A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Hounslow Council’s £240 million gamble with our money – a huge loan to the Lampton Group, a company wholly owned by the council, which has failed to make a profit in over a decade. The Leader of Hounslow Council, Cllr Rajawat, wrote a very short response last week, which suggested instead of taking the issue seriously, he’s burying his head in the sand at the scale of our borough’s financial crisis.
If you look across the council’s recent performance, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the same attitude runs through much of what this administration does: big headlines, little delivery, and a growing detachment from reality. The latest example came quietly, in new figures from City Hall: just one affordable home was started in Hounslow between April and September this year. One. In a borough with thousands of people on waiting lists, that number speaks for itself.
At this week’s Cabinet meeting, the Labour leadership again talked about ‘accelerating delivery’ and ‘unlocking regeneration’. But this has become a familiar tune, lots of strategy documents, little building. When a council is running housing through multiple subsidiaries, committees and ‘enabling partnerships’, but ends up delivering a single affordable unit in half a year, it’s time to ask serious questions about competence.
This isn’t a one-off failure, either. Across departments, you see the same pattern: ambitious targets set with great fanfare, then quietly missed or delayed, usually blamed on external factors. Meanwhile, the council’s reserves are being drawn down to cover overspends, capital projects are slipping, and debt levels keep climbing.
To make matters worse, residents are increasingly paying the price. Council Tax has gone up again this year. Parking fees have risen. And despite all that, services like waste collection, pothole repair, and street cleaning remain some of the biggest sources of complaint. The council often insists it has no choice, that these are the ‘tough decisions’ of the times. But what residents see are priorities out of balance: more money spent on bureaucracy and PR, less on the basics.
Look at the Lampton Group as an example: the council has borrowed £174 million to give to Lampton, whilst at the same time cutting funding for streetlighting and road maintenance. On what planet is this the right priority?
What residents deserve is a council that is honest about what it can realistically deliver and transparent about how it spends their money. Instead, we get photo ops and self-congratulation.
We need to see a return to basics: responsible spending, open reporting, and measurable results.
The role of opposition councillors isn’t just to criticise but to hold the administration to account, ask the difficult questions, and make sure residents get value for every pound spent. That’s what I’ll continue to do.
Because beneath all the glossy talk of ‘vision’ and ‘strategy’, there’s a simple truth: leadership isn’t about how many times you can say you’re ambitious, it’s about actually delivering something. And on that measure, Hounslow’s Labour administration doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny.