I actually think that Chiswick is best in the autumn - leaves beginning to change colour as you wander through Chiswick House, a cold early morning mist along Strand on the Green. It’s also, usually, one of the busiest times of the year for your local councillors; both in terms of casework and as we begin to review a raft of financial information from the council in preparation for Hounslow’s budget early next year.
Thankfully the bulk of that work won’t start until later this month, so this blog will be focussed solely on yet another busy week in Chiswick.
Cafe Together returns
I wanted to kick off this week’s blog with the news that brilliant local charity Cafe Together has returned to Chiswick this month to offer warm lunches, company and assistance to people in need at St Michael’s on Elmwood Road.
The charity will be open at the church on Thursdays this month from midday to 1:30pm, offering meals and a place to talk to volunteers (and councillors) about anything from financial worries to simply being a place to combat loneliness. The charity has been going for years across the borough, and is currently running a concurrent service at St Michael and St Martin Church on Bath Road, Hounslow on Mondays between 6:30pm and 8:30pm.
This charity is an invaluable resource for local people, particularly as the winter months come in, and the full impact of the decision to withdraw the Universal Winter Fuel Allowance begins to be felt in our borough.
As local councillors, we don’t have the power to overturn the new government’s decision to withdraw the Universal Winter Fuel Allowance (a decision which unfortunately was backed by our local MP Andy Slaughter) but, as I wrote last month, Councillor Peter Thompson and I were able to force Hounslow Council to take local action to mitigate its impact on some of our more vulnerable elderly residents. Thanks to our motion, the local authority will now work with local charities to identify and support those in need due to the government’s decision, hopefully at least partially softening the blow of a £450 increase in bills over the next few months.
Cafe Together is a fantastic service for local people, and I encourage anybody facing financial worries, potential homelessness or simply looking for a warm meal and friendly conversation to visit.
Gingko Corner
It feels like the much-needed regeneration of the car park outside of the old Chiswick police station has been on the local agenda for ages, but I’m excited that at least part of the area looks set to get a facelift very soon thanks to the Gingko Corner project.
Led by the Flower Market team and designed by brilliant landscape architect Luke Greysmith, the project will see the small planting area currently outside the old police station transformed into a “welcoming, beautiful and accessible green space for the use of residents and visitors to Chiswick town centre.” Sounds great!
Regeneration projects like this, and the current projects ongoing around Dukes Meadows (which I’m also very excited about!) are absolutely fantastic, and do so much to improve our local area. There’s still time to have your say on the Hounslow Council consultation for this refresh, which can be found online here.
Rosh Hashanah
This blog will go out just as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, wraps up - Shana Tova to all who were celebrating! Along with other councillors, I was pleased to be able to attend an exhibition on Jewish life at Chiswick Town Hall earlier this year, where amongst other things we learnt about the significance of the Jewish New Year and its focus on reflection and the promise of a fresh start.
This year’s festival will have a particular poignancy, coming as it does so close to the first anniversary of the barbaric Hamas attacks of October 7th. It’s been a challenging year for London’s Jewish community, with the attacks sparking a wave of anti-semitism across our city, with anti-Jewish hate crime in London rising over 1,000% in the wake of the attack. It’s a stain on a city as proudly tolerant and welcoming as ours that this level of hatred has reared its head over the past 12 months.
As I did earlier this week in my column in another local newspaper, I want to take this opportunity to say that my colleagues and I stand squarely and unequivocally with the Jewish community, who have brought so much to our city, against anti-semitism and the horrific rise in hatred over the past year.
