, was neither of these dates for a very long time. Residents were given 3 different dates for same meeting.

Even on the 30th September 2014, many of the residents turned up at the wrong venue, because although the date had been corrected, the address listed on the Council website was and still is wrong.

www.ealing.gov.uk/info/200916/ward_forums/1182/southall_broadway_ward_forum lists the address as "St Georges Community Centre, 8-12 Lancaster Rd, Southall, Middlesex UB1 1NW".

This is where many of the residents turned but the actual meeting was held at the St George’s Church on the same road. The address on the Agenda for this meeting was also wrong.

Was the meeting itself any better organised? Lots of people turned up, so much that there not sufficient seats, prompting people asked why?

A lot of the residents were concerned with the gas works project. When will the work commence? Which route will the lorries take? Would there be extra congestion on Beaconsfield Road? What about potential health issues with the carriage of hazardous material?

We were misled about no extra traffic on Beaconsfield Road due to work on the Broadway, as buses are NOW running on it until midnight. As stated in the last meeting, all the road humps on Beaconsfield Road were removed under the false pretence of “gulley cleaning”; when it was being done for benefit of buses that were BEING planned to run on it.

A lot of the time was spent on talking on the gas works project. There was no gas works person present to be questioned. Why not? Because no resident had requested it, even though the council/councillors are responsible for organising the meeting.

A person will be available in 2015. Won’t that be too late, as the next ward forum will be in February 2015?

Residents are still confused about a lot of the issues. The site will be demolished in phase one, which starts in 2015. Phase two will deal with decontaminating the site.

As expected, the residents are not happy about the drinking and anti-social behaviour that is clearly visible on the streets. There seems to no visible enforcement taking place. Residents feel that the people in charge do not tolerate it elsewhere in the borough but find it acceptable in Southall.

The Beaconsfield Road/South Road junction has been and still is a very dangerous junction, where motorists drive through red lights and are not bothered about getting in the correct lane. Do the cameras at the junction work? If they did, surely people would have been prosecuted and got the message by now?

The ward forum has a budget for local projects that benefit the local community (especially in the ward). People are encouraged to come forward with their project otherwise the money will be spent on the wrong projects.

A sheet listing all the projects without much detail is supplied at the meeting.

One resident pointed out that, it is the residents and not the councillors who decide how much each project should be awarded. The councillors may have the full project detail but the residents have very little information and waste valuable time asking questions in the meetings. In future, residents should be supplied with sufficient written details as to what the project is and exactly how the money is to be spent.

This way residents can make informed decision rather than say that seems OK. Why did nobody think of this before? Supply the decision makers with sufficient details rather than say we discussed it in the last meeting. Some people can’t remember what they had for breakfast (if any). Project allocations can and should change.

Update:
Due to too much time being spent on the gas works project, not enough time was given to the impact to businesses due to the Southall Broadway work. Many businesses came to this meeting to find an answer for this and ask the councillors for help. They were told that the work is not behind schedule and will complete just before Xmas. Don't expect any help as it is only available in very extreme cases.