THE controversial traffic restrictions at Fishers Lane raise the issue of transparency at Ealing Council.

Liberal Democrat Councillors have 'called in' the decision taken at Ealing Council Cabinet last Wednesday (22nd September).

We hope to get a better understanding as to how and why the Council came to the decision to make the changes at Fishers Lane permanent.

One of the most important roles of being a Councillor is to examine and challenge how the Council operates.

This is particularly important when one party has a super majority and can effectively do whatever they like.

In the case of Labour controlled Ealing, you have a ruling group with a big majority who have also made it increasingly difficult to challenge their actions.

To 'call in' a decision the opposition groups must work together to achieve the necessary threshold. This is not something Liberal Democrats enjoy doing, and I am sure the Conservative group also find it distasteful, but we have no choice if we are to successfully make an appeal to the Scrutiny Committee.

Liberal Democrats note that the changes made at Fishers Lane were carried out using Conservative Government COVID legislation.

The Government were offering large sums of money to local authorities to quickly introduce measures to enact social distancing. Hounslow moved quickly and closed Turnham Green Terrace.

At the time this was the pretext for the restrictions at Fishers Lane. Since then, Ealing have changed the rationale, and now justify the changes on the creation of a Safe Cycle Route linking Acton to Chiswick.

The report presented to Cabinet continued very little detail on Fishers Lane, and as many residents have pointed out, there was a contrast with the detailed information on the LTNs that were also discussed at the meeting.

The other difference is that the Council Leader, Peter Mason had given a commitment that a simple yes/no vote would decide the fate of LTNs.

Fishers Lane is not a LTN, although in practice there is little to distinguish it from a LTN.

However, we have no simple yes/no vote, residents in Southfield will take part in a formal, legalistic consultation where there are no questions to be asked just an email address to send in comments to the Council.

This formal so-called consultation is not binding. Having this ability to question the actions of the Council is important, it is a fundamental of any notion of local accountability, transparency, and democracy.