Maida Vale and Little Venice – August 2022

19th August, 2022

Cycling News

We’re very pleased to welcome the latest bike hangars to Maida Vale. They are very popular and we hope the extra units will help bring down the waiting list. New locations include Lauderdale Road, Grantully Road, and Lanark Road. We’re also expecting extra cycle stands in September – two on Kilburn Park Road and one on Randolph Gardens outside Torridon House.

We’re also pleased that the new Labour administration in Westminster has allocated budget for a Santander Bike station at Paddington Rec and will also be introducing a pilot scheme for cargo bike rental. We’ll give you more news when we have it.

Helping with the Cost of Living

It’s been 100 days since Labour began leading Westminster Council for the first time, and we’ve been focused on helping residents with the cost of living. As part of our £5.6m package, we’re investing £130,000 in foodbanks, £340,000 into holiday activities and food for families, and keeping council tax frozen. Find out more about what we’ve been up to here.

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NEWS, CASEWORK AND ACTION

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LOCAL NEWS AND ISSUES

Flower Baskets – We’re delighted to welcome back the hanging flower baskets in Maida Vale and Little Venice this summer. They are funded from the Maida Vale Ward budget and are always very popular. We placed an additional order to add baskets to the new streets which have recently joined Maida Vale – Lanhill, Grittleton, Chippenham and part of the west side of Shirland Road. Unfortunately, the supplier failed to process the order and we have missed the opportunity for 2022. We’ll make sure they are included next year.

Paddington Recreation Ground – We met with Westminster’s parks and leisure team for a regular update on Paddington Rec. We’re pleased that urgent works to the footpaths are scheduled soon, as many of you have written to us about the poor state of these, especially when it rains. Officers also told us that they would be asking for investment in the playground where equipment has broken or worn out. The playground has been much more popular than anyone expected (which is great) but heavy use does mean more frequent repairs are needed. Finally, we learned that Westminster’s tree team has advised that the conifers at the rear of the football pitch (which are not flourishing) be replaced with new trees to form a “wildlife corridor” from the Morshead Gate to the Nature Reserve. We’ll let you know more when we see the detailed plans.

Flooding update – The independent inquiry into the floods of 12 July last year has produced its final report which includes recommendations. You can read the full version here. There’s also a good piece in the Evening Standard.

With Adam Hug, leader of Westminster Council, and senior officers, we met with Thames Water to hear their plans for next steps. We made it clear that our residents need swift action to minimise the chances of the 12 July floods happening again. We were encouraged that Thames is serious about non-return valves and is willing to fund sustainable urban drainage (SUDS). The Council itself will be producing a final version of its S109 report and we’ll let you know as soon as this is ready.

Meanwhile, we continue to press for action to make sure that all residents can still get insurance at a reasonable price. Recent confusion at the heart of Government has made this slow going.

We have a special email list for people affected by the floods. If you’d like to subscribe, please let us know.

City Inspector – We’ve been busy with the City Inspector on a number of issues, including littering on Elgin Avenue, waste dumping on Elgin Avenue, planning to remove the RSJ’s dumped on Lanark Road (more difficult than we’d expected), and patrolling Essendine Road which has become a mattress dumping hotspot.

Planned Preventative Maintenance – Working with Paddington Waterways, our local amenity society, we have nominated three streets to be included in the next round of planned preventative maintenance. This is Westminster’s regular programme of upgrades and repairs to the highway and pavements. Our nominations are:

Lanhill Rd – Renewal of footway both sides, full length.
Chippenham Rd – Renewal of footway east side between Lanhill Rd and Shirland Rd.
Lauderdale Rd – Renewal of footway south side between 1 – 21 and 265 – 273 Lauderdale Mansions

Oxford Road and Kilburn Park Road, where pavements are in poor repair, are included already in this year’s programme.

WORK ON YOUR STREETS

Andover Place – We have asked officers not to proceed with a proposed highways scheme which would have made Andover Place one-way. In our view, there are cheaper and less intrusive ways of reducing traffic at school drop-off and pick-up times and have asked officers to work with the school on alternative options.

Lauderdale Parade – After a very long delay, Council officers have finally reached agreement with Chelo regarding its kitchen ventilation, which has been causing a longstanding nuisance to the residential flats upstairs. They told us “the premises have submitted a satisfactory scheme for the prevention of odour nuisance from the kitchen extract ventilation… the premises will then start the work to alter their current ventilation and the problem should hopefully be resolved.”

City Inspectors have also been liaising with local businesses to make sure that tables and chairs are put away each evening and not left on the pavements.

Kilburn Park Road Works – Residents have been asking when Westminster will start major works to the exterior of its houses. Council officers told us: “Design development work is currently ongoing …. To date, all 64 properties included within the project have had preliminary surveys carried out and drone surveys completed (in order to establish the condition of roofs and other inaccessible parts… our intention is to start works as soon as possible and, to the this end, we expect to able to carry out S20 consultation by October.”

Kilburn Park Road Parking – Cllr Rita Begum (who now represents Kilburn on Brent Council) contacted its parking team on our behalf to ask whether controlled parking hours on the Brent side of the road could match Westminster’s – that is, free parking on Saturday mornings. Brent Council replied:

“The Council would only undertake a review of CPZ operational times when requests are received from Brent residents and businesses etc. and a petition to demonstrate support. In this instance the issue is that there is high demand for the bays in the Westminster side of the street. To mitigate this an option could be for Westminster to extend the hours to cover Saturdays.”

We have asked Westminster’s parking team to meet their Brent counterparts to see what options might be available. Meanwhile, a city-wide parking occupancy survey is underway and will report in October. We’re hoping this will give us the evidence we need for stronger controls on Kilburn Park Road so that residents can more easily find places to park.

Grantully Road – We reported the poor state of three trees on Grantully Road to the tree team. One was quickly restored to vertical but two other new trees will need replacing.

Oxford Road – A resident asked whether we could install extra litter bins on Oxford Road. Council officers replied: “A member of our street cleaning team inspected our side of the street and found it to be at a good standard. The team have confirmed that the criteria for installing litter bins is where there is a high footfall, the presence of shops and bus stops, the exception would be to place litter bins to help with dog fouling as the City Council does not have separate bins for that however, in doing this it has often been counterproductive as the bins then become the focus of rubbish bags being left around the bin. Therefore, it is believed that not installing litter bins in this location is the better option.”

Lanhill Road – A resident asked why Lanhill Road was not swept daily when many other neighbouring roads benefited from this. It turns out that there was a mistake on Veolia’s work schedule. Council officers responded: “our Street Cleansing Department have confirmed both Grittleton Road and Lanhill Road ought to be swept Monday to Friday. This issue has been raised with the Street Cleansing Operations Manager for the North Area, who has communicated with his team that Lanhill Road is to be monitored and to ensure the location is swept accordingly, as per the Street Cleansing Schedule.”

Mumtaz Shisha, Shirland Road – We’ve had numerous reports of customers parking on double yellow lines outside Mumtaz Shisha on Shirland Road. We’ve asked the parking enforcement team to make more frequent visits and have also requested the highway team add the necessary zig-zags to the zebra crossing.

Neglect around the Hall Place Estate – We’ve relayed our concerns about the state of disrepair and neglect around the Hall Place Estate in Little Venice. As a result, broken bollards have been fixed or replaced, graffiti removed, and we have made requests for more regular weeding and for parking lines to be re-painted.

We requested summer hanging baskets for the area, in line with other parts of the ward, but this was rejected by Conservative councillors. We have made requests for some winter hanging flower baskets for the area, again in line with the rest of the ward, but we are still awaiting approval.

Little Venice Red Telephone Boxes – Little Venice phone boxes in Clifton Road, Bristol Gardens and Shirland Road received a fresh lick of paint after we reported that they were in need of refurbishment and repair

Accessible Play in Paddington Green – We have made a request for a consultation to be carried out for an inclusive and accessible play area in Paddington Green. We’ll update you as soon as we hea abotu the consultation date.

Fly tipping on Clifton Gardens – We have reported a number of incidents of fly tipping in Little Venice, particularly by Warwick Avenue tube station and along the junction by Clifton Gardens and Randolph Road. Large items including mattresses were removed and new signage was approved and put up for Clifton Gardens.

GENERAL UPDATES

Ward Surgeries
No appointment necessary
Maida Vale

Paddington Recreation Ground Café, W9 1PD
1st Saturday of each month, 10am-11am
3rd Sunday of each month, 11am-12pm

Little Venice

Cafe Nero, 18 Clifton Road, W9 1SS
5-6pm, 3rd Tuesday of every month

Household Support Fund

The Council has some funds to help support singles and families who are struggling. The help comes in the form of Sainsburys vouchers – typically £250 for a couple. Ask your councillor if you think you might qualify.

Ward budget applications

Applications are now open to organisations and clubs to apply for project funding which benefits local residents. If you would like to apply for ward funding for a project but don’t know where to start, please get in touch with us and we’ll be happy to assist you with your application.

Request secure bicycle storage

The new administration is committed to speeding up the roll-out of secure cycle storage in Westminster. Please register your interest here.

Refuse and Recycling Collection

Any rubbish bags presented on the pavement on a day where the refuse collection has been removed (as a result of the new food waste service) will be collected by Veolia.

If you have any queries waste collections you can contact the Recycling Team directly on foodwaste@westminster.gov.uk

Report It

You can report dumped rubbish, graffiti, broken paving stones and street lights and more to the Report It service.

North Paddington Youth Club Summer Programme

The North Paddington Youth Club’s summer programme of free activities, running until September, is available here