In all, I attended 33 meetings which is four more meetings in 2011-12 than the previous year.  One reason for this increase in the number of meetings is that this year has seen a few extra specially arranged council meetings in August following the riots, and again in May to debate the refuse and recycling problems after the change in council contractor from May Gurney to Enterprise. 

Furthermore, last year I was on a crime & community safety scrutiny panel which met five times, but this panel has been disbanded and I am now on a health scrutiny panel which meets more frequently.  Last year, though, I did also attend four extra meetings as a substitute for another Lib Dem councillor when they were unavailable which I have not been required to do this year.

In addition to all the council meetings, I have also attended a number of various other meetings across the year with Martin Smith, the Chief Executive of Ealing Council, and other senior council officers. I have also met with Ealing Police Borough Commander Andy Rowell and, unlike my Labour or Conservative colleagues, I have not missed a meeting of the Elthorne Safer Neighbourhood Team Police panel this year. I have also made a point of going to as many meetings of other local organisations that have an interest in Elthorne ward as time will allow over the year including Boston Manor Residents’ association, Olde Hanwell residents’ association, Hanwell Community Forum, West Ealing Neighbours and West Ealing Businesses.

Here is a copy of my council attendance record in 2011-12

For your information, here is my record of council attendance by meeting in 2010-11

As of March 23rd, the Met Police have closed Hanwell Police station. Hanwell Police station has not had a front counter for residents to report crime to for many years, but until recently it had housed the Safer Transport Team and Serious Youth Violence Unit so there was still a visible police presence in Hanwell with officers coming in and out of the building while it was being used. However, the Met Police feel that the building is no longer fit for purpose and that they need to reduce costs so they have closed the building and these teams have been relocated to Greenford and Southall. Inspector Susan Hayward, who is in charge of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams across Ealing has said that they will monitor anti-social behaviour and crime levels to ensure there is no increase in crime as a result of the closure, but there is obviously some concern in the community about the lack of police presence in Hanwell town centre as a result of the closure, especially as the Elthorne SNT are based outside the ward at Sainsburys in West Ealing.

Here are some of the latest crime statistics for the ward:-

In total there have been 14 incidents of violent crime in the ward since January including 4 cases of Grievous Bodily Harm, a sexual assault and an allegation of rape.

The team have also been dealing with the anti social behaviour eminating from a cafe in West Ealing as well as problems being caused by a group of street drinkers around the ward. The team have had some success with tackling drugs in the ward in Glastonbury Court on the Green Man Lane estate where CCTV has now been installed. The team have successfully uncovered a small cannabis factory (9 plants) on the estate.

The new ward priorities agreed at the meeting were tackling street drinkers, violent crime and motor vehicle crime.

There is also good news for residents in terms of a freeze in Ealing Council’s share of council tax with a 1% reduction in the precept set by the London Mayor. For a resident in Band D, that represents a £3.10 saving compared with 2011/12. The Lib Dem group on the London Assembly welcomed the decision by the Mayor to reduce council tax at a time when many families are struggling with wage freezes, as well as higher fuel costs  and transport fares. However, they felt that he did not go far enough in cutting wasteful spending on PR or the use of consultants and so proposed an alternative budget which would have resulted in a 4.2% reduction or £13.11 for a Band D taxpayer.

As they did last year, the Ealing Lib Dem council group also proposed their own budget proposals, including 10% cuts to councillors’ allowances, a 10% drop in staff salaries over £100,000, and 5% reductions to staff salaries between £75,000 and £100,000. Ealing has a number of well paid members of staff who have largely been affected by the cuts, while many more junior members of staff have lost their jobs, and we felt that councillors and senior management at the council could afford to make a small sacrifice to keep services going for the most vulnerable in our society. Moreover, the Lib Dems suggested removing the 10% council tax discount for second homes, and cancelling a few of the council’s major projects such as the £4.75 million plan to build a car park in Southall and £6.5 million spending on two new council hubs in Greenford and Southall. In return the Lib Dems would have used that money to reinstate planned social services cuts to supporting people in sheltered housing, and reversing the planned reduction in the respite care for people with learning disabilities provided at the Short Breaks centre in Green Lane, Hanwell.  The Lib Dem proposals would also have meant the end to the council’s plans to charge £40 for garden waste collection, which we believe is likely to result in reduced recycling rates, increases in flytipping or residents driving to recycling centres like Greenford to avoid paying the new fee.

The Ealing Liberal Democrat council group believes that our budget proposals twinned with the plans put forward by our Lib Dem colleagues on the London Assembly would have reduced council tax by an extra £10, helped many of the borough’s most vulnerable residents, kept garden waste recycling free and reduced the council’s long-term debt by over £11 million. However, unfortunately both the ruling Labour group and the Conservative group voted to reject the alternative Lib Dem budget.  The budget which was passed means that a band D tax payer will now pay council tax of £1366.65 made up of £1059.93 going towards Ealing Council and £306.72 to the London Mayor’s precept.

Unfortunately, the education system is failing far too many pupils who leave school without the knowledge and skills to be successful. Furthermore, the family background of a child is still a huge determinating factor in their life chances, with pupils from poor families three times less likely to achieve five good GCSEs than their more well off classmates.

Entitlement to Free School Meals is used as an indicator of numbers of poorer pupils in an area, and figures in Ealing are higher than the national average with 23% of children in primary schools and 26% at higher school. 

Nigel Bakhai is a Governor at Greenfields Childrens Centre in Southall

Education is the best way to end the under achievement of disadvantaged pupils by supporting children all the way from early years straight through to secondary school. That is why I am pleased that the Lib Dems in Government have ensured  that every school in Ealing will now receive £488 for every child on Free School Meals. Next year the Pupil Premium will rise to £600 per pupil.

For your information, I have included a list of the extra investment from the pupil premium in local schools across Elthorne ward:

Speaking on behalf of the Lib Dem council group, I raised a number of issues with the Outline Business Case for the merger “Stronger Together” approved by the board of Ealing Hospital Trust at its meeting in November, and in particular stated our total opposition to the unacceptable proposal of scenarios 3 and 4 in the report which would involve the downgrading Ealing Hospital from a District General Hospital to an Urgent Care Centre for the following reasons:

•Ambulance times and distances travelled would be longer which could be potentially life threatening if travelling through congested roads in an emergency if the A&E at Ealing Hospital is closed.

•Patients would be required to travel longer distances to access services which would greatly inconvenience patients attending appointments or their visitors in the event of a stay in hospital. This is compounded by the poor public transport connections between Ealing and Northwick Park.

•We are concerned about Northwick Park Hospital’s ability to cope with the additional patients it is likely to receive, especially in the Accident & Emergency unit. Following the recent announcement about overnight closures of the A&E at Central Middlesex Hospital, there is undoubtedly concern over the capacity of North West London Hospitals Trust to cope with existing demand, and this would be especially compounded if the A&E at Ealing Hospital were to close

•We would suggest Ealing Hospital Trust should re-consider other potential options for merger such as a merger with Hillingdon or even a merger for all 3 trusts. For many residents in Ealing it would be far more convenient to attend hospital appointments in Hillingdon than to go to Northwick Park. The financial savings estimated for a merger of all three trusts would also potentially be greater than the Outline Business Case envisages for the merger with NWLHT.

•We are concerned about the planned lack of consultation and communication with residents over the merger. Ealing Hospital Trust needs to consult with the public over the merger not just over service changes. Ealing Hospital does not currently meet Foundation Trust status and any merger potentially threatens A&E, Maternity and other services which do not currently meet government clinical best practice guidelines.

•NHS North West London is planning to begin a formal consultation on service changes across the whole of North West London in June while the current proposal in the Outline Business Case is for the merger to go ahead in July. We would therefore urge Ealing Hospital Trust to put its plans for merger on hold until we can understand the intentions of NHS North West London towards the future commissioning of services from Ealing Hospital. 

I concluded my speech by saying: “We would urge all sides in this chamber to put our political differences aside over this issue. I would therefore like to propose that all 3 party leaders write a joint letter to the Chief Executive of Ealing Hospital trust expressing their concern over the proposed merger and its potential impact on the future of Ealing Hospital. And we should work together in a cross-party campaign on behalf of all residents in the borough to oppose service changes at Ealing Hospital.”

Both Labour and Conservative leaders indicated at the meeting that they were willing to accept this suggestion, but neither party responded to the text of my proposed letter to the Chief Executive of Ealing Hospital Trust and in the end the Lib Dem council group were the sole signatories to the letter.

In 2010-2011, Elthorne had a budget of £40,000 and some of the funds from the ward forum went towards an alleygating scheme in Deans Road, establishing a new centre for providing arts in West Ealing, park benches in Elthorne Park, as well as lots of new cycle stands and street trees across the area.

Nigel Bakhai at King George's Field in Hanwell

The ward forum budget was initially reduced to £37,500 in 2011-2012, but Elthorne has been awarded an additional £10,000 for having the highest rate of recycling in the borough. This year, your local Lib Dem ward councillor has agreed to invest £30,000 from the ward forum budget in a shop front improvement scheme which will benefit 21 businesses on Boston Road and along the Uxbridge Road in Hanwell and West Ealing.

Cllr Nigel Bakhai at Hanwell Library

Obviously, whilst it is disappointing that the mobile library will be phased out, I am pleased that the council no longer plans to close the libraries at Hanwell, Northfields, Perivale and Northolt Leisure Centre. I spoke at the meeting and thanked the Portfolio holder Cllr Ranjit Dheer on behalf of the Lib Dem group for his statement that these libraries would be saved. However, I added that the results of the council’s public consultation into libraries is due later this month and that we will have to wait to see the council’s proposals in detail. In particular, we will have to scrutinize the budget cuts that they plan to make in the library service and the role that volunteers will be expected to play in the running of libraries in the future.

Ealing Lib Dems were totally opposed to library closures in the borough, and I hope that we played our part in the council’s u-turn by signing petitions, asking awkward questions in the council chamber and by showing through our alternative budget proposals that the council could easily find the money to keep these libraries open if they had the political will.  However, I would particularly like to pay tribute to the fantastic efforts of library campaigners around Ealing to collect thousands of signatures over the last few months which has forced this decision. As one of the three ward councillors for Elthorne where Hanwell Library is situated, I would especially like to thank Carolyn Brown and the Hanwell Community Forum for organising the local campaign to save Hanwell Library and showing just how important a community facility Hanwell Library is to the area and local people.

First of all, I have had one of the best attendance records of all councillors over the past twelve months and have not missed a single meeting of full council (this is the main meeting for all 69 councillors across Ealing) , the Elthorne ward forum or the Crime & Community Safety Scrutiny Panel on which I served. I alternated meetings with Cllr Jon Ball as the Lib Dem representative on the Planning Committe, but I also attended meetings of Sacre (a committee on Religious Education in schools), and the School Travel Scrutiny Panel as a substitute for other Lib Dem Councillors when they could not attend. In addition to all the various council meetings that I went to,  I am the Vice-Chair of the Governing Body of Greenfields Children’s Centre in Southall where I chair the Finance, Property and Personnel committee, and I have been to numerous meetings of other bodies including the Hanwell Community Forum, Olde Hanwell Residents Association, the Ealing Police & Community Consultative Group and the Elthorne Safer Neighbourhood Police Focus Group.

However, I have not just attended meetings but, more importantly, I have raised a number of important issues on behalf of local residents in Elthorne in the council chamber  including Hanwell Community Centre, as well as to scrutinise decision-making and to hold the ruling Labour group to account for some of their unnecessary budget cuts, in particular those impacting frontline services such as reductions in the numbers of park rangers, and questioning their plans to close Hanwell and other libraries around the borough. I spoke in favour of the Green Man Lane estate redevelopment when it was passed by the Planning Committee in September, and I successfully opposed plans to demolish three late Victorian terrace houses on the Uxbridge Road in Hanwell. I have met with Transport for London and transport planners at Ealing Council to discuss a pedestrian crossing at the Church Road and St.George’s Road junctions with the Uxbridge Road, as well as meeting council officers to progress road safety schemes by St. Mark’s Primary School on Lower Boston Road and along the Boston Road. I have worked in conjunction with the Police and the Council to tackle the problems of drug dealing, anti-social behaviour and, in recent weeks, to prevent  illegal raves in the Brent River Park. Finally, but not leastly, I have also dealt with numerous personal matters and other council related issues on behalf of residents including amongst other things, arranging for a disabled parking bay, fixing council housing repairs, potholes and broken road signs, as well as clearing fly-tipping  across West Ealing and Hanwell. 

Unfortunately, I’m afraid with all this workload I haven’t the time to write about all my activities over the past twelve months in more detail here, but I hope this brief report shows that I am totally committed to working hard for residents and for our area. Please feel free to contact me if you have an issue and you think I can help.

Yours sincerely

Cllr Nigel Bakhai

For a resident in Band D, their council tax of £1369.75 is made up of £1059.93 going towards Ealing Council and £309.82 to the London Mayor’s precept. 

There are a number of significant new capital investments that the Liberal Democrat council group welcomed including £45 million on Primary School expansion given the increasing school age population and £3.6 million on updating the council’s outdated IT infrastructure.

The Lib Dems also accept that Ealing Council needs to make tough choices in order to achieve savings of £55 million by 2013/14 following a 12.3% reduction in the central government grant on a like-for-like basis from £165.7 million to £145.4 million in 2011/12 with a further reduction of 8.4% down to £132.3 million in 2012/13.

At the time of the budget meeting, Ealing Council had announced £35.9 million of the proposed savings with a further £19.1 million of “items in development” still to be worked out. Almost all areas of the council budget are likely to be affected by the cuts with around 300 council staff expected to lose their jobs, the closure of the Albert Dane centre for the disabled, reductions in grants to voluntary groups, plans to sell a number of council owned properties around the borough, as well as increases in parking charges and other fees. 

The Lib Dem group argued for an amendment to the budget which would have cut councillors’ basic pay by 10% and cancelled the council’s £5.5 million borrowing to build a new car park in Southall and re-allocated the savings to be spent on retaining more front-line jobs like Park Rangers and Enviro-crime Prevention Officers to keep parks and streets safer and cleaner, as well as investing in Libraries, pavements and road repairs. However, despite the fact that the Conservative group sided with us, the amendment was defeated by the majority Labour group.

Here is a summary of the Liberal Democrat budget proposals:

I was told that the council is planning to hold a public consultation over the future of the library service in the borough starting at the end of the month. Although, Councillor Dhindsa said that as yet no decision had been taken to close any library, the main considerations that the Council said they were using the review for was to decide whether there should be “fewer but better libraries”, and another was “to stop doing things that are no longer cost effective”. Given that Hanwell Library is currently in a state of disrepair following many years of neglect, I fear that this effectively signals that the future of Hanwell Library is under threat. 

Libraries are a vital community service used by all ages and while all of us accept that there is a need to manage reduced budgets in the current economic climate,  I believe Ealing Council should be looking for new ways to modernise and make better use of the current library service rather than close buildings.