Ealing Liberal Democrats have said that Ealing Council should ensure that the organisation that is running the Ealing Half marathon on Sunday 29^th September use edible water pods rather than single use plastics, to reduce the effect on our environment.

During the 2019 London Marathon, organisers arranged for participants to be handed edible pods made of seaweed extracts as they tackled the gruelling 26.2-mile route. The pouches, made by London-based start-up Skipping Rocks Lab, were made using a thin natural seaweed membrane.

Taking into account the recent EU elections where the Liberal Democrats won London and made very large increases in their vote (27%) in Ealing, the Tories (who only got 7%) could be set to lose all their Councillors on Ealing Council.

Looking across the whole borough the Liberal Democrats would end up with 19 Councillors (a gain of 15), the Labour party lose seven seats but retain control of Ealing Council. The Conservatives lose all eight Councillors and would end up with no councillors.

In the EU elections the total of parties who are totally Remain was about 40% which was higher than those who are totally for Brexit. Although the victory was not by a huge margin it shows that people have considered facts over the past three years and many have switched from Leave to Remain.

History was made in Ealing as the Lib Dems not only made it to second place above the Tories for the first time ever in a boroughwide election, but they knocked them into fifth place!

Liberal Democrats also got over twice the Brexit Party vote as Ealing showed everybody that London does not want to see a Brexit.

Councillor Gary Malcolm, Lib Dem Ealing Leader, said: "In London the Liberal Democrats topped the polls, gaining a record three MEPs. In the election Labour lost seats, and the Conservatives failed to gain any MEPs. London has spoken. Stop Brexit!"

On Sunday 12th May, many Liberal Democrat European election candidates and supporters converged on Southfield ward and delivered the whole area as well as speaking to many hundreds of residents to discuss Brexit.

Local Liberal Democrats were told that some residents' companies have moved staff from London to Europe making uncertainties more likely in many sectors. One resident commented about the shortages of some items in shops that used to be present in volume, casting doubts on how the government has dealt with the issue of Brexit.

Following the recent government U-turn which means that both Ealing and Charing Cross hospitals will retain their Accident & Emergency (A&E) wards, Ealing Liberal Democrats want the government to re-open the A&E wards that they closed at Central Middlesex and Hammersmith hospitals.

Crime in Ealing and Chiswick has been one of the hot topics over the past six months as many have had violent crime in their streets. Fear of crime has led to residents writing to myself about many criminal related matters.

Across London there has long been a scheme where London boroughs work together to fund additional police offices. The current scheme, which is called Met Patrol Plus, allows London boroughs to share equally the cost of extra police officers, using a model of ‘Buy One Get One Free’ – which is a 50 per cent discount. They can also agree where these extra officers will patrol, often in town centres and priority areas.

Liberal Democrat Group Leader, Councillor Gary Malcolm, was joined by London Mayoral Candidate Siobhan Benita and other London Liberal Democrats at the Sikh Vaisakhi celebrations in Southall.

Vaisakhi is one of the most important dates in the Sikh calendar. Siobhan Benita was invited to speak to worshippers in the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha.

Liberal Democrats put a motion which was debated by Ealing Council and it was agreed that a Climate Emergency was happening. It triggered Ealing Council to commit to further actions so that plans will be brought forward to reduce its carbon footprint. Later in the meeting another Liberal Democrat motion called for greater action on stopping the idling of vehicles which cause a huge amount of air pollution.

Today it was announced by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that the programme for closing Ealing and Charing Cross’ Accident & Emergency wards will no longer take place.

Ealing Liberal Democrat Leader, Councillor Gary Malcolm said: "Liberal Democrats have always said that the Tory plans to close Ealing and Charing Cross A&E wards were bad and dangerous for patients. Liberal Democrats handed in a huge, many thousand signature petition to campaign against these plans."

Ealing Council has confirmed that the mobile parking platform PayByPhone will be taking over the provision of visitor parking sessions currently offered by RingGo from 1st April 2019.

This follows the example in 2018 where Ealing Council unexpectedly changed a provider for parking management service which meant that residents had to re-register their details on the system. The result of the lack of notice then was that the Council had to hire extra staff to deal with the huge number of additional phone calls received. In addition well over 600 hours of overtime were paid to staff in order to help tackle the additional correspondence generated by system changes.