PARKS AND RECREATION

Falling Leaves

The cycle path across the Green, alongside the canal, runs past our contractors' compound, and they have regularly sent blokes out to clean the path up, hosing down any mud that delivery lorries have brought onto it, and sweeping up rubbish and leaves. There are, of course, lots of leaves, as there is a row of black poplars between the compound and the path, so, back in the autumn, our people were quite busy sweeping them up. The remainder of the path, however, beyond our compound, is a very different matter. Westminster Parks finally cleared the fallen leaves from the path this week; at the end of February. They had spent a couple of days working on it earlier in the month, but one section was left untouched until this week. Now, I imagine that they justify this by saying that it would need repeated visits if they were to try to clear the leaves when they were actually falling, but they made repeated visits anyway! I am perfectly sure that leaves which have piled up and then been rained on, partially rotting them down, are actually more effort to clear because they are much heavier. More to the point, as a cyclist, I am fed up with (in places) half the width of the path being covered by a mound of slippery dead leaves. Still, I must be grateful that it has finally been done; it's boring just to moan about the stupidity of the Parks Department.


Blurred Lines

It's quite boring to moan about the stupidity of people's parking round here as well, but forgive me, I feel the need. Some time ago I was one of several people who agitated for double yellow lines to extend over the Harrow Road canal bridge on the east side of the road (they already existed on the west) because cars parked there completely blocked the view of anyone coming out from the Green, either to cross the road on foot or to pull out on a bike (which I do every day). That was done, which is a great help, but the problem is that people just ignore them, particularly at night. There seems to be a general view that single yellow lines are just advisory, and don't apply after lunchtime on the Harrow Road, and that as long as you are not parking overnight then it's fine to park on a double yellow line as well. It may simply be the calculation that Westminster never sends "civil enforcement officers" out after dark, and so you are perfectly safe from a fine. It may be that civil enforcement officers are seen so rarely in our area that people gamble on their absence anyway, or it may be that people have observed that when they are here they are only really interested in cars parked wrongly in marked bays, and pay little attention to yellow lines or dangerously parked vehicles.

I sometimes feel as I zigzag around illegally-parked cars that vigilantism is justified in these circumstances; if I possessed a paintball gun I would be very happy to splat the windscreens of miscreants. It's an ignoble impulse, I know, but it would be so satisfying. Self-righteousness is a very unattractive emotion, isn't it!


Royal Choak

The campaign against the ludicrous TfL plan to put a coach station at Royal Oak gathers pace. There is a public meeting at the Porchester Hall on Shrove Tuesday at 7pm, which I am encouraging people to go to.The campaigners have set up a website, www.stoproyalchoak.com which has links to the two petitions against the plan, which are still collecting signatures. They want to submit the petitions on 14th March, so we are urging people to sign up quickly. One odd feature of this is that no-one actually knows when TfL will be making a decision about this; everything is shrouded in mystery. The campaigners are rightly concentrating on the pollution issue, (hence "Choak") because the plan promises to bring hundreds of extra coaches daily onto the Marylebone Road, which already has the worst air quality of anywhere in the UK.  The number of schools within a few yards of the road is ridiculous, and they stand to find their air quality becoming even more dangerous. On the Warwick Estate we shall be right in the firing line; how will people feel using our excellent outdoor gym equipment when the air is full of diesel fumes?

The thing that nice, polite people are not saying publicly is that  they really fear the social fallout of a coach station, because we all know that one of the factors in Victoria being a centre for rough sleeping is the presence of the coach station. It is on the coach that the penniless newcomer arrives in London (when not actually trafficked). Over the decades Victoria has developed an infrastructure to deal with this, which we simply do not have in Westbourne or Bayswater. We already have rough sleepers of our own who we struggle to support, without adding in a whole lot of newcomers. The Leader of the Council is eloquent in questioning Westminster's responsibility for all the homeless people who actively choose to come here, and while I may be a bit uncomfortable with that approach, I suspect we would all be agreeing with her if they appeared on our pavements in Westbourne.


Predictive Text

Our new building is faced with panels of glazed terracotta, or faience as it is sometimes called, a characteristically late-Victorian material. I have run into all sorts of confusion recently because if you try to type faience into your phone you will inevitably find it "corrected" to fiance; now I have a fiancee it adds even more potential for bafflement. The good thing is that the specialist facade contractors are making really good progress, and are hanging the faience panels on the Rowington Close front now. The faience is wonderfully highly glazed, and looks really good, even though it's hard to see it properly as it is still obscured by scaffolding. It really glittered on the sunny days we have just enjoyed. There is a relief pattern in the faience, which is going to look splendid, and which picks up a detail of Street's brickwork, which I am very pleased with. There is only one manufacturer in the UK who makes glazed terracotta, so we are delighted to have them making these panels to our specification; they have just made a much larger quantity of white faience for the restoration of the Victoria Palace Theatre, and we were always a bit anxious that our rather small order might get bumped down the schedule by another really big one, so it's a relief to see it all on site, and indeed going up on the walls. Nearly there!