First meeting as a ROWE Committee member

ROWE's brand new kitchen, funded by the ICG-inspired Rainbow
Project in collaboration with Giggles nursery
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At its last Committee meeting (its first since its 2010 Annual General Meeting, which I had the honour of chairing), members of Residents Of Worton Estate (ROWE) - a residents' association based, as the name suggests, on Isleworth's Worton estate - did me the honour of co-opting me to their top table.

It was felt that my experience as a ward councillor for twelve years prior to May this year - three of them as Lead Member for Housing and Community Safety - might prove useful to estate residents as they strive to build their association and their community.

Although I am not a resident of the Worton estate I gladly accepted the role. As well as having worked closely with ROWE for the whole of my time as an elected member I have strong connections with this estate in particular. My father was brought up in Octavia Road, directly opposite the site where the Community Centre now sits. As a child I would visit the same house, then occupied by my late uncle John, my aunt Barbara and my cousins Lisa, Anne and Steve (now also sadly departed), every Sunday morning. When we reached our teens Steve and I would often go fishing somewhere nearby.

A few years later I attended a youth club at my Church which, as a result of its location at the junction of Twickenham Road with Worton Road, inevitably became something of a meeting point of the Worton and non-Worton worlds. Ironically, when one considers my later attachment to the estate, the Worton lads and my own little gang were in constant conflict with one another. When walking home from school in those days what would have been a shortcut for me was in fact a definite no-go area. Instead I took the longer, but safer, route along the St. John's Road.

Anyway, I am digressing. At the meeting tonight I was amongst friends, as I always feel I am these days when passing through Worton. It is in the spiritual if not the literal sense my home.

There were seven ROWE members present, including myself. This may seem a modest number, but when one considers the nonsense that this estate has had to put up with in the past from the local authority it is a miracle that the association still exists and that the Community Centre is still standing.

A couple of years back, at a meeting that I also chaired, what had become an almost moribund association relaunched itself with a new Committee of some 14-16 members. However many of the new additions had been lukewarm, had turned up to their first meeting expressly to criticise the work of others rather than to offer their own help, and had promptly either resigned or drifted away.

This time things are clearly different. The seven members present tonight, plus a few more of my acquaintance who weren't in attendance this evening, are clearly determined to make things work for the benefit of the estate community. We were joined by the local Tenant Participation Officer from Hounslow Homes and Councillor Sue Sampson, both of whom made helpful contributions and seemed to be there with good intentions. I was especially pleased to hear Cllr. Sampson tell the meeting: "This is your association, I'm here to listen and not to tell residents what they want".

Encouraging signs, or lulling us into a false sense of security? Time will tell.

The big news on the estate at the moment is the £419,000 in Section 106 money made available as a result of the controversial Worton Green development, which remains unspent. ROWE is keen that residents will not lose control over the fate of this funding. As always the wheels of progress are turning oh so slowly, but they are turning nonetheless.

Speaking personally I see my role on ROWE as being an advisory rather than a leadership one. As a non-estate resident I feel my place is to take a back seat and speak when I think it might be helpful to do so. I will endeavour to avoid controversy, and it will be interesting to see whether or not it avoids me.

Despite a plethora of forthcoming meetings I find myself strangely looking forward to the next ROWE gathering in October.

Dr. Who Fun Day on Worton - Community Spirit Alive and Well

It was at 12.10 this afternoon when I rolled up at the ROWE Community Centre on Isleworth's Worton estate, straight from Church. Usually ten minutes after the start of an event like this little would be going on beyond a few late arrivals hastily setting up their stalls.

And yet the ROWE Fun Day, with its Doctor Who theme, was already in full swing, with many kids outside enjoying the rides and others having their photos taken inside the Community Centre. Teas, coffees, cold drinks and hot dogs were being sold and members of the Committee were walking around the site selling raffle tickets (I was later to win a meal for two but I can assure everyone it was kosher - I'd left by the time the raffle was drawn!).

MC Andrews announces the raffle
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ICG Committee members Tricia Doran and Cheryl-Ann Khan had set up a stall selling clothes, a tombola and a "prize every time" duck-fishing thing. Another few quid for the group's coffers, always welcome.

Back inside the building I made a new friend (photo to follow as soon as my daughter gets time to show me how to transfer it across).

Even cybermen were welcome at the event
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Organising a vibrant residents' organisation has always been something of a challenge for the Committee of ROWE (Residents of Worton Estate). There have always been good people there to do the work, but usually just enough of them to achieve critical mass. However, possibly as a defensive reaction to the local political situation, ROWE seems to becoming more proactive and determined than ever before. The dozen or so people who were circulating around the event selling raffle tickets, providing food and drinks and generally marshaling events worked hard, and the very reasonable turnout was just reward for their efforts.

One of the many stalls at the Fun Day

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Although I don't actually live on Worton I have a long historical association with the estate. My father was raised in Octavia Road, opposite the Green, and my aunt, uncle and cousins lived there until the middle of the 1990s. As a teenager I would encounter many of the youths from the estate, not always on friendly terms, at the youth club that was held every Monday night in the Hall at Isleworth Congregational, which I now once again attend.

Great food and drinks were on sale in the Community Centre
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I feel honoured to have been asked to continue my association with ROWE after ceasing to be a ward councillor in May, and was pleased to have the opportunity to help out around the place today.

Events like this reassure me that the spirit of the community in Isleworth will survive whatever short-term challenges are thrown our way.

As you were

I'd promised to do a spot of "canvasser training" yesterday (Friday) morning and as my assistant was from the Worton estate I decided to follow the route taken there by the Labour canvassers a week or too back. Not that I believe in letting my opponents set the pace, but because I wanted to test what kind of effect, if any, their four-yearly visit to the estate had had on local morale.

In short, the answer was not a lot. Whatever they had hoped to achieve by visiting Worton it clearly hadn't had the desired effect. Residents there remain as loyal as they have been since the days of the protest nearly a decade ago - as you were as it were - and I was enthused by the sense of optimism that pervades the estate and the feeling that, whilst there is certainly still a goodly amount of work to be done, we were all getting there together.

In the afternoon Caroline and I nipped over to Hounslow South to drop some leaflets and were nearly run over at one point by a visiting Councillor Peter Carey - get your eyes tested man! :o). We survived to complete the drop, meeting a couple of residents along the way whom I knew from way back. Both greeted us warmly and with promises of support.

Later it was across to the airport to collect Joe on his return from Greece. Later today it will be back to door knocking, but in the meantime to bed, shattered but happy with my day's endeavour.

Worton residents asked to draw up shopping list

Councillor Paul Fisher and I spoke to Worton residents of all ages tonight at a meeting called by Residents of Worton Estate (ROWE), the residents' association, to discuss how to spend £419k of Section 106 money which we recently discovered was owed to them.

The money had been made available at the time of the new build on Worton Green but ward councillors had not, shall we say, been encouraged to know about it.

Chairing the meeting was not always easy as residents young and old wanted eagerly to put their ideas forward, and many insisted upon doing so in unison. Play and sports facilities for young people, a social club for older people, security gates and landscaping along the riverbank were all mooted as possible projects.

Paul in particular has been a powerhouse when it comes to identifying funding that is available for spending in the community. It is absolutely criminal that so much has been returned to developers because councillors and council officers in other areas have made no effort to grab what is there on behalf of their local residents before the deadline has been reached.

Of course money isn't everything and in the hands of politicians of a certain mindset could be and has been misused, but our practice has been first to secure the funds and second to ask the residents what they want done with it. That is the ICG way, and a lot of people in the communities we represent have been empowered with the means to determine their own priorities.