Tag Archives: Spring Grove

by | July 9, 2023 · 15:26

NatWest Bank Closure: Protest at 10.30 am Tomorrow, 10 July 2023

NatWest Bank, bailed out by the people to the tune of £46 billion and still 39% Government owned, are using spurious statistics, poor consultation and erroneous assertions to shut down the last remaining and accessible bank between Hounslow and Chiswick.  It’s the only one with a customer car park and also located within the Council’s London Road 30 minutes free Stop and Shop parking facility.

Last bank standing: NatWest, 486 London Road, Isleworth

No amount of online, video or telephone banking can replace a human face to face physical transaction whether elderly or any other citizen within the 30% without the means, online savvy or inclination or just likes going out.

NatWest Isleworth: Elderly customer with their carer drew up to the front door to use this most accessible of bank branches

Recent pavement surveys by NatWest customer and Isleworth resident, Madhuri Kapila, show buoyant footfall at 468 London Road.  There has also been a keenness to sign this letter to letter to NatWest Head Office and, so far, 150 customers, many elderly, greatly concerned and fearful of the closure, have participated.

NatWest Isleworth: Open during convenient hours 5 days a week

Daily attendance at the branch, of late, shows around thirty customers per hour, more if ATM users are included, translating to at least 750 user per week.  NatWest profits for 2023/24 show a 50% jump to £1.9 billion in the first three months of the year; why should the company need to close a long established and well used branch operating from Freehold premises?

NatWest Isleworth Branch: Night safe

All of the many shopkeepers Madhuri has spoken to (NatWest did not reveal of having spoken to any of our traders in its public relations pieces), are greatly against the proposal.  They see the bank as an anchor business for London Road as well as a banking facility for them and everyone else.

Last Friday, Madhuri and I visited NatWest Headquarters at 250 Bishopsgate to present the collected letters but no one was available to receive them nor this additional letter to Dame Alison Rose, Group Chief Executive Officer of NatWest Bank..

Ruth Cadbury MP also wrote this letter to NatWest Bank asking for a meeting and for the closure to be withdrawn.

Recently publishing a booklet for bank branch visitors, NatWest used a mixture of pre, during and post pandemic figures, with obscure graphics, to justify their current stance.  The decision really did appear to have been made prior to any  real consultation and, responses from NatWest since seem at best repetative and standard public relations deflections but at worse, some may describe as lip service and sham going through the motions.

Please show your support in any or all of these ways:

NatWest Bank Isleworth: Please maintain the Welcome

Download, complete and immediately return this letter to Keep Nat West Bank Open via email KNWBOpen@gmail.com

Ask that the closure decision be reversed.  Email or write to Dame Alison Rose, Group Chief Executive Officer, 250 Bishopsgate, London, EC2M 4AA: or email alison.rose@natwest.com and cc KNWBOpen@gmail.com

 

Monday 10 July 2023 at 10.30 am.  Join a peaceful protest against the closure outside NatWest Bank, 486 London Road, Isleworth, TW7 4DD.

Tell your friends.

Thank you.

 

TL 9.7.2023

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by | June 4, 2023 · 08:39

Vine Lodge: Latest demolition application

A new planning application to demolish the oldest dwelling on Isleworth’s Church Road, within the Spring Grove Conservation Area, is being considered by Hounslow Council.

A previous application to build two houses, LBH planning reference P/2022/0601, was refused in March 2022, and was reported here, this latest (P/2023/1409) is for the building of eight flats.

The site for application P/2023/1409, in context

The above is an extract from a whole document showing all drawings for this proposal, accessed here.

Residents have produced this flyer highlighting their views and to encourage submission of further comment as part of the planning consultation process.  Comments can be submitted beyond the stated deadline.

TL  4.6.2023

This report has been provided for information, the author, a member of the council’s planning committee, will make no determination in advance of a hearing, should one occur.

 

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by | March 20, 2023 · 01:55

Spring Grove Conservation Area Demolition: Part II

The builder attempted, by pleading guilty, to take the entire rap for last year’s jungli style demolition at 18 Grove Road, when he and the owner appeared before Uxbridge Magistrates Court last November.  Not only did he and his firm, UK Landmark Construction Limited, cop over £8,000 in fines, costs and victim surcharge, building company director, Mr Sayeed Naveed Akhtar, acquired a criminal record as a result.

18 Grove Road: Inside the hoardings April 2022

The property owner, Mr Mohammed Ali Khan, of Thornbury Road, had pleaded not guilty on 18 November 2022 so waited until 3 February 2023 to return to the Uxbridge court to be tried for his part in the illegal demolition of 18 Grove Road.  Hounslow Council was represented by lawyers with ready to participate witnesses from its Building Control Services and a neighbour impacted by the demolition.

The defence decided not to call any witnesses.  However, it is felt that the presence of a number of individuals ready to testify for the council resulted in the defence changing their tactics by agreeing to Hounslow’s evidence as full facts.

18 Grove Road: Impacts on the streetscene February 2022

After a long deliberation, the magistrates returned to find Mr Khan guilty of demolishing a building without notifying the local authority.  They adjudged that Mr Khan had instructed his contractor to demolish the building and was, therefore, ultimately responsible for failing to notify the council of the demolition as required by section 80(2) of the Building Act 1984.

Proceeding to sentence Mr Khan, the magistrates imposed a £3,360 fine for the offence, £2,493.34 prosecution costs and victim surcharge of £190, a total of £6,043.34.  A collection order was made in the event that he defaults on these payments.

18 Grove Road: Remaining original features February 2022

It is the Department of Justice that sets the fines tariffs per type of crime that courts dispense.  What was meted appears chicken feed but, as a result of being found guilty, Mr Khan is now a criminal as well as his builder.

Whilst this concludes the demolition prosecution, it does not resolve the issues on site.  There is still a dangerous structure notice in place and this will remain until the front façade is allowed to be removed or the house is rebuilt.

18 Grove Road: Residents meeting Hounslow Council Planning, Planning Enforcement and Building Control Officers March 2023

A new application needs to be approved for the construction of a new house (in the style of the previous).  Neighbours and Ward Councillors are keen to see this happen but, based on their thus far experiences with the owner, are seeking maximum legislative and planning policy safeguards.  Hounslow Council Planning, Planning Enforcement and Building Control are aware of this through recent meetings following the submission of new planning application, P/2022/3149.  Residents are keen for protection via planning conditions.

Copyright, no publishing  or copying without the author’s permission.

TL  19.3.2023

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by | March 16, 2023 · 09:34

Borough Road War Memorial: Two new additions

Borough Road War Memorial College Plaque 3.3.2023

A new plaque was unveiled at Borough Road War Memorial on 3 March 2023 by the 57th Mayor of the London Borough of Hounslow, Councillor Raghwinder Siddhu.  He was accompanied by residents, pupils (including talented bugler, Max), staff and trustees of Isleworth and Syon School, former Borough Road College lecturer, John Hunter, and Osterley and Spring Grove Ward Councillors Tony Louki, Unsa Chaudri and Aftab Siddiqui.

The Mayor and locals at the Borough Road War Memorial Plaque unveiling 3.3.2023

It records the names of former Borough Road College staff and students who gave up their jobs and education to take part in World War I and World War II, killed and never returned.

The installation features an engraving and faces Lancaster House, the main college building vacated in 2006, nine years after its takeover by Brunel University, and crest of the college.

Borough Road War Memorial unveiled 14 May 1921

I raised the idea for this new plaque in 2018 because the names of those who perished were not visible locally as Brunel University had previously removed an indoor memorial to its Uxbridge campus.  During 2015, Brunel had made approaches to Hounslow Council to completely relocate the whole, almost 100 years old stone memorial too but this failed as it was strongly resisted by all Ward councillors at the time.

At Borough Road War Memorial: Restored Heston and Isleworth Borough Council light column

This memorial project also coincides with the installation of a rediscovered and then refurbished lamppost of the former Heston and Isleworth Borough Council, restored and recently installed by Hounslow Highways.

The names of the dead were shared by the Brunel University London Archives whose 2014 research is available via a QR code present on the plaque allowing access of detailed biographies of those named.

I am grateful to Miss Helen Bowman, Conservation Officer at the War Memorials Trust, whose sound advice helped us bat away Brunel’s cheeky claim; Vanessa Bevilacqua and colleagues from the Hounslow Council Transport Team for procuring the plaque; Sabeel Khan of the Hounslow Council Highways PFI Team for overseeing Hounslow Highways’ renewal and connecting of the light column; Hounslow Council Communications Team’s Mr Yagnesh Nakaraja for sharing pictures.

TL 16.3.2023

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by | November 12, 2022 · 03:57

You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off: The nonsense of 18 Grove Road

An eyesore because most of the house, instead of just the garage, (see LBH Planning reference P/2020/3428) was demolished without the required planning permission, to build a couple of extensions to the rear and side, still drags on and remains an eyesore.

18 Grove Road as it was before its sale to current owners.

Neighbours will have noticed a new planning application for extensive works, reference P/2022/3149, validated 28 October 2022 but there is plenty history.

The tedious story began late January 2022 when a neighbour contacted Hounslow Council’s Building Control and their councillor to report a potential dangerous structure.  Building Control attended the site on the same day, by when the majority of this 100 odd year old structure, referred as a “positive contributor” in the Spring Grove Conservation Area, had been removed leaving just the front wall to the house.  The remainder was not supported so Building Control enacted the council’s immediate powers under the Building Act 1984 to make the structure safe by erecting scaffold support (at the owner’s expense) to remove the immediate danger.

Scaffolding erected by Hounslow Council to remnants of 18 Grove Road.

At that point, the dangerous structure came under local authority control with the building owner needing to seek council approval prior to undertaking any further work, as well as enter the site.  Building Control also reported this work to the Health and Safety Executive.

Cutting a long story short, the Head of Building Control later considered it appropriate and the council’s lawyers agreed that this should go to court.  The property owner, the builder and the building company would be prosecuted under Section 80 of the Building Act for illegal and unsafe demolition.

18 Grove Road impacting the party wall with neighbouring 20 Grove Road.

The first hearing was at Uxbridge Magistrates in October where only the builder of himself and UK Landmark Construction Limited had pleaded guilty by post to the offences (the Owner went for not guilty).  The Court was unable to accept the guilty plea by post on behalf of the builders as the law requires a director of the company to attend Court in order to enter a plea on its behalf. The case was adjourned to later that month for sentencing (of the builder) and plea and sentencing (of the company) respectively.

The builder stated as part of his mitigation that he was provided building control drawings showing a demolition plan with the walls to be removed and complete renewal of the roof by new roof trusses.  He said he had no intention of full demolition of the structure and had acted with the advice and approval of his client.

18 Grove Road, a recent view.

At the same hearing, the Owner of 18 Grove Road pleaded not guilty.  The Magistrates, after much deliberation, granted the application and the Owner’s case was adjourned to 4 November 2022.

At the November hearing, the building owner pleaded not guilty, therefore the Court set a trial date for 3 February 2023 at Uxbridge Magistrates Court at 10.00 am.

The final fine for Mr Sayeed Naveed Akhtar, the builder, was confirmed at the November hearing equating to a total of £8,090.  The Magistrates imposed £2,000 fine to mark the offence, he was given credit for his guilty plea, otherwise, it would have been the maximum of £2,500; £1,855 towards costs and a £190 victim surcharge a total of £4,045.

UK Landmark Construction Limited, was also fined £2,000 to credit the early guilty plea, ordered to pay £1,855 prosecution costs and victim surcharge of £190 again totalling £4,045.

The Council will continue with the prosecution of the owner which, hopefully, will now be resolved on 3 February 2023 and also later reported here.

TL  12.11.2022

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