News in Ealing

A few days ago, the Labour Mayor-led Metropolitan Police did a random "drugs test" in the streets of Shoreditch, proclaiming that it was for "women's safety". This was widely regarded as a PR stunt which most comments call "embarrassing".

If the police or any politician want to solve an issue then they need to listen, research and come up with ideas that show that the problem can be fixed or reduced.

Novak Djokovic is pathetic and will rightly face criticism for taking advantage of an exemption in Covid-19 rules to avoid being vaccinated ahead of the Australian Open.

The 20- time major champion has been condemned for his distrust of vaccines and his alternative approach, which appears to rely on the supposed healing power of water and positive thinking.

Keep in top shape this Christmas and New Year as Ealing Bootcamp share their six top tips on how to stay active, healthy and motivated in Winter:

Exercise with family/friends

Liberal Democrats delivered a shock by-election win in blow to PM and Conservatives.

The North Shropshire parliamentary by- election last night, was won by Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan by nearly 6,000 votes, taking the seat from the Conservative party with a huge swing of over 34%.

At an Ealing Full Council meeting on Tuesday, 14 December Southfield Councillor Andrew Steed asked the Labour Councillor responsible for tree management a number of questions about the management of contractors and why work has still not been done to prune trees in Southfield and across Ealing borough.

In the reply from the Cabinet Member, they admitted that they were forced to change their contractor when there were excessive delays in tree pruning.

Over many years Ealing Liberal Democrats councillors have said that Ealing Council should reduce the amount of stocks and shares it owns to prop up its pension funds that are from companies which many would say are unethical whether they be oil, coal, gas or cigarettes.

Local councils have over £10 billion invested in fossil fuels through their pension funds.

We read this week that hundreds of bus routes will be cancelled or frequencies cut across London, with many affecting our borough.

Whether it is the fault of a lack of investment from the Tory government or action from the Labour Mayor of London, residents want to see positive action to improve our public transport in Ealing. Both appear to be failing.

Planning is a subject that annoys a lot of people in Southfield and the whole borough of Ealing, and this includes the huge number of skyscrapers to be built in South Acton bordering Southfield as well as the very expensive flats in Ealing Broadway (£744,000 for a one bedroom flat in the Filmworks development). Hardly affordable housing!

Many of these newly built flats remain empty due to the developers' high sale prices.

In the last few weeks, Ealing Liberal Democrat councillors and other colleagues have been speaking to residents in our neighbourhood, and the lack of tree pruning has been repeatedly reflected on the doorstep.

Shockingly there are many examples of where the Council's approved contractors have marked the work as being 'complete' and it clearly was not.

The three Southfield Liberal Democrat Councillors have been running our monthly advice sessions for a couple of months since the Covid restrictions changed; some we ran outside to enable us to meet residents and listen to their concerns.

Since the tragedy of the MP Sir David Amess, who was murdered at his surgery, we have updated our plans to ensure that we and residents are safer but still able to meet with residents to hear problems they have with Ealing Council.