It was a pleasure to attend the first meeting of the Isleworth Community Safety Forum (ICSF) to be held for some time, I think possibly for a couple of years. It's Chair, David Freeman, was on top form and is clearly eager to get things back into the swing.
The Forum has had an interesting and at times troubled history. Having begun its life about a decade and a half ago as the Isleworth Policing Forum, originally a police initiative, it became the ICSF for reasons that I can't quite remember. For most of the '90s it became the focus of some political shenanigans of a kind with which people who go back that far in Isleworth are depressingly familiar, with politicos ambushing meetings en masse and having their apparatchiks elected to all the key positions. When the residents wrested power from the politicians the Council, then under New Labour control, withdrew its support from the Forum (the officer assigned to it was himself a key New Labour activist so needed little persuading) and pressure was placed upon the police to stop attending its meetings. All this because "ordinary" residents had had the temerity to want to run their own Forum!
All that, as they say, is history. Now the Forum enjoys the backing of the elected local councillors who support its activities when asked to without seeking to dominate or control. With the advent of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs) some of its work has been replicated and its priorities have needed to be realigned, but there is still a role for an exclusively resident-led, independent vehicle through which the general public can express their views and ask questions.
Inevitably after such a layoff yesterday's meeting attracted a modest attendance, but the important thing is the show is on the road once again.
Young residents of Isleworth's Worton estate (see picture, acknowledgements to the Hounslow Chronicle) have won the Metropolitan Police Commissioner's Community Safety Peace Award for their work under the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme.
They were presented with the award on Thursday at a London hotel (see below) by the Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith MP.
The work undertaken by youngsters from the estate includes a massive and ongoing clean-up campaign, clearing mountains of debris, overgrowth and graffiti from the estate's maze of alleyways.
The intitative has been actively supported by the Metropolitan Police and its Safer Neighbourhood Team, community payback, the residents' association (ROWE), ward councillors, LBH Street Management and (after a bit of a misunderstanding) Hounslow Homes.
The success of this project boils down to an excellent joint effort between so many people and the amount of goodwill which has been poured into it by so many local agencies. Special mention must go to Kim Dobson - the estate's terrifyingly dynamic youth organiser, PS Kirsty Hayes, PC Mike James, PC Phil Beal, Bridget Klempner from London Probation and Councillor Paul Fisher, whose performance as a ward councillor and leader of his community quite simply becomes more awesome by the day.
It is difficult to overstate the contrast between the commitment of Paul and other community councillors (if I might say so myself) to empowering good local communities like that on the Worton estate, and the attitude of our New Labour predecessors (one of whom described the same residents as "whingers" during her row with her own constituents over the development on the green, providing them with a useful reminder of what would be in store for them should she or any of her successors ever be re-elected by the voters of Isleworth ward).
I would have loved to have been at the event on Thursday to give my support to these wonderful people who work so hard for their community and for our local environment but unfortunately couldn't due to a few, hopefully temporary personal difficulties. Nonetheless I would like to say a big well done to them all. I am so proud of my community and what, when allowed the chance, it is capable of achieving.
From left to right: Councillor Paul Fisher (Isleworth ward), Sir Ian Blair (Commissioner, Metropolitan Police), PC Phil Beal, Kim Dobson, PC Mike James, Councillor Shirley Fisher (Syon ward, Deputy Mayor of Hounslow), Councillor Dr. Genevieve Hibbs (Isleworth ward, Mayor of Hounslow).
Well digging, scraping, sweeping, chopping, litter-picking and painting to be precise.
During the last seven days it has been my privilege to attend not one but two community clean-ups in Isleworth as part of the 100-day Capital Clean-Up campaign.
Last Saturday (May 3rd) Councillor Paul Fisher and I joined the Isleworth Safer Neighbourhood Team, Hounslow Homes, Community Payback and the indefatigable young people's co-ordinator on the Worton estate, Kim Dobson, with her team of Duke of Edinburgh Award hopefuls in what was the start of a challenging project which will go on for several weeks, clearing the labyrinthine maze of back alleyways on the estate of graffiti, weeds, overgrowth, litter and flytipped materials.
Kim's achievement in launching the first estate-based D of E scheme in the United Kingdom received a deserved mention at a meeting of Borough Council last month, and last week she and the other members of the team were successful in securing a £500 grant from the Isleworth & Brentford Area Committee to purchase materials for the clean-up.
Then on Tuesday and Wednesday the Syon SNT team joined LBH Community Safety, Community Payback, and representatives from St. John's Residents' Association and The Isleworth Society (TIS) in a similar operation around the St. John's Road area. Tuesday being my twins' eleventh birthday and the afternoon of our monthly Worton estate councillors' surgery, I left the work to others. But on Wednesday I went along, as did Caroline (my wife, and one of three community councillors for Syon ward), and helped apply a coat of paint to the heavily vandalised play equipment in St. John's Gardens (as well as to my car seat, jeans and hair).
These initiatives, hard work though they are, set a fabulous example of stakeholders from within the community coming together and leading from the front in the work of making our local neighbourhood a better, safer and more attractive place in which to live.
