Category: Democracy & Council

As of from today until further notice, our office will be closed to the public for refurbishment. However, our service continues to be operational and we will continue to meet all clients who have upcoming advice appointments with us.

We plan to deliver new community drop-in advice sessions across the borough and will keep you updated on this.

For updates, please visit our website: www.hillingdoncab.org.uk

How to contact us: Request a Telephone Call Back -our online form can be accessed here https://tinyurl.com/bdhfbdeb

For urgent advice – call Adviceline on: 0808 278 7893, or leave a message for our team Voicemail Box: 07498 482 130

Hillingdon Council is marking Recycle Week (16 to 22 October) with the launch of new small electrical recycling points in libraries across the borough in a bid to increase the number of electrical products being recycled instead of being thrown away.

New pink collection bins have been rolled out to offer residents another convenient way to recycle their small electrical items in nine libraries: Botwell Green, Ickenham, Manor Farm, Northwood Hills, Ruislip Manor, Uxbridge, Yeading, Yiewsley and Oak Farm.  PLEASE NOTE THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE EASTCOTE LIBRARY.

The council, working in partnership with Material Focus, a not-for-profit organisation which has funded the scheme, will collect items including broken kettles, hair styling appliances and electric children’s toys. Small electricals can still also be donated alongside clothes as part of the council’s home clothing collection scheme with the charity TRAID. Larger items continue to be accepted at Harefield Civic Amenity Site and at the West Drayton waste weekends.

The theme for this year’s national Recycle Week initiative, The Big Recycling Hunt, focuses on items that can be recycled but are most commonly missed in the home. The council is building on this by also shining a light on items that don’t belong in household recycling but can be recycled by other means. When items that are not recyclable are included in a recycling bags this could lead to a whole batch of recycling being rejected and disposed of as general waste.

The most common items that can be recycled as part of the council’s dry mixed recycling collections (and may sometimes be forgotten about), include:

• • plastic pots, tubs and trays
  • plastic detergent/cleaning bottles and their triggers
  • shampoo/conditioner bottles
  • empty aerosols
  • drinks and food cans/tins
  • kitchen foil and aluminium trays
  • books, paper, magazines and cardboard
  • Tetra Paks and cartons
  • lids from bottles and jars.

The most common household items that cannot be recycled as part of the council’s dry mixed recycling collections, include:

• • clothes and textiles
  • batteries and electrical items
  • food and liquids.

Hillingdon’s waste and recycling team will also be hosting three recycling roadshows in Uxbridge, Ickenham and Ruislip this week to celebrate Recycle Week. They will be on hand to answer questions and help residents improve their recycling habits, find out more about how to bin less and recycle more, and share tips on how to reduce contamination.

The council is committed to recycling as much waste as possible by providing residents with free, weekly and easy-to-use recycling collections for mixed dry recyclables, food and garden waste. The council also offers free textile collections.

Hillingdon is seeing a steady increase in recycling rates. Food waste collections rose by 17 per cent between 2021/22 and 2022/23 as more people in kerbside properties signed up for the council’s free weekly food waste collections. Residents have also booked more than 8,000 free household clothing and textile collections via TRAID since September 2021, which is more than any other London borough, resulting in approximately 135 tonnes of textiles being reused and recycled.

West Drayton resident Rachel Rizzo and her sons, Enzo, aged 11, and Theo, aged eight are keen recyclers. Rachel said: “The boys love to get involved with sorting the recycling while I make sure that it’s all clean and dry. Weekly collections help us to stay on top of everything and the council website is great for checking anything we’re not quite sure about.”

Cllr Eddie Lavery, Hillingdon Council’s Cabinet Member for Residents’ Services, said: “We are committed to creating a green and more sustainable borough for future generations and our new small electricals recycling scheme in libraries provides another opportunity for residents to recycle and reduce the environmental impact of disposing of general waste.

“Thank you to all Hillingdon residents for their ongoing recycling efforts. We’re seeing more households recycling year on year which is fantastic.
We can all play our part in driving recycling rates up even further, so please do take the time to check that you are recycling correctly and doing all you can – every little helps.”

More information about the council’s recycling initiatives, collections and events is available at www.hillingdon.gov.uk/recycling.

Many of you may be aware of the proposed move of Uxbridge Central Library from the High Street to the Civic Centre. This has many implications for access, the number of local groups using the library and the available space for exhibitions. If you want to register your views you can contact your local councillor or sign the online petition. (see details below)

I should stress that I have been assured by Susan Dalloe ( Head of Museums and Archives) that the Local History Room and Department is not going to move to the Civic Centre. However no plans have been finalised yet for suitable alternative premises elsewhere in Uxbridge to house the Local History Department. The Society will continue to keep an eye on the situation.

https://www.change.org/p/save-our-central-library-in-uxbridge

The Council for the Independent Scrutiny of Heathrow Airport (CISHA) is carrying out a project to understand how local communities perceive air quality, and what changes they would like to see in their area. The findings of the project will lead to a set of recommendations on how the airport can make improvements to their work and funding on air quality.

@CISHA wants to know your views on air quality, if you live or work around Heathrow Airport. Take part in their online survey which is open until the end of September: https://tinyurl.com/heathrow-air-quality-survey  or join in their online webinar on Wednesday 20th September by registering here https://shorturl.at/quNP2

For more information on their project visit https://www.cisha.org/air-quality

Hillingdon Council’s Cabinet (14 September) approved recommendations to maintain childcare provision in its three early years centres and roll out family hubs boroughwide to provide enhanced support for families within their local communities.

Both decisions follow an extensive 12-week consultation where more than 690 families, carers, partners, providers and community organisations shared their views on draft proposals.

The council considered responses from local parents which highlighted how strongly valued its early years nurseries (Nestles Avenue, South Ruislip and Uxbridge) are to them. This shaped the decision to maintain childcare services at these locations, as well as sourcing a provider to deliver the service.

Additionally, respondents positively received the council’s Family Hubs Strategy, with 71 per cent of residents and 79 per cent of community partners in agreement with the proposals. Eighty-two per cent of respondents also agreed or strongly agreed with the range of proposed services, welcoming the introduction of one system to provide all the support families might need from pregnancy through to adulthood.

The council’s Family Hub Strategy reflects the government’s national programme of providing more integrated services to whole families, parents, carers and children aged 0 to 19 and up to 25 years of age for those with special educational needs (SEND).

Hillingdon opened its first family hub in Uxbridge in December 2021, and the council’s ambition is to now expand this model boroughwide, building on existing services, such as children’s centres, to offer more joined up support to older children and young people.

Six family hubs and additional delivery points will be in the heart of local communities in existing children’s centres, libraries, community spaces and leisure centres. These will be within 1.5 miles or 30 minutes’ walk from residents’ homes.

Subject to the usual scrutiny process, Hillingdon’s family hub services will include, children’s centre groups and sessions, outdoor space for play, youth services, birth registration, parenting programmes and workshops, SEND support, adult education opportunities, information and advice, pre and antenatal maternity support, health visiting and school nursing, mental health services, programmes to encourage healthy weight, and communication, speech and language support.

Cllr Susan O’Brien, Hillingdon Council’s Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Education, said: “Thank you to all the families and partners who took the time to respond to the consultation this summer.   Your views have really helped to inform our decision to maintain childcare in our early years centres and to go ahead with the expansion of the family hubs model boroughwide.  These services will help us to provide even more support to children, young people and families, when and where they need it most.”

Our bursary award scheme (in memory of Tashan Daniel) supports young residents to achieve their ambitions in sport, culture (theatre, dance, crafts, literature, multi-disciplinary arts, music, visual arts) and education.

Entries are now open for this year’s bursaries, which provide young people with up to £2,000 of support to pursue their dreams in sport, the arts and education. 

The deadline for applications is Monday 4 September. 

 

Please share with any young people you think might be interested. 

 

This is the link: www.hillingdon.gov.uk/tashan-daniel-award

Hillingdon Council is pioneering hybrid wind and solar-powered street lights to help reduce its carbon footprint while keeping people safe.

The council has trialled the new lights at six locations across the borough where there is a need for lighting, but no live source of electricity.

The new street lights use energy-efficient LED bulbs that use less power than traditional bulbs and can be powered by the sun via a solar panel, or via the wind using the turbine at the top of the column. An in-built battery retains enough power to keep the lights going through periods of low sun and wind.

The council had installed the lights at the Civic Centre and on the St Andrew’s Roundabout in Uxbridge, with two more at the Grainges car park in Uxbridge and one at each of two council housing estates in South Road, West Drayton and Melrose Close, Hayes.

The plan is now to roll the lights out further, with 10 more planned for the St Andrew’s housing estate in Uxbridge and a further 10 in the car park of Minet County Park, in Hayes. Each column has reduced CO2 levels and running costs compared to normal bulbs.

Hillingdon Council is the first in west London to take up the new technology as part of its commitment to ensuring residents stay safe, while addressing the climate emergency.

Cllr Eddie Lavery, Hillingdon Council’s Cabinet Member for Residents’ Services, said: “We’re committed to ensuring Hillingdon is a green and sustainable borough where residents feel safe.

“These new street lights solve the issue of installing good lighting where there’s no electricity source, which is ideal for a borough like ours where there’s lots of open space.

“They save the expense and environmental impact of having to connect remote locations to the electricity grid, and being self-powered, don’t cost the council anything to run.

“These are the kinds of emerging technologies we’re keen to embrace and champion as we push towards a greener and more sustainable Hillingdon.”

Hillingdon Council has launched a competition for local primary aged children, those who find the most creative and sustainable ways to store food waste indoors, will win a prize.

Primary school-aged children (4 to 11 years) are tasked with finding or repurposing a container in their home, such as an ice cream tub or old lunchbox, that could be used as a food waste caddy.

The initiative encourages children and their families to learn about food waste recycling and its benefits to the environment. It helps people reduce waste, save money and be more sustainable by reusing items in different ways.

The competition has three categories:

• Best recycled/reused food waste container
• Best food waste reduction idea
• Best waste less, spend less idea

The competition will run until 25 June, with students invited to submit photographs of their creations. There will be an entry form for each of the three categories, with a maximum limit of 100 words for any further explanation of the children’s ideas. Primary aged children can enter one, two or all three categories.

Hillingdon council offers food waste recycling to every school in Hillingdon and provides interactive sessions and posters for classrooms, to help children with their food waste recycling.

Cllr Eddie Lavery, Hillingdon Council’s Cabinet Member for Residents’ Services, said: “Recycling food waste is a small change to your household routine that can make a big difference in helping to protect the environment.  Food waste that is included within your general waste produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide, whereas by using our free, weekly, food waste recycling service it can be turned into green energy, such as biogas and fertiliser.
“I am delighted that so many households in Hillingdon are already signed up to this service, but we’d like to see even more residents recycling their food waste and helping us achieve our pledge to create a green, sustainable and carbon-neutral borough.
“I wish all the children good luck and can’t wait to see what they come up with!”

The winner will be selected by a judging panel comprising of the Mayor of Hillingdon, Cllr Shehryar Ahmad-Wallana, Cllr Eddie Lavery and waste and recycling service officers. The winning submission for each category will receive a sustainable baking kit and cookbook.

To enter the competition visit www.hillingdon.gov.uk/food-waste-competition

To find out more about recycling food waste and to sign up, visit www.hillingdon.gov.uk/food-waste

The High Court has announced on 25 May that it will allow further grounds for challenge as part of a Judicial Review by a coalition of councils into the proposed expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).

At today’s hearing, the coalition comprising the London boroughs of Bexley, Bromley, Hillingdon and Harrow, along with Surrey County Council was successful in its appeal, getting two additional grounds for challenge – out of three previously refused in April – added to the Judicial Review.
Those were:
– unfair and unlawful consultation in relation to expected compliance rates in outer London
– scrappage scheme
– irrationality due to uncertainty and inadequate consultation.

On 12 April the High Court granted permission for the coalition to challenge the legality of Transport for London (TfL) and the Mayor of London’s plans to expand the ULEZ to outer London from August 2023.

The permission then was granted on the following grounds:
• – failure to comply with relevant statutory requirements
• – whether the Mayor properly considered the previous “buffer zone” approach as a material consideration in relation to the scrappage scheme.

The Leader of Hillingdon Council, Cllr Ian Edwards, said: “Today’s result is another step forward for the coalition and outer-London. These grounds are key to understanding the harm the ULEZ expansion will have on our residents.
The Mayor estimated that only one in 10 of vehicles in outer London would be non-compliant but this is proving to be widely inaccurate. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders data shows that one in six cars registered in outer London did not meet Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) standards last year, and yesterday a new study by TfL found that half the vans registered in outer London are not compliant.
As each day passes the harm that the expansion of ULEZ will cause is becoming clearer and the sheer number of vehicles that don’t meet ULEZ emissions standards in Greater London suggests there will be a massive financial impact on motorists and businesses as well as enormous social harm.
We believe that we’ve assembled a valid and robust case to put before the court and have every confidence that the inappropriateness and harm of these expansion proposals will be given the scrutiny, exposure, and ultimately, the expulsion they deserve.”