Saturday 8 August 2020 With gardening gloves, trowels, sun cream and protective face masks at the ready, we were finally able to complete the community planting project for Brentford Market Square, two years after applying for funding. To answer a few questions: no they don’t have wheels, and yes they are here to stay!!
Huge thanks go out to all of the volunteers who helped on the day, there was an enormous amount of work involved and many hands really made the task lighter. One team of people filled cars and vans with 120 bags of soil sourced from a resident’s garden, plus over 100 plants, and another team unloaded everything at the Market Square end. Continue reading
April 2020 Air quality in Brentford has improved on the whole during the Coronavirus pandemic with a vast reduction in traffic travelling along the M4 and A4 arterial routes. Hounslow Council employ Ricardo to do their air quality monitoring and you can look at the results and make graphs such as this at 
Thurs 27 Feb 2020 Following on from last October’s meeting where the ideas in the *above diagram* were collated, a new Clean Air and Climate Emergency Reference Group has been formed. We took part in this first meeting organised by Hounslow Council, alongside other interested local community groups. Some key points: the Council plan to be net zero by 2030, will be using 100% renewable energy by Oct 2020, are planning solar farms in Hillingdon, solar panels in schools, and are making progress with electrification of their vehicle fleet. 
26 February 2019, Holiday Inn, Brentford Hounslow Council have set up a Working Group to focus on ways they can improve air quality, and protect local residents, especially those with vulnerabilities like children and people with existing underlying health issues. Air Quality Brentford was one of the community groups asked to attend this for their input. The public meeting followed in the afternoon. Here is a brief summary of some of the speakers. 
Monday 4 December 2017 Following our trip to Bonnington Square we headed over to City Hall where we’d been invited to a ‘Hostile Streets’ event, reporting on a series of visits to Outer London junctions. Host Caroline Russell, London Assembly Member, stated that ‘one of the most extreme cases was in Brentford’ where she was stuck in the middle of fast-flowing traffic, with children who use the crossing on a daily basis for school. We asked if traffic on the A4 could be reduced to 30mph to help improve air quality and to improve safety through the residential area. The report lists decreasing traffic speed as one possible measure in improving such roads and this is now in the hands of TfL to consider. John Dales, from Urban Movement and a trustee of Living Streets, chaired the meeting and being local, is also keen to improve conditions on the A4. Dr Rachel Aldred, a Reader in Transport at the University of Westminster, had been looking at the risk factors involved. Lucy Saunders, from TfL said that their approach was to create ‘Healthy Streets’ which has an impact on all people. The Hostile Streets report can be read 
Air Quality Brentford 