Cleaning up after the builders

Many thanks to whichever builder has decided that the car park of Beechcroft House was a good place to dump all of their waste. What a good idea that was.

As a result, we arranged for the removal of quite a lot of waste materials that had been left in the car park last week (see above picture). Dumped building waste is an occasional problem in Maida Vale and we've asked the local estate office to keep an eye on the area.

If you spot any dumped items in Maida Vale, Westminster Council will remove them for free - and will also try to prosecute anyone who it can prove has been dumping. Builders beware. Contact the Environment Action Line on 7641 2000 to report.

Lee

Working for our social housing

Last Monday, all three of us took the new Cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Philippa Roe, around Maida Vale to introduce her to all of our social housing properties and to discuss key issues that we believe need attention.

The tour began outside the Maida Centre, Lanark Road and took in the Scottish Towers, Carlton Vale, Randolph Gardens, Tollgate Gardens, Kilburn Park Road and Shirland Road. We concentrated particularly on a number of areas:

• Large Scottish Towers: the need to provide more support for the Scottish Towers TMO and for Glasgow House;
• Tollgate Gardens: the need to improve the look and feel of Tollgate for the benefit of all residents;
• Oak Tree House/Beechcroft House: the need to improve security and lighting in both of these properties, and;
• showing Philippa the success stories - like ABC Co-op, Torridon House and Carlton Vale RMO - which serve local residents so well.

During our visit we also picked up a number of issues which we have asked to be dealt with

• graffiti in and dumping outside Beechcroft House;
• lighting on Oak Tree House;
• lighting on Lanark Road, and;
• graffiti and weeds in Tollgate Gardens.

Jan, Alastair and Lee

Bike Racks in!

They're in!

The bike racks which we have lobbied for over the last few months were installed last week. Shirland Road (pictured above), the Lauderdale Road-Ashworth Road, Lauderdale Road-Biddulph Road, Elgin Avenue-Castellain Road and Castellain Road-Sutherland Avenue junctions all now have additional storage for bicycles.

We're very glad to be able to deliver on the promise we made to cycling residents last year.

The Council is currently seeking ideas for where to put cycle racks in the next round of installation. Please let us know if you would like a particular place to be considered.

Lee

Chief Executive Visit

Last night we welcomed Peter Rogers, Chief Executive of Westminster City Council, to Maida Vale for a tour of our neighbourhood and a discussion of the major issues affecting it.

We spent two hours showing Peter around almost all of the roads in our ward, and discussing the individual issues of each. We particularly highlighted:

• the need to improve security at Oak Tree House and Beechcroft House, on Shirland Road
• the continuing issues with City of Westminster College on Elgin Avenue
• the real need to address the problem of insufficient parking on Randolph Avenue
• the need for greater support for Paddington Boy's Club on Lanark Road
• the works about to start in Dibdin House
• the need to further improve and make secure the Tollgate Gardens Estate
• the planning application which has recently been lodged at the top of Kilburn Park Road
• the failure of Brent to resurface Kilburn Park Road
• the continuing difficulties created by Thames Water throughout the ward
• anti-social behaviour on the corner of Grantully and Ashworth Roads

We're very grateful to Peter for taking the time to come up and discuss Maida Vale. We are also hopeful that actually taking the officers to the issues on the ground - both yesterday and the other week with the Director of Transportation - can focus attention on how we can make Maida Vale even better.

Jan and Lee