I sat on the Development Control Committee on Wednesday evening and helped to reject an application for a hot-food takeaway on the Parade on Beynon Road. There were two main concerns. Firstly there is already a Chinese takeaway and an Italian restaurant in what is by any measure a small shopping parade.

Secondly, and by far more importantly, the traffic and parking would be an absolute nightmare. Double red lines mean that the only parking is in Wilmot Road. Drivers leaving the restaurant that wanted to turn right, would have to negotiate a busy, blind corner and customers coming from the Windsor Castle junction would have to cross a busy lane of traffic approaching the lights, thus causing the traffic to back up behind. This is on a red route and the short statement from TfL saying that sufficient parking controls were in place, just wasn’t good enough and perfectly illustrates the fact that they do not make any effort to get to know the area where they maintain our crucial arterial roads.

I received a call from a consituent whose rubbish hadn’t been collected for five weeks in Wilmot Road. The question of waste did not come into the discussion on Wednesday but if there is another application, I’ll expect rubbish collection to be fully addressed as well.