Image above: Chiswick lifeboat

The Chiswick lifeboat crew rescued seven people on Saturday 27 February, who found themselves cut off by the tide at Black Lion steps in Hammersmith.

Earlier in the day three adults and two children were also rescued from Chiswick Eyot, when they found themselves stranded by the incoming tide.

“We have had a real flurry of people getting caught out by the tide on Chiswick Eyot as the weather has started to improve” they said.

This is happening quite a lot; 21 people have been rescued so far this year in a similar predicament.

“In the past couple of months, since the beginning of Lockdown three, the incidence of people being cut off by the tide has increased and the same happened last year” Chiswick lifeboatman David Clarke told The Chiswick Calendar.

More people are out walking, and especially if they’re new to the river and don’t realise it’s tidal, or don’t realise quite how tidal it is, they get caught out. At spring tide when the river is at peak flow the tide can rise by about a metre and a half in just an hour.

The maximum difference between low tide and high tide Kew Bridge at spring tide is five and a half metres.

“We’re finding the number of people we’re called out to help is about the same as usual” said David “but instead of going to the aid of people in pleaseure craft, it tends to be walkers”.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: Car swept into the river at Chiswick Mall

See also: The invasion of Chiswick Ait

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Image above: LB Hounslow’s Director of Public Health, Kelly O’Neill

The start of the Prime Minister’s ‘roadmap’ for the gradual easing of lockdown is the opening of schools nationwide on Monday 8 March.

“For some parents this will be a moment of elation” says LB Hounslow’s Director of Public Health, Kelly O’Neill, but for others “but for other parents this will be a very anxious time”.

In a video message to residents on Friday 26 February, she said:

“School head teachers and the staff have invested much of their time in making schools a very safe place for your children to learn. Added safety measures are in place within all schools. All school staff are being tested twice a week and secondary school students will start to be tested from their return to school”.

This, she said, would allow schools to be safer places, but she warned that Hounslow, even though rates rates of infection have dropped since mid January, still had the highest rate of infection in London.

Watch Kelly’s video message here.

Parents must play their part in keeping the infection rate down

It is important to children to reduce the impact of isolation and to reduce the loss of learning that we saw last term, but she said, it is inevitable that when the schools go back there will be a corresponding increase in infection levels.

“As parents, if you do have secondary school age children it is really important that you consent to them being tested.

“Children in primary schools and specialist schools do not require to be tested. As parents though, you can all play your part and help contribute to reducing the rates of infection. There are processes which schools have set up and put in place. Please follow those processes.

“Wear a mask and socially distance when you drop off and collect your child from school. That is really important.

She also encouraged parents to get themselves tested, to help her and her team understand the pattern of infection in the borough and to keep schools as safe as they can be.

“If you have symptoms of coronavirus, get tested and isolate. Don’t be irresponsible and put others at risk” she said.

Image above: The gym at Chiswick School, converted to Covid test centre for staff and students

Chiswick School ‘ready’ to start mass testing

At Chiswick School, staff are getting ready to welcome students back to classrooms. The sports hall has been transformed into a lateral flow testing site where students will learn how to self-test before being given test kits to use at home.

Since January, teaching and support staff have been running the test site for those children still attending school on site and the school say they are very confident that they can manage the increase in students using the facility.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: More cases of SA variant detected in Ealing

See also: Big campaign under way in Ealing to get people tested for SA variant

Support The Chiswick Calendar

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A man has been arrested following a linked series of commercial knifepoint robberies in west London and south west London.

The 45-year-old was arrested on the morning of Thursday, 25 February, in the vicinity of Northfield Avenue, Ealing. The arrest follows a series of seven incidents that are being treated as related. They took place between Friday, 16 October 2020 and Thursday, 25 February at a number of supermarkets in Hounslow, Ealing, and Richmond.

Officers also recovered a large kitchen knife during the arrest.

In each of the cases, the suspect is alleged to have waited for the store to be opened by staff members, before threatening them with a knife. He then stole cash from the tills, and on occasion, cigarettes, alcohol, and scratch cards, which were placed into a black holdall and a bin bag/Sainsbury’s bags.

In total, over £25,000 worth of cash and goods were stolen.

The man is in custody at a south London police station.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also:  More cases of SA variant found in Ealing

See also: Hounslow Leader and Cabinet members planning hefty allowance increases for themselves

Support The Chiswick Calendar

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We publish a weekly newsletter and update the website with local news and information daily. We are editorially independent.

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Image: Hilary Atherton

A 63 year old woman was rejected, having booked an appointment for a Covid vaccine on the NHS app. Hilary Atherton, who lives in Chiswick, contacted The Chiswick Calendar to warn other in the 60 – 63 age group that they are likely to be turned away.

‘I have received lots of texts and emails over the last 24 hours from various friends and contacts publicising that if you are over 60 you can proactively book a Covid vaccine though the NHS Covid app Hilary told us.

‘I consequently went onto the app last night and saw completely open availability across several local vaccinations centres. I chose the one nearest to me in Clayponds Gardens in S Ealing and booked an appointment for this morning (Wednesday 24 February).

‘When I arrived I was told that they were very sorry but there is a glitch on the NHS app and the vaccine is only being offered to over 64s (I am 63) and so unless I was clinically vulnerable they could not vaccinate me – and I was turned away’.

News of the availability of slots for people aged 60 and over has been circulating among that age group and people all over the country have been booking appointments.

‘My name was on the list and a dose assigned to me’ says Hilary, ‘so I’m not sure what happened to that dose.

‘Also, the ease and availability of booking slots shows that there is ample supply and resources – so I am not sure why they are turning away someone one year out – (especially as GP surgeries are simply working through their lists by age and some are down to 60-year-olds – not mine!) but that is the reality of the situation. I hope this is helpful’

The Chiswick Calendar has asked NHS England to comment.

Image above: Chiswick Health Centre

Chiswick Health Centre vaccinating 60 – 64 age group

Chiswick Health Centre has confirmed that it is now vaccinating people in the 60 – 64 age group as well as anyone over 16 who has an underlying health condition. They start vaccinating again on Friday 26 February and have been using both the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, depending which one they are given.

Chiswick health Centre takes referrals from GP surgeries locally, but as Hilary says, not all surgeries have get completed their list of people aged 65 and over.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: Hounslow Leader and Cabinet members planning hefty allowance increases for themselves

See also: Design unveiled for Yeats sculpture planned for Chiswick

Support The Chiswick Calendar

The Chiswick Calendar CIC is a community resource. Please support us by buying us the equivalent of a monthly cup of coffee (or more, if you insist). Click here to support us.

We publish a weekly newsletter and update the website with local news and information daily. We are editorially independent.

To subscribe to the weekly newsletter, go here.

Image above: Anna Ovsyannikova

Detectives investigating the death of a woman in Ealing have charged a man with murder.

Curtis Brown, 48, of Castlebar Road, W5, appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, 24 February. He is due to appear at the Old Bailey on Friday 26 February.

Police were called at 3.45pm on Monday 22 February, to reports of an unresponsive woman at a residential property. A 48-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

While formal identification is yet to take place, officers are confident that the victim is Anna Ovsyannikova. Her next of kin have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 101 or tweet @MetCC and quote CAD 4360/22FEB.

Information can also be provided to Crimestoppers, anonymously, by calling 0800 555 111.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: Design unveiled for Yeats sculpture planned for Chiswick

See also: Hounslow Leader and Cabinet members planning hefty allowance increases for themselves

Support The Chiswick Calendar

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We publish a weekly newsletter and update the website with local news and information daily. We are editorially independent.

To subscribe to the weekly newsletter, go here.

Images above: LB Hounslow Leader, Cllr Steve Curran; Deputy Leader, Cllr Lily Bath; Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services, Shantanu Rajawat

The Leader of Hounslow Council and members of the Cabinet look set to award themselves hefty increases in the next financial year, despite proposing to put up Council Tax by 5% to make up for the shortfall in budget caused by the pandemic.

Councillor Shantanu Rajawat, Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services, is recommending huge increases in their Special Responsibility Allowances, the Chiswick Calendar has learned. All councillors are paid a basic allowance and those who take on extra responsibility are awarded Special Responsibility Allowances (SRA) on top of the basic amount. Those who receive SRA include the Leader, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Members.

Steve Curran, as Leader, currently gets a basic allowance of £11,045 plus a Special Responsibility Allowance of £27,200. LB Houslow give his current remuneration as £42,332. Deputy Leader Lily Bath receives £11,045 plus a SRA of £16,000. LB Hounslow give her allowances as £29,586. Cabinet Members such as Hanif Khan (Cabinet Member for Transport) and Cllr Rajawat himself get £11,045 + £12,800. Their allowances are listed as £25,945.

The proposals are for the Leader’s SRA to be increased to £40,000, an increase of 47.1%, which added to the basic allowance totals £51,045. The Deputy Leader’s SRA would be increased to £25,000, an increase of 56.3%, allowances totalling £36,045 and a Cabinet Member’s SRA would be increased to £20,000, an increase of 56.3%, allowances totalling £31, 045.

Images above: Cllr John Todd; Mayor Cllr Tony Louki; Cllr Gerald Mc Gregor

Raises “wholly inappropriate” at this time

Chiswick Councillor John Todd, who says he was invited only to the final meeting of the cross-party committee which put forward these proposals, told The Chiswick Calendar he thought the raises were “wholly inappropriate at a time when they’re asking for a huge GLA precept and we’re told large numbers can’t afford to pay the Council Tax. It sends a bizarre message”.

The proposals have divided Labour members as well. At a meeting of the Labour group on 25 January a substantial minority voted against the proposals. The Chiswick Calendar understands that one member put forward the motion that the increases be shelved and the money instead be given to the Brentford Food Bank. This was ruled out by the Chair as a ‘wrecking amendment’.

The proposals have not yet come before a meeting of the whole council and it’s not clear whether the Cabinet Member for Finance intends to include them as part of the Budget presented to the Borough Council meeting on 2 March or whether he intends to present them at a Council meeting later in March.

It’s not just the 10 members of the Cabinet who would receive increases; there are 20 other roles – the Mayor, the Chief Whip and the Chairs of various committees who also receive Special Responsibility Allowances. Their proposed increases range from 10% – 56.3% – while the Chief Whip would be getting an increase of 284.2%, from £2,603 to £10,000 in his SRA.

By far the biggest increase would be in SRA paid to the Leader of the Opposition, Cllr Gerald McGregor. He is currently paid £11,045 plus £894. His remuneration is given as £12,416. His SRA would go up to £11,000, an increase of 407.4%, allowances totalling £22.045. He has told The Chiswick Calendar that he would donate the increase to charity.

Cllr Ron Mushiso, who is Deputy Leader of the Opposition, at the moment receives no extra payment for that role, but would receive £5,500, giving him allowances of £16,545.

Councillor Rajawat’s report also proposes that the increases be backdated a year, to take effect from 1 April 2020. The Council is also looking at introducing new deputy Cabinet roles, to give a wider group of councillors the opportunity to gain experience on important matters, and paying them Special Responsibility Allowances as well. Cabinet Members are appointed by the leadership, not elected by the party.

Images above: Cabinet Member for Communities and Climate Emergency, Cllr Katherine Dunne; Cabinet Member for Education, Cllr Tom Bruce; Cabinet Member for Transport. Cllr Hanif Khan; 

Allowances ‘unrealistic’ and not updated since 2010

Councillors’ allowances are paid on top of whatever earnings councillors receive from employment, as the role of councillor is not supposed to be full time. The Labour group have historically decided against paying themselves more and Special Responsibility Allowances have not been increased since 2010. Those who have argued for the increases say they are now a long way out of step with other parts of London. An independent report carried out in 2018 found that the workload and responsibilities of councillors was increasing and that their role had become more complex.

‘Councillors are faced with unenviable choices. Demand for local authority services continues to grow. In particular, there is rapid growth in the number of old people with a corresponding increase in demand for social care. London itself faces acute housing problems. Councillors have an increased responsibility for health. Thus the strain on and competition for resources increase the demands made on elected members. The responsibilities and accountabilities are made clear after a tragedy like the Grenfell Tower fire’.

The challenges posed by the pandemic have added considerably to this.

Given the extent of the responsibilities of leaders of London boroughs, the Panel’s first report in 2001 recommended that their remuneration should equate to that of a Member of Parliament (basic annual salary £81,932). At the time of that first report, MPs were earning £67,060; their pay has gone up considerably, but the Panel still maintained that the allowwances of London’s council leaders should be pegged to those of MPs, and if anything:

‘Leaders of London boroughs warranted a higher remuneration than an MP, because they had greater financial responsibility and legal burdens’.

For Cabinet Members they suggested remuneration of £47,962 to £54,505 and for the Chair of major regulatory committee e.g. planning, they suggested £27,252 to £40,842. (This includes the £11, 045 basic allowance).

The independent members of the Panel were a former chief executive of Westminster City Council, Sir Rodney Brooke CBE, the chief executive of the Audit Commission and chief executive of the London Borough of Camden, Steve Bundred and Anne Watts CBE, who has had an extensive career in and governance, spanning the private, voluntary and public sectors, with organisations including the Commission for Equality and Human Rights and the Appointments Commission.

Councillor Shantanu Rajawat’s report echoes their findings, saying:

‘The workload and responsibilities of Councillors continue to increase. There is evidence that it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit Councillors of quality, a major disincentive being the time commitment which is required. Whilst allowances should not be so high that they are an incentive to become a Councillor, it is also It is important that allowances are not set at a level which makes them a disincentive for people to take on the role. Service as a Councillor should not be confined to those of independent means’.

Images above: Cabinet Member for Highways, Recycling and Trading Companies, Cllr Guy Lambert; Cabinet Member for Leisure Services, Cllr Samia Chaudhary; Cabinet Member for Customer Services and Corporate Performance, Cllr Pritam Grewal

More people in Hounslow struggle to pay Council Tax as a result of the pandemic

LB Hounslow has recently published its budget proposals for 2021 – 2022 and is proposing a 5% increase in the council’s element of the tax, equivalent to £63.62 per year for a Band D property.

Council Leader, Cllr Steve Curran said there was a shortfall between the money the pandemic has cost the council and the grants being paid to local authorities by central Government, coming on top of a decade of cuts.

Already they have seen increased pressure on provision for people who are homeless or on the brink of becoming homeless through a reduction in their income during the pandemic. The crunch will come when the Government’s support in terms of furlough payments, a freeze on evictions and the provision of business grants, runs out.

“Those are providing a sticking plaster but we are expecting there will be a surge in people being evicted once the freeze on evictions stops, a surge of unemployment when furlough ends and a surge in businesses going bust once the grants come to an end”.

In October 2020 the council reported that 40% of the borough’s workforce was either unemployed or on furlough. Hounslow is projected to be one of the hardest hit London boroughs economically over the next few years, due to the impact of COVID-19 and lockdown, because of its previous reliance on Heathrow as a major provider of jobs.

Images above: LB Hounslow headquarters at Hounslow House; Cabinet member for Adults, Social Care and Health, Cllr Candice Atterton; Former Cabinet Member for Finance, Cllr Theo Dennison

Plans to make Council Tax support available to fewer people

When asked about the ability of poorer people in the borough to pay Council Tax, Steve Curran referred to the Council Tax Support Scheme. Hounslow Council tried recently to reduce the number of people to whom Council Tax support would be available.

A unanimous decision by the Cabinet in December to change the support arrangement was ‘called in’, ie. challenged by Cllr Theo Dennison, a former Cabinet Member for Finance.

As a result, the proposals were not able to be introduced for this year, but at a meeting of the Scrutiny Committee on 2 February Councillor Rajawat admitted that the proposals “to reduce the bureaucratic burden on families” would in fact mean that “a small number of residents will pay more”.

In fact, the proposed changes would have raised £6.8 million and thousands of the borough’s poorer households would have had to pay more.

Budget meeting – question lead councillors before the budget for 2021/22 is passed

The proposed budget for 2021/22 will be put to the Borough Council on 2 March. Before that there is an opportunity for members of the public to ask questions about it on Thursday 25 February at 6.00pm, when Leader of the Council, Cllr Steve Curran will be joined by Deputy Leader of the Council, Cllr Lily Bath, Lead Member for Finance and Corporate Services, Cllr Shantanu Rajawat, and Lead Member for Adults, Social Care & Health, Candice Atterton, to take part in a Budget Question Time.

The full budget proposal is available to read here.

Click here to find the link to join the meeting.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: LB Hounslow proposing almost 5% Council Tax increase

See also: 40% of Hounslow workforce now unemployed or on furlough

Support The Chiswick Calendar

The Chiswick Calendar CIC is a community resource. Please support us by buying us the equivalent of a monthly cup of coffee (or more, if you insist). Click here to support us.

We publish a weekly newsletter and update the website with local news and information daily. We are editorially independent.

To subscribe to the weekly newsletter, go here.

Image above: Omari Douglas and Isabella Pappas

Chiswick’s independent performing arts school, ArtsEd, have said they are ‘delighted’ with two of their former students featuring on recent primetime TV shows.

Omari Douglas, who studied BA Musical Theatre in 2015, and more recent graduate Isabella Pappas, who was at Sixth Form in 2020, have been front and centre on It’s a Sin and Finding Alice respectively.

Image above: Omari Douglas in It’s a Sin

It’s A Sin

In It’s A Sin, Omari plays the lead role of Roscoe Babatunde alongside Years and Years singer, Olly Alexander. The series is set during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s. Since its release on 22 January it has ben immensely popular. Omari has been interviewed on a number of platforms discussing Roscoe’s extroverted character, and how people like him shaped the gay landscape for future generations.

On 5 February, at the end of National HIV Testing Week in the UK, sexual health charity organisation Terrence Higgins Trust said that it had seen an enormous increase in HIV tests ordered after the show’s success.

The five-part series is available to stream online on 4 on Demand. 

Image above: Isabella Pappas in Finding Alice

Finding Alice

In ITV drama Finding Alice, Isabella plays the role of Charlotte, 16-year-old daughter of Alice and Harry, played by Keeley Hawes and Jason Merrells. The show also stars Joanna Lumley, another ArtsEd alumnus Nigel Havers, along with Gemma Jones, Kenneth Cranham and Sharon Rooney.

The plot revolves around the story of Alice and her ‘honest, dark and comical journey of grief, love and life after the death of Harry – her partner of twenty years – who falls down the stairs of their new dream home he designed.’

Finding Alice can be watched on the ITV Hub.

ArtsEd said: ‘We are delighted to see two of our alumni playing lead roles in new TV shows this year, and we hope you will be tuning in if you haven’t already!’

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: David Tennant nominated for Broadcasting Press Guild awards

See also: Design unveiled for Yeats sculpture planned for Chiswick

Support The Chiswick Calendar

The Chiswick Calendar CIC is a community resource. Please support us by buying us the equivalent of a monthly cup of coffee (or more, if you insist). Click here to support us.

We publish a weekly newsletter and update the website with local news and information daily. We are editorially independent.

To subscribe to the weekly newsletter, go here.

Ealing council’s decision to close the recycling centre at Stirling Road in Acton “makes no sense” says Liberal Democrat councillor Andrew Steed.

LB Ealing is proposing to close the Acton Reuse and Recycling Centre on Stirling Road because it says it needs to save money. Earlier this month the council announced its plan to increase Council Tax by 5%, in line with other London councils including Hounslow and Hammersmith and Fulham councils and other Conservative led councils, to meet budget shortfalls exacerbated by the pandemic.

Image: Cllr Andrew Steed

Chiswick’s three Lib Dem councillors, who represent Southfield ward, oppose the closure, as the reuse and recycling centre is convenient for people in north Chiswick and south Acton. Councillor Andrew Steed told The Chiswick Calendar:

“Quite frankly it makes no sense. It discourages recycling, and encourages fly-tipping, it results in residents having to make longer car journeys, it goes against the council’s own climate change emergency recommendation. It makes no sense.”

No timescale has been set for closure but when it does close, the council has said residents living in the east of the borough will be able to use the recycling site at Abbey Road in Park Royal instead.

LB Ealing says it needs to make cuts in services to save money

A council spokesperson told The Chiswick Calendar the reason for the closure is the culmination of a decade of reduced funding from central government.

“Ealing Council is currently considering a number of budget proposals involving the borough’s waste services. One proposal includes consolidating waste and recycling operations to one main site at the larger Greenford Reuse and Recycling Centre.

“Funding from central government has fallen by 64% over the last 10 years. This means that, for every £1 the council used to receive it now gets just 36p”.

The projected revenue savings as a result of decommissioning the site at Stirling Rd are in the region of £125,000 per annum. In addition the land which is freed up by site closure is likely to be sold off to developers. A report commissioned by the Council’s regeneration team a couple of years ago valued the land at around £1.2m, so it is likely to be worth significantly more today.

Cllr Bell

Images above: LB Ealing Council Leader Julian Bell; Ealing Council offices

Reuse and Recycling centre at Stirling Rd is a target because it is relatively under used, says council

Earl Mckenzie, Assistant Director for Street Services at LB Ealing, told Cllr Steed that unlike most boroughs, Ealing currently has two household waste and recycling centres and according to the West London waste authority, Acton is probably the most expensive and least cost-effective site in London because of its size, through-put and user numbers.

‘Actual site usage and tonnages against all waste streams delivered to Acton have actually reduced year on year since 2017.

‘To be honest the site at Acton, although popular, provides a relatively limited recycling facility because of its small footprint and currently only 52% of waste delivered is recycled’ he said.

‘The site at Greenford has a throughput of 15,000t pa with a capacity for more than double that. The Acton site has a throughput of 4,064t pa so all of this waste could be accommodated at Greenford. That said, there is the availability of the site at Abbey Road and both provide better facilities for recycling, including DIY waste which is not accepted at Acton’.

The Abbey Rd reuse and recycling centre is 3.5 miles away from the Stirling Rd site, just off the North Circular Road, north of the Hangar Lane junction, in the borough of Brent NW10. Ealing residents are allowed to use it under an agreement between west London boroughs. The Greenford site is 6.2 miles away from the Stirling Rd site.

Petition against the closure

Ealing Liberal Democrats are organising a petition against the closure of the Stirling Rd centre.

‘Local opposition to closure is understood’ said Earl Mckenzie, ‘as the convenience of proximity will be missed. However this was the same when the Southall site was closed in 2012 and residents gradually became accustomed to using Greenford where the facilities are better.

‘With the new booking system across west London, access to sites is much better and the need for time consuming queuing has gone. To reduce the need for private car use, residents are encouraged to make use of the collection services offered by the Council and additional blue bins for recycling can be provided free of charge to all residents’.

Pressure on waste management provision is about to grow substantially in south Acton, as LB Ealing recently gave the green light to a development nearby on Bollo Lane of over 800 flats. The development will include ten tower blocks, one of which is 25-storeys high. Other planning applications for tower blocks of similar height are still pending approval in the area.

Ealing Council public meeting on the 2021-22 budget

Leading members of Ealing Council are due to hold a public meeting about the budget for 2021 – 2022 on Wednesday 24 February at 7.00pm. You can register for the Webinar with Cabinet Member for Finance and Leisure, Cllr Bassam Mahfouz and Council Leader Julian Bell here.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: Bollo Lane ‘monster tower’ approved

See also: Latest tower block proposal for Chiswick roundabout

Support The Chiswick Calendar

The Chiswick Calendar CIC is a community resource. Please support us by buying us the equivalent of a monthly cup of coffee (or more, if you insist). Click here to support us.

We publish a weekly newsletter and update the website with local news and information daily. We are editorially independent.

To subscribe to the weekly newsletter, go here.

Image above: David Tennant as Dennis Nilsen

David Tennant is up for Best Actor award in the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards 2021.

The 47th annual Television, Streaming and Audio awards – for work commissioned or premiered in the UK and screened in 2020 – will take place as a virtual event on 12 March 2021. The winners are chosen independently by TV and radio correspondents, critics and previewers.

Three BBC dramas – Normal People, Small Axe and I May Destroy You – lead the nominations for this year’s awards, alongside two ITV dramas, Des and Quiz.

David Tennant, Chiswick’s most famous actor in residence, has been nominated for Best Actor in Des and Staged. Des is also nominated as Best Drama.

Image above: David Tennant as Dennis Nilsen, and Jason Watkins as his biographer, Brian Masters. ITV

Des

Des is the story of serial killer Dennis Nielson and is the ninth in the sequence of ITV miniseries about British serial killers, which has included This is Personal: the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, Shipman, The Brides in the Bath and See No Evil: the Moors Murders. The latest in the sequence, broadcast in January, was The Pembrokeshire Murders.

Dennis Nilsen killed up to 15 vulnerable young men between 1978 and 1983. He preyed on gay men, homeless men, drug addicts or anyone who was a bit lonely.

Lucy Mangan, writing in the Guardian, described Des as ‘a sensitive, finely worked drama showing the unrelentingly bleak reality of the monstrous narcissist’.

Writing in the Radio Times, Thomas Ling described David Tennant’s portrayal of Nielson as ‘one of the best performances in an impeccable career’, saying he is ‘both believable and captivating as Dennis Nilsen in every scene’.

Image above: David Tennant and Michael Sheen in Staged

Staged

Staged is the comedy David Tennant filmed with Michael Sheen during the pandemic, using video conferencing technology.  The series premiered on 10 June 2020 on BBC One. A second series was broadcast on BBC One starting on 4 January 2021.

In the first series the two actors play fictionalised versions of themselves, trying to rehearse a performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author during lockdown, while the underconfident director, Simon, struggles to keep control of the production.

The second series follows the “real” Michael and David following the success of the first series of Staged. Simon begins work on an American remake of the first series but Michael and David are not asked to reprise their roles.

David’s actor wife Georgia also has a main part in the series. A whole host of stars, such as Whoopi Goldberg, Samuel L Jackson, Judi Dench, Michael Palin, Ewan McGregor, Hugh Bonneville, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Cate Blanchett have made guest appearances.

‘Staged will be shown in museums as proof of how mad it all got at the start of the 2020s’ wrote Joel Golby in the Guardian.

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: Prime Minister announces phased easing of lockdown

See also: Stirling Rd recycling centre closure “makes no sense” says councillor

Support The Chiswick Calendar

The Chiswick Calendar CIC is a community resource. Please support us by buying us the equivalent of a monthly cup of coffee (or more, if you insist). Click here to support us.

We publish a weekly newsletter and update the website with local news and information daily. We are editorially independent.

To subscribe to the weekly newsletter, go here.

In the midst of what he called “huge financial challenges”, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced a further £30million investment in policing to ensure that more than 1,000 Metropolitan Police officers will continue to patrol the streets of the capital for the next four years.

The Metropolitan Police has recruited an additional 1,300 police officers over the past three years.

The announcement ring-fences funding from City Hall for the next four years for those additional officers, whose posts might have been at risk because of the impact of Covid-19 on business rates income.

On top of this, the Mayor has proposed a further £8million of new Council Tax funding on additional violence prevention programmes.

The new investment will fund a range of projects to reduce violence, such as expanding GPS tagging of violent offenders after prison release and extending the funding for youth work services for young victims of violence seen in London’s trauma centres and A&Es.

The level of policing in London has dropped to 30,000 officers for the first time in 15 years. London has 21,000 police officers fewer than it did in 2010.

City Hall says that violent crime had started to fall before the pandemic, and has continued to do so since the first coronavirus lockdown in March last year. Since 2016, it says, Mayor Khan has diverted more than £1billion of Council Tax and business rates receipts to policing.

Policing in the capital – which includes a range of additional duties, such as state visits, anti-terrorism units and diplomatic protection that tend not to be required elsewhere in the country – ‘remains underfunded by government by more than £160million per year’.

Government ‘continues to refuse’ to fully fund police

‘The government continues to refuse to fully refund the Met for the costs incurred in supporting the capital during the covid-19 pandemic’, the City Hall statement said, claiming that £21million of covid costs remain unfunded this financial year.

In his speech, Sadiq Khan said:

“Violent crime had been increasing across the country and in London since 2014, while serious youth violence had been going up since 2013. We’ve worked hard to tackle violence in our city, and it started to fall well before the pandemic hit and has continued to do so. But I am not content or complacent, we still have a long way to go.

“If we are to see the long-term reductions in violence that we all want to see in our city, we must continue to tackle the underlying causes of crime, such as poverty, deprivation and lack of opportunities for young Londoners.

“I’m doing everything I can from City Hall to reduce violence, but it’s clear we still have huge financial challenges ahead because the government has implemented a new era of austerity on public services in London.

“Ministers must now match my commitment to tackling this issue and fully refund City Hall and the Met for all the lost income and money spent tackling the pandemic.”

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar

See also: Hammersmith Bridge lit up red in protest by local residents

See also: Coroner slams west London mental health service after woman’s death

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