It’s been a long, hot summer and I don’t know about you, but I have definitely been feeling the heat!
After the local elections in May, I needed a rest from all the very intense and exciting few months leading up to it.
Between January and May, I published thirty-three articles, 58,027 words, with thirteen of those articles and 25,797 words in May, and eighteen articles, and 22,000 words in less than three weeks in the run-up to the elections and a couple of days afterwards for a post-election analysis.
It’s absolutely not something I ever planned to do – I started the year with an appeal for Southall residents whose health - like mine - was, or still is, affected by the toxic Southall Gasworks remediation. It’s still something I want to do, but it quickly became less of a priority.
The day after I posted that appeal there was a massive fire at the paper recycling plant around the corner from where I live. That rekindled a whole host of unresolved health and safety issues local residents had raised with Ealing Council since 2022.
Despite evidence from residents of the obvious fire risks, and despite the Environment Agency’s own investigations which clearly informed Ealing Council of their statutory responsibilities, the council’s own year-long investigation found nothing. I complained at the time and got no response.
I followed up my complaint after this year’s fire only to be told that the council had no record of ever receiving it.
I filed a Stage 2 complaint about the obvious governance failures of operating a communications system where any message can disappear at any time without any record of it ever existing.
That, too, was dismissed.
Because they had no record of it, the complaint didn’t exist. Because the complaint didn’t exist there was nothing to investigate.
The council directors making these decisions are earning upwards of £100,000 a year. But that’s another story.
I filed a further complaint with the Local Government Ombudsman, but there is a six- to eight-month wait before they can even look at it. I’ll keep you updated!
The whole saga inspired a parody of Ealing’s bureaucratic approach to reporting nuisances and pollution.
I also started gathering together and publishing in one coherent place a series of articles on Southall Green councillor and Ealing Council Leader Peter Mason’s many failures in public office.
From “Demolition Man”, “Bangarang!” and “Boomerang!” to “The Smell of Damp” and “The Smell of Success”, Peter Mason appears to be the epitome of a career politician promoted way above his ability, despite an almost heroic lack of achievement in any of his previous roles.
The question remains:
Sources: Andrew Teale’s LEAP, 2018 and 2022, and Ealing Council 2026
No doubt Mason and his ever-diminishing number of supporters will point to his record of success in elections as the one thing that matters. If that’s what they believe, it tells its own story.
I enjoyed doing something a little different with a couple of musical parodies, too: Ealing’s Burning and Individuality.
During the relentless heatwaves of the summer I have still been paying attention to what’s happening to Southall and Ealing, and I have been close to publishing stories on the data centres and the protest outside the RISE offices at Southall Town Hall, among others. In each case, events overtook my drafts and I had to revise or start over. They will come.
That I wasn’t able to publish in time made me think about my method and my workflow, and the end result. For some time, I have been thinking it would be a good idea to publish shorter, more concise stories to make them easier to read and understand – as well as to write! The long pieces I’ve written take a lot out of me researching and putting them all together. Knowing me, I will probably try to do both!
If you have been here at Southall Stories before, you will notice (I hope) a slightly new look and design. It should make things easier to navigate and to find.
I also revamped my personal website, which is where Southall Stories originated.
Not quite Southall Stories pieces, but perhaps of interest nevertheless, I took a walk around Southall Green a couple of weeks ago and wrote up a few thoughts by hand and shared a few photos including some of a hidden treasure.
Not a hidden treasure, but this photo of the strange-looking tower going up on the site of the old Barclays Bank building at the top of The Green by the Station Road roundabout reminds me of the Statue of Liberty.
Some more photos from my walk, including the old Southall Library, The Tudor Rose, St Anselm’s Church, Manor House, and Manor House Grounds. Bonus picture from last week at Southall Station.
And back in May, as an antidote to all the election stuff, I also took my eldest lad to meet the legendary Southall band Misty In Roots at the Dominion Centre in Southall Green.
“without the knowledge of your history you cannot determine your destiny”
Now, I better get back to finishing off some of those drafts.