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Southall Stories - Investigative Journalism

Digging the dirt, unearthing the truth


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    Save Ealing Children’s Centres Campaign Update

    Save Ealing Children’s Centres campaign raised over £5,000 in just eight days to begin legal action against Ealing Council to prevent closure of ten and of the borough’s twenty-five children’s centres.

    An audio summary of my …

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    Local Democracy

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    Children's Centres

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    Corruption

    The Pied Piper of Ealing

    A couple of weeks ago, big kid sang at the Royal Albert Hall in “Ealing Together: Harmony in Diversity,” performing lyrics by Jewish socialist and renowned children’s author Michael Rosen in a new song “Ada in Ealing”, a …

    Local Democracy

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    Children's Centres

    Corruption

    AI

    So it Goes: AI on the Absurd Logic of Ealing Council

    🎧 I fed my satirical piece about Ealing’s democratic innovations into Google’s NotebookLM.

    Two AI hosts discovered how perfectly logical it is to close children’s centres while voting yourself a 70% pay rise. They marveled at the …

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    Children's Centres

    Ealing Labour

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    Perceval House W5: Where Local Democracy in Ealing Goes to Die

    The Children’s Centres Crusade

    Auto-generated description: A person is smiling while holding a sign that says NO TO ALL CHILDREN'S CENTRES amidst a crowd.

    Chapter 1: The Art of Political Contradiction

    In the London Borough of Ealing, our elected representatives have perfected something remarkable: the ability to hold completely contradictory public positions …

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    Local Democracy

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    Gasworks

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    Pollution

    Southall Odours

    I step out of my house and immediately notice the artificial “cotton fresh” scent of odour suppressants wafting south from the old Gasworks site. How can this be? They finished remediating the contaminated earth in 2019, and people have …

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    COPD

    Last week I received confirmation of a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) based on results of spirometry tests back in August (it took that long for my GP surgery to get the results from the test centre, and only after my own …

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    Local Democracy

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    Ealing Labour

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    The Cuckoo's Nest

    Ealing Genocide Supporters Club (aka Ealing Labour Party) held their Southall Branch meeting yesterday at the Dominion Centre in Southall. Under the guise of a “Your Town, Your Voice” community get together, our local elected repellents …

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    Developers, if you Really Want to Help

    This was survey feedback given to developers proposing to build a massive data centre on the site of the industrial estate down the road from me, but it applies more broadly to all big developers, especially those with annual profits of half a …

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    Local Democracy

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    Ealing Labour

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    ToryBoy

    ToryBoy The Movie is the account of filmmaker John Walsh’s disillusionment with what he saw as the corruption, lies, hypocrisy and general incompetence of Blair’s Labour government, and his conversion to the Conservative (Tory) Party …

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    Ealing Labour

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    AI

    Risks to Health from Remediating Southall Gasworks

    AI is more ethical than Ealing Labour Party. No money was exchanged.

    What are the risks to health from remediating Southall Gasworks on site in the open air? The land is highly contaminated with benzene, naphthalene and a while host of other VOCs, …

    Local Democracy

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    Ealing Labour

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    AI

    I am the Leader of Ealing Council

    I asked Google Bard to advise me on a local matter.

    I am the leader of Ealing Council. I have received more than 250 reports about a BAD odour nuisance and air pollution from the remediation of the highly contaminated Southall Gasworks land. We had …

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    Response to Ealing's Air Quality Strategy and Action Plan

    Ealing Council’s draft Air Quality Strategy is a 64 page document together with a 40 page Action Plan, and the consultation period runs until 30 January 2023. It’s taken me the best part of six weeks, all my spare time over Christmas and …

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    Investigations

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    Ealing Labour

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    The Property Lobby: the Hidden Reality behind the Housing Crisis in Ealing

    There will be 14,800 new homes in 23 new developments in Southall over the next few years. 14 units over 10 stories high, and 7 over 20 stories high. Up to 40,000 new residents (and their cars)!

    One third of the total new developments in the whole of …

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    Ealing Labour

    Berkeley Group

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    Weasel Words on Air Quality Monitoring

    Weasel words from Ealing Labour Council, who for six years have shown utter contempt for the health and wellbeing of Southall's schoolchildren forced to live in the toxic stink created by Berkeley Group's unsafe development of the old Gasworks …

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    Ealing Monopoly

    Who wants to know more about how, twelve years ago, an exclusive group of rich, mostly white, middle aged men in suits planned to take advantage of the financial crash and austerity politics to sell Ealing's public land and buildings for profit …

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    Ealing Labour

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    Ealing Labour Leaks

    Is anyone interested in seeing a selection of leaked WhatsApp group messages from some Ealing Labour councillors?

    An inside look at what they really think about Bell, Mason, Sharma?

    The institutional bullying and corruption they kept quiet for …

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    Questions for Cabinet Leads

    Questions for Cllrs @_petermason, @DrAyshaRaza, @jkblacker, @JasbirAnand2 and @kamnagpal on tackling inequalities, healthy lives, thriving communities, a fairer start, specifically in reference to the ongoing air pollution and odour nuisance …

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    From the Southall Big Plan AGM in 2017

    Some perennial problems that our elected representatives seem to be unable - or unwilling - to do anything about.

    Some things never change!

    Priority from nine years ago - clean streets!

    Julian Bell's Ten Year Plan.

    40% …

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    Investigations

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    Look at these Bricks!

    Look at these bricks!

    Is 2500:

    A) The year the new cinema in Ealing will finally be opened to the public?

    B) The price of a return flight to Nice airport and five nights in Cannes?

    C) The number of genuinely affordable homes to be built …

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    Ealing Labour

    Berkeley Group

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    Exposes

    Strawberries for Pigs?

    Little did we know at the time, but these little strawberries were usually engulfed in a toxic plume of benzene, naphthalene, and god only knows what else.

    image

    Sensibly, the wife refused to eat them.

    We later discovered that official planning documents …

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    High Traffic Neighbourhood

    Took me an hour (as opposed to 10 minutes) to drive my lad home from school this afternoon, thanks in part to the High Traffic Neighbourhood (‘Improving access for HGVs’) in Southall ‘Green’.

    Like a rat, I tried the side …

    Local Democracy

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    Berkeley Group

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    Trigger Vote for Sharma

    In July 2019, I attended a public meeting with Public Health England to discuss air pollution problems created by the development of the old gasworks site.

    At this meeting, I asked Public Health England if it is true that people with Asian and …

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    Berkeley Group

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    The Gaslighting Zone

    @Southall_Wside @theCALMzone @bonappetit #StopPoisoningSouthall @SouthallGaswork

    You guys are really taking the piss now, aren't you?

    @Southall_Wside @theCALMzone @bonappetit @SouthallGaswork .@PHE_London report on the health impact of …

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    Southall under Siege: the Neighbours from Hell

    ‘A lack of scrutiny,’ says John Freeman, Regulatory Services Officer at Ealing Council.

    He’s talking about lessons to be learned from the council’s response to the new asphalt plant built in neighbouring Hillingdon borough in 2014.

    ‘We didn’t expect …

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    Investigations

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    Berkeley Group

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    Naphthalene Poisoning Risk in People of African and Asian Heritage

    Scientific and medical research shows that people of Asian and African ethnicity are genetically more susceptible to naphthalene poisoning via inhalation.

    @PHE_London representative Robie Kamanyire falsely claimed this is from ingestion only. …