At a meeting of the Chiswick Area Forum last week, Chiswick Riverside Councillor Sam Hearn lambasted the treatment received by residents of Station Gardens in Chiswick from the Council’s new Highways contractor, Hounslow Highways.
In a written response to Local Councillors at the Forum, Hounslow Highways explained their decision to replace existing paving slabs with asphalt because the street was not in “the Conservation Area or Heritage Area as established by the LBH Conservation Team”. This is a bureaucratic nonsense. Station Gardens is the only street in the area that will lose it paving slabs.
A 128 strong petition was gathered from residents of the street and their close neighbours arguing for the original paving to be put back. This petition was fully supported by the local MP Mary Macleod. The petition was rejected by Labour Deputy Leader of Hounslow Council, Councillor Colin Ellar. Councillor Hearn said at the meeting, “Residents feel victimised by Hounslow Highways and are appalled that their petition has been ignored by Councillor Colin Ellar.”
Residents have complained about the shoddy workmanship by Hounslow Highway’s contractors; water pooling on uneven surfaces, old kerbstones replaced with damaged new ones, concrete left in front gardens and the failure to deal with a longstanding road alignment problem. In addition, one of Station Garden’s new LED street lights has been erected inside the canopy of a large street tree.
Fellow Conservative Councillor Gerald McGregor continued the attack saying, “Hounslow Highways are showing arrogance by not being at the meeting and cannot therefore be held to account.” Following this, Chiswick Conservative Councillors passed a motion demanding that a Hounslow Highways representative be at every Area Forum until the contract ends.
Latest figures reveal that Hounslow Highways has received over 20,000 enquiry/complaints since the project’s inception in January 2013.