Local MP calls Council to account for Station Gardens nightmare

Following a meeting with residents in Chiswick last weekend, local MP, Mary Macleod has criticised the impact of ill-considered and poorly executed work carried out by Hounslow Council’s contractors on the pavements of Station Gardens.

The street’s existing paving slabs were ripped out six months ago and replaced with poorly laid asphalt paths. Station Gardens is surrounded by streets that are within conservation areas whose historic pavements are being replaced, like-for-like, with new paving slabs. Hounslow Council had previously assured Chiswick Councillors that streets abutting or wedged between conservation areas would be treated as “heritage fringe” and would not have their existing pavements removed and replaced with asphalt. This promise has not been kept in Station Gardens.

To add insult to injury the work done in Station Gardens is of a poor standard. The new asphalt path has been constructed at a higher level than the pavement it replaced. As a result the contractors have had to build ugly cement mini-ramps to ease residents’ access from their garden paths on to the new path. These ramps are already cracking and many will not survive a hard frost. The surface of the new paths is uneven and rain water sits in large pools that will freeze in Winter-Time conditions and present residents with a slip hazard.

Residents commented on numerous other examples of poor workmanship from existing kerb stones being replaced with new kerbs that were cracked and damaged before they were laid, to the refusal by the contractors to realign a grass verge on a tight corner that council waste recycling vehicles drive across three times a week leaving a deep trench and mud on the road.

Residents are frustrated by Hounslow Council’s failure to consult them in the first place and by the wholly inadequate response to their complaints.  The final straw has been the rejection of a petition to the Council by 128 residents of Station Gardens and neighbouring streets to have the appalling asphalt removed and replaced with proper paving like that used in all the surrounding streets.

Commenting, Mary said:

‘Hounslow Highways has done a terrible job at Station Gardens. The investments into roads and pavements across the Borough from the PFI contract were meant to improve the local street scene. On this street the local infrastructure has actually been degraded. It is important that the Council treats everyone equally. The residents of Station Gardens are proud of where they live and they do not deserve to be on the receiving end of second rate work by the Council. I urge the Council to replace the tarmac on Station Gardens with paving, like that used on every other street in Grove Park, before the frost and snow arrives and the conditions of the street are made even more dangerous. It is also crucial that the Council reduce the width of the grassy verge surrounding the pavement on the corner of the street so that refuse trucks no longer drive over it and spread mud along the street.  I call on the Council to re-check that the quality of all the works completed, including the kerbs and street lights and ensure that it is completed to a suitably high standard acceptable to all residents.’