Welcome

This is a blog about Shepherd’s Bush London W12. I’ve lived here for 5 years, and will use this place to record it. You can see more info on the blog using the “whats this blog about?” tab at the top. Enjoy!

Goldhawk, Askew & Paddenswick Road Chaos

You must have seen the signs by now, I’ve even seen them on the M4 coming into London which is a measure of how much chaos transport chiefs are expecting the closure of these roads to create in our part of West London, knocking on elsewhere.

All three roads will be partially closed with work to replace water mains starting on 11 January and closing a section of Goldhawk Road.

If you want to know more you can pay a visit to a drop-in session at the mobile information unit (outside Carpetright, formerly Allied Carpets on the Goldhawk Rd), Wednesday, 6 January, 10am-8pm. Good luck Bushers.

A half marathon on Wormwood Scrubs

I ran 25K, just over a half marathon, on the Scrubs this morning. It is a fantastic and under used place, but in places sadly under resourced too.  You really should try it if you haven’t already. This morning was really quite beautiful, the ground laced with frost which was melting so quickly I could notice it every time I plodded around, and only a very very few people to share this wide open space with.

I first posted about the place here in December 08, and got a couple of comments about it being some kind of gay cruising spot which may well be the case at night but in the mornings you see none of that. What you do see are birds flitting around, especially in the nature reserve area, together with squirrels and even a fox gambolling through the woods which ring the playing fields. Personally the place holds a special connection for me since our kids were born at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital which dominates the view along with the prison – I would imagine that’s also the case for many other W12ers.

On the down side I saw a couple of the dog owners freely letting their animals leave poo on the ground, which in my book makes the owners more of an animal than the dogs themselves, at least the canines have no sense of how disgusting that is – the humans obviously just don’t care which says a lot about them.

But all in all it was a couple of hours really well spent, somewhere beautiful at that time of the morning on our doorsteps and perfect for clearing your head and thinking ahead to the new year. Highly recommended.

And if you’d like to sponsor my marathon efforts, I would be immensely grateful. I’m running the Brighton Marathon both in memory and in support of some people very close to me who have suffered or are currently enduring cancer – a truly terrible disease. Please give what you can here – every penny helps. And I say that from my bed after a well earned hot shower – if my knees could talk they would be very foul mouthed at the moment.

Happy New Year!

11,000 readers in December

This blog had over 11,000 viewers in the past month, another large increase on the month before.

Thanks for coming back and keep the stories coming – as ever, anonymity guaranteed.

Wishing you all the best for the New Year – it’s going to be a defining one for the Bush, so I’d like to think the need for a local blog like this will be all the more important. But it will only be as good as the stories you feed in. Enjoy the ride!

Shepherd’s Bush Fair

If you fancy a drab, drizzle bound dullathon then get yerself down to the Green for a last chance to experience the Shepherd’s Bush Fair, which has graced our Green since Boxing Day and runs till the 6th Jan 2010.

I’ve walked past it a few times this year and I have to say it looks dire. I can only hope that the Council does a lot better than last year at cleaning up afterwards. But I doubt it.

At least these little people are happy.

Hammersmith soldier raises cash for comrades

Hammersmith man Capt Ed Poynter, of the 2nd Battalion The Rifles, recently completed a six-month tour of Helmand province, where 40 comrades were killed or wounded and has come back on a dual mission – to raise much needed cash to support those who have come back from that place with horrendous injuries, and secondly to re-train as a school teacher.

I can only hope that one of our local schools benefit from this man’s experience – in particular some of the schools that have kids who think they’re big to join a local gang.

2010: Year of change for the Bush

The coming year will change the look and future of the Bush for generations to come. A bold claim, but true nonetheless. We have the prospect of the Green itself being ripped up and redeveloped beyond all recognition, more transport changes and an election which probably won’t alter control of the Council – but it will decide who the next MP is, which will either slow down or speed up the changes they want to make – which will in turn change not only what the Borough looks like, but also in the long term who actually lives here.

What are your predictions for 2010? After this review of 2009 here are some of my thoughts for 2010 in order of when I think they will happen …

1 – Shepherd’s Bush Green is redeveloped, prompting a storm of protest over the trees that the Council has earmarked to be chopped down, in opposition to the Mayor’s strategy for protecting London’s wooded friends

2 – Andy Slaughter narrowly hangs on to the Hammersmith seat at the General Election, but with a wafer thin majority. In the end I think his local popularity, plus the damage the Council has inflicted on Shaun Bailey’s chances, will narrowly – very narrowly – count for just a bit more than the current deep unpopularity of the Government

3 – Conservatives win the local elections and hang on to the Council, reaping the benefits of a very unpopular central Government and voter’s responses to promises of tax cuts constantly carried in propaganda-dressed-as-news. Stephen Greenhalgh, currently the Leader, leaves H&F to become a member of the House of Lords advising Prime Minister David Cameron on housing & local government strategy – and our Council loses a lot of it’s current high national profile as a result. A more moderate leader promises to listen to local residents a lot more before making major planning decisions.

4 - Unseasonal storms lead to Hammersmith and Bush houses being flooded with sewage again, presenting H&F Council with a face-saving way of conceding defeat in it’s campaign against the Thames Tunnel, or what it calls the “Super Sewer Crater”

5 – A young kid is killed on our streets, and several other young kids – most likely members of the local ‘Murder Dem Pussies’ gang – are found guilty later in the year and sentenced to 20+ years, thus ruining their lives as well as the victim’s family. Cue much hang wringing and soul searching, but not much else.

6 - Wormwood Scrubs is designated a London 2012 Olympic Site, with preparations underway to build an archery and shooting facility

7 – Major security incident at Westfield shopping centre takes place prompting a crackdown including bags being searched on entry. This follows an attempted attack in central London which is foiled by the bravery of police and passers-by.

8 – Acton Carnival takes place and is a roaring success, although several people are taken to hospital as a precaution following exposure to the record-breakingly hot sun that has baked W12 for much of the summer.

9 – QPR are beaten in the play off quarter finals for promotion to the Premiership prompting Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone to leave the club in the hands of multi billionaire Lakshmi Mittal. Fans celebrate with an impromptu carnival in Ellerslie Road.

10 – BBC revokes an invitation to Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time after being asked to cover the cost of the security operation

So a brave new world – and one which will change the Bush for at least the next 5 years, if not longer. It will be an exciting ride, and makes this place the best in London to live in by a very long margin indeed. Thanks for reading this year, and do please keep the stories coming in, they make this blog what it is. I’d love to claim credit but some of those that have been picked up later by other media, in some cases days or even weeks after they were featured here, have all been as a result of readers themselves sending them in. Anonymity always guaranteed.

Enjoy the year ahead!

David Cameron in the Bush

Tory Leader David Cameron will be hosting one of his ‘Cameron Direct’ visits with local residents in W12 on the 5th January. Starting at 1900 the venue will be confirmed in the early part of next year but those wishing to attend are asked to email Hammersmith Conservatives at office@hammersmithconservatives.com or call 0207 385 1002

It’s another illsutration of how keenly fought over our constituency, and therefore our votes, are going to be between now and May. Cameron will be hoping to repair some of the damage our own Conservative council have done to Shaun Bailey’s campaign in recent months. I’m not sure whether having Gordon Brown here would really count as being a help to Andy Slaughter, but Labour will be defending the seat vigourously too. Whatever you do, please vote – the way the Bush looks in future will be directly affected by the result.

2009: A year in the Bush

This bit in between Christmas and New Year is always a bit weird isn’t it? That tree starts to look a bit out of place and the big day which we’ve all been building up to for the best part of a month is over in a flash! But what else has gone before? I started this blog in November 2008, and just for fun I thought I’d ape what the BBC and Sky are trying to outdo each other with at the moment with a review of the last 12 months, but this time of things from the Bush. So what were the highlights in W12?

• In January our MP Andy Slaughter resigned from the government over their support for expanding Heathrow, which is set to be a dominant local issue at next year’s election and beyond. I also photographed the local rat population on the Green which seemed to be growing thanks to a general lack of upkeep on the part of the Council
• In February another youth stabbing took place on the Uxbridge Road
• In March a cyclist was dragged under a lorry at the notoriously dangerous Uxbridge/Askew Road junction, while Shepherd’s Bush Police Station mysteriously flew their flag at half mast for a few days prompting speculation about what they were in mourning about. Much more speculation followed the by now infamous trip Conservative councillors took to see a fair of property developers in the South of France resort of Cannes. In hindsight this was a theme we returned to again and again.
• In April some of our finest local morons stoned some central line tube trains bringing the line to a halt
• In May we were treated to hot weather and the Japanese Garden Party in Hammersmith Park, complete with Met Office predictions of a ‘barbecue summer’, prompting me and others to choose a ’staycation’ this year
• In June the Shepherd’s Bush Festival took place, but the weather was slightly hit and miss, and local people used this blog to pass information to each other about another stabbing which the local press had failed to pick up on completely. In the end they caught up but this was one example of what the dire gap in our local media reporting on W12 can mean.
• In July Cllr Anthony Lillis sadly died, while on a lighter note QPR held their first family fun day which was great despite the weather which was now in freefall. Council Leader Stephen Greenhalgh launched a fightback against his critics who claimed he was intent on driving poor people out of the Borough with the help of the property developers he had been meeting in Cannes.
• In August I profiled a local business and some historic local sites in and around W12 with a Historic Bush series of posts which proved quite popular with readers
• In September the new Shepherd’s Bush Library opened its doors in the Westfield Centre and the first of several controversial planning decisions were made. I told you that meeting in Cannes would come back to haunt us.
• In October the BNP came to town and Katie Piper, the girl attacked with acid by two of the Bush’s most disgusting local thugs spoke out about her experiences. She would later give the Channel 4’s alternative christmas message this year.
• In November our Council seemed to go a little crazy with the Leader claiming that his own party couldn’t ‘run a piss up in a brewery’ while conservative candidate for our constituency had a less-than-stellar appearance on the BBC Politics Show on the subject of the Thames Tunnel, or “Super Sewer Crater” as our Council like to dramatically call it
• And in December ‘Mad Dog’ Magilton left QPR to join a long list of has-beens while yet another planning decision was controversially made against the express wishes of local residents, and in favour of the property developers.

So that was the year that was! I’ll post a set of predictions for 2010 in the coming days, will be interesting this time next year to see how many come true!

Christmas Bush

Have a good one all – thanks for reading.