Getting My Hands Dirty in My New Role on the Council

Chiswick Riverside councillor Amy Croft reports back

Cllr Amy Croft finding out how waste and recycling works in the borough

July 4, 2026

It has been a busy couple of months since the election, finishing off the last few weeks of my mayoral term and then swapping my robes and chain for a fairly meaty cabinet portfolio, of Infrastructure, Enforcement and Recycling. In simple terms that covers roads, bins, parking, enforcement and our regulatory services, such as licensing, trading standards and animal control.

I want to make sure I properly understand how all of the services that sit within the portfolio work in order to help make service improvements and iron out any issues and so I have been out and about with some of the services in the last few weeks.

On Wednesday I arrived at the Southall Lane Depot of Lampton 360, our Waste and Recycling partner, at 6am sharp ready to see how our waste and recycling service works on a daily basis. After meeting with staff and getting a tour of the facility, I was given my PPE and was then given training on manual handling and health and safety on both the recycling and general waste trucks, to enable me to go out with the crews and take part in the collection. I was particularly keen to do this, as from my initial conversations with officers I was quite horrified to hear that often waste and recycling crews can receive abuse up to 3 times and hour, whilst walking about 30,000 steps a day, in full PPE and often high temperatures.

Also, I wanted to see for myself the amount of recycling that is actually disposed of in black bins, as this and the disposal of food waste in the same manner is a concern in terms of both environmental and cost factors. As an example, food waste costs us about £10 a tonne to dispose of and general waste costs about 13 times as much, and so if residents are disposing of food waste in their general household waste this is hugely increasing the cost of disposal, and missing the chance to dispose of it in an environmentally responsible way.

It was a really interesting experience, and luckily I didn’t witness any abuse, on the contrary one woman came out of her property near Green Dragon Lane to tell me she had the “best bin men anyone could ask for” which was nice. What was worrying though was the level of recycling and food waste disposed of in black bins by some residents, and I am committed to ensuring that moving forward we provide better guidance to residents on what and how to recycle on an ongoing basis.

On the theme of recycling and waste I have been working with officers on our approach to bringing in the introduction of better waste and recycling facilities for our nearly 2,000 flats above shops and am excited about our plans to bring bulky waste removal, reuse and recycle options closer to residents, I hope to be able to report back with more detailed plans on this in the near future.

In another visit with Teams this week I attended the Soho House Festival, along with our noise regulation and trading standards Teams and got a better understanding of the large effort that goes in from a number of our Teams at the Council to ensure that events organised around the Borough are property run, and in adherence to the appropriate license. Everything was in order during my visit, with sound levels staying below those mandated and no trading standards issues across the food and drink outlets onsite. I am told by officers that this particular event is one of the quieter ones, but I was impressed by the rigour with which officers monitored the various elements.

Back to Riverside which has attracted a great deal of media attention this week. What started as a simple license renewal application, has, it seems, turned into somewhat of a media frenzy. I feel I ought to provide details of what has transpired for the record, as Cabinet Member with responsibility for licensing, as some of the reports I have seen in the national press have not been accurate. Following the licence renewal application that one of the Strand on the Green pubs submitted, a representation was made which triggered Hounslow Council Licensing Officers to visit the properties listed on the representation and investigate. Officers followed the correct procedure in telling two of the pubs that they would need a license in place to keep their outside seating, and agreed to fast track any applications, made by them.

When it became apparent that the fast tracked licence would still take two weeks to complete, and in order that revenue was not lost to the pubs, I liaised with officers to come to a pragmatic solution, suspending any enforcement until the pubs had had a chance to get their licence, this was possible due to the slightly unusual nature of the circumstances surrounding the representation and the good faith of the pubs involved at all times.

As a former publican myself I understand the importance of supporting the local hospitality industry and it is clear from the media attention that this story has gained that many people feel the same as me about the wonderful pubs on our glorious stretch of the river. Whilst I appreciate there is some degree of anger and finger pointing still being levelled, I would appeal for calm now that the issue has been successfully resolved.

After what seems like a very long election period I am away for a bit of a break this weekend so I have rescheduled my surgery until Saturday 18th July 10:30am until 12pm at the St Michael’s Centre, Elmwood Road, with service returning to normal in August and beyond to the 1 st Saturday of the month at the St Michael’s Centre 10:30am until 12pm. Although I am happy to arrange meetings outside of surgery times, and you are welcome to email me on amy.croft@hounslow.gov.uk.

I wish you all a lovely weekend.

Cllr Amy Croft

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