LANCASTER GATE

Queen’s Gardens Poor Waste Presentation 

Residents in Queen’s Gardens alerted us to persistent poor waste presentation with bags regularly left out at the wrong times leading to mess and, in some cases, vermin. We were quick to act and issued letters (pictured below) to properties in the hotspot areas.

Columbia Hotel Refurbishment 

While not opposed to the refurbishment and proposed improvements put forward by the Columbia Hotel, we are concerned about the potential hours of use of some of the facilities that lead to problems with noise and disturbance to residents in the area. We have asked for restrictions to be placed on who can use the roof terrace and the times at which they can use it, as well as a curfew for the function rooms.

Leinster Mews Waste Poor Waste Presentation 

Residents highlighted to us that bagged waste left by businesses at the entrance to Leinster Mews was leaving dirt and debris. Officers have visited the site and reminded local business owners about the conditions attached to the premises licence regarding presentation of waste. This site will continue to be monitored.

Short-term lets crackdown 

We’ve been investigating potential illegal short-term lets in council properties on Westbourne Terrace. We have now been successful in removing an unapproved key box for a short-term let from the entrance to 120 Westbourne Terrace.

Westbourne Terrace Tree Damage 

We continue to push for action from the private owners of the trees and walls on Westbourne Terrace. Many of the tree roots are causing damage to the walls and pavement on the kerbside. We have now had success in getting the owner of 1-31 Westbourne Terrace to get the necessary planning permissions to repair the walls, and will be working with the other owners to push for repairs on the rest of the street.

Craven Terrace Littering 

Residents have alerted us to the persistent and longstanding issue of littering, especially cigarette butts, on Craven Terrace and Brook Mews North. We have been working with businesses in the surrounding areas to remind them and their workers that this is not permitted. We have been successful in getting local businesses to install signage within their windows to deter smoking and littering (photographed below).

BAYSWATER

Library Basement Reopened

We are glad to see the basement of Paddington Library on Porchester Road (pictured below) reopened after we’ve been chasing this up with officers for many months. Significant repair and refurbishment was required after water ingress.

St Stephen’s Gardens

New chess tables and the reconfigured pergola at St Stephen’s Gardens are looking great. These were funded by the Council from the Greening Westminster fund, which we helped Notting Hill East Neighbourhood Forum identify to realise their ambition for the garden.

Ledbury Road

We have been working for a long time to make the southern end of Ledbury Road safer for pedestrians. However, as the road is one-half Westminster Council and the other half Kensington & Chelsea, K&C are the ones with jurisdiction over the road. We’re glad that through our lobbying they are now taking action, proposing a new priority junction, wider pavements and a new zebra crossing. Their response was as follows:

“To make the borough safer, each year we review the roads and junctions across the borough to see which ones have the poorest safety record and develop plans to improve them. One of the junctions we have identified is Ledbury Road / Westbourne Grove. Over the three year period between 2021 and 2023 there were six injury collisions at the junction, three of which resulted in slight injuries to motorcyclists and one of which resulted in serious injury to a pedestrian.

We are proposing to replace the existing mini-roundabout with a new priority junction, which will be on a raised table to encourage drivers to slow down on all approaches to the junction. The priority at the junction would be along Westbourne Grove (with traffic on Ledbury Road giving way). Following several requests from residents to improve pedestrian facilities at the junction the proposed changes include a new zebra crossing across the northern arm of Ledbury Road. The existing zebra crossing on the western arm of Westbourne Grove will be retained but we are proposing to widen the pavement to reduce the crossing distance. The narrower road will mean we’ll also remove the central pedestrian island.”

We are told the consultation will be launched early June and will run for 6 weeks.

Chepstow Road

We received a report about the big black bins at the junction of Chepstow Road and St Stephen’s Gardens being full over a weekend. We followed up with the council’s waste team who said:

I have checked the schedule, and these rubbish bins are collected 3 times a day. I have sent a reminder to the local cleansing teams to monitor the site for any abnormalities. To raise service awareness, I have asked our team to engage with local City Inspectors and write to the residents on waste disposal options.

These bins are provided as a supplement to the weekly doorstep collection services and should not be used as a replacement to doorstep collection services. Chepstow Road has weekly Monday and Thursday doorstep collections for general rubbish and Monday collections for both recycling and food waste.

St Stephen’s Gardens

We have helped a resident who was being charged council tax, and subsequently threatened with fines and a court appearance, for a property they did not in fact live in. The council have now apologised to the resident and cancelled the fines.

Arthur Court

We are helping an 82 year old disabled resident who has become housebound because although there is a ramp from the building onto the street it’s not exactly level with the pavement and he can’t use his mobility scooter to access the street.  We asked the relevant officer to assist and now the Occupational Therapy team have visited to assess the situation.

Porchester Square flat leak

We received this request for help:

I’m a potential buyer for the flat ***  Porchester Square. I had some builders coming in for inspection, and it looks like we have some leak in the ceiling, I wonder if you guys can help regarding that?

After we asked the Leasehold Team to assist we received the following:

We’ve now been in contact with both leaseholders. We’ve received confirmation that the leak from flat *** has been fixed. We’ve also supplied the leaseholder of *** with details on how to claim for any damage caused by the leak on the leasehold insurance policy.