New Leader's First Act is To Write To Southall Clean Air Group

Peter Mason says council and CASH should be co-operators not combatants

Members of CASH campaining for cleaner air in Southall
Members of CASH campaining for cleaner air in Southall

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New Ealing Council leader Peter Mason made his first act in the role the writing of a letter to the group campaigning for cleaner air in Southall.

The councillor, who represents the Southall Green ward, contacted the Cleaner Air for Southall and Hayes (CASH) group setting out what he describes as the urgent steps he is taking to address issues of air quality around the old Southall Gasworks site.

CASH was formed in 2018 following reports from residents of headaches, vomiting, nausea and serious illnesses such as cancer which they claim are directly linked to a petrol-like odour coming from the 88-acre site.

He says, “I am very aware of the genuine distress and concern that has fuelled CASH’s remarkable campaigning efforts. Local residents have suffered from impacts of unpleasant odours, dust, noise and traffic. They have worried about the impacts on their health and that of their
families. These real impacts on local quality of life have arisen from a development that many local people don’t believe will benefit them, and for which disruptive work potentially stretches many years into the future.

“As Gasworks Communities United have already identified in their demands of government, the powers that we have as a local authority to regulate and monitor brownfield developments are woefully limited. We will be campaigning, I hope alongside yourselves, to get the government to
acknowledge and change this.”

He acknowledges that there is a perception that the constraints on the council’s capacity to act have been used as a way to stonewall the real concerns of the Gasworks’ neighbours leading to the impression that the council is battling for the developers as opposed to residents.

He continues that rather than allowing Southall to become a dormitory residential suburb development in the area should lead regeneration with good jobs being created and the neighbourhood’s identity retained.

Cllr Mason says that on being elected leader he immediately instructed council officers to do the following:

• Commission legal advice to establish what would be the necessary conditions at this stage for the council to issue a successful statutory abatement notice;
• To be prepared to place on hold the tendering process for independent air quality monitoring for the Gasworks site, so that CASH can be closely involvement in specifying and awarding the contract if it wished to do so;
• To draw up a plan to include CASH and the wider community in developing an air quality strategy for Southall in addition to the Low Emissions Strategy for the Gasworks site;
• To begin work on establishing an independent complaint monitoring process for air quality and smell complaints to give sufficient confidence that complaints are being logged, witnessed and evidenced in order to be used in any future statutory abatement notice;
• To meet and work with Centric Lab to better understand and advocate for incorporating and accepting compound stressors in how public health professionals understand the impact of factors such as structural inequality on community health.
• To launch an urgent review Berkeley Group’s sponsorship of council events and activities;
• To begin a programme of lobbying with government to obtain the powers we need.

He has praised the ‘campaigning zeal’ of CASH and invited them to a meeting in the hope that the council can be co-operators not combatants in the future.

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May 20, 2021

 

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