Ruislip Lido

1. When will the Lido risk assessment be ready for community review and when will be be finalised?
2. What are the Council doing to minimise people swimming in the water at the Lido?
3. BBQs are being used on the beach.  How is this risk being managed?  

General HMO questions

1. What is the process and timeline for someone who wants to start a new HMO?
2. How does the Council check that landlords are ‘fit and proper’ people and how many HMO licences have been refused because landlords failed that test?
3. What proactive resources are being deployed to properly licence and police the up-to 2000 unlicensed HMOs in Hillingdon?
4. What will happen in August when the mandatory licensing comes into force?
5. Why is the HMO Register made so difficult to read online, be updated so infrequently, and not show lists of known unlicensed HMOs or HMOs with pending applications? 
6. Why aren’t HMO licensing applications publicly available for consultation in the same way standard planning applications are?

29 Torrington Road HMO questions

1. Over 500 residents have signed the e-petition against the licensing and use of 29 Torrington Road as a 6-person HMO.  Where will the petition go and how will the 500 people be heard? 
2. Why is a landlord allowed to continue operating and profiting from an unlicensed HMO, and what is the Council doing to protect both existing residents and the HMO’s tenants?
3. Will the council commit to investigating our evidence of the 29 Torrington Road landlord’s poor conduct to strictly enforce the ‘fit and proper’ person requirement for an HMO licence, rather than just assessing the physical building?

Ruislip High Street

1. What is happening with the red staining from ‘paan spitting’ outside McDonald’s?  Why is this still continuing, who and how often is it being cleaned?  Why not more often and why are there no consequences for the perpetrators?
2. Why are motorcycle delivery riders still parking along so much of Ruislip High Street?  What happened to the new parking rules, why are they not in force, and do you still believe they will address the problems?
3. What consideration has been given to users of the Disabled parking bay on Ruislip High Street that used to be where the motorcycle parking bay is now?

Updates please

1. Why has the Council failed to honour the Leader’s promise to publish the exact street-by-street rankings used for the road and pavement resurfacing budget, releasing only the mandatory generic report?”
2. What is happening with the old care home at West Ruislip?  
3. Please give an update on The Orchard site.  When is the Spitfire model being returned, what obligations are on the building owner to keep the fabric of the building and the surrounding landscaping in good order, and how is that being monitored and enforced?
4. Please give an update on the Barn Hotel planning application.  We have heard that new plans are to be published soon – is it true that the site will be intensified with more dense flats?
5. With so much confusion over shifting deadlines and documents for the St Martin’s Approach CAB application, when is the planning decision expected and when will the public Planning Committee meeting be held?

Others

1. Regarding the reported £21 million spent on net-zero initiatives, how much came from Council funds versus government grants, and is it generating a tangible financial return?
2. How has the Climate Emergency spending tangibly improved Ruislip, and will the Council’s financial position reduce its urgency going forward?
3. Why did Cllr Goddard abruptly resign from the Cabinet just before presenting his report, and did the rapid succession of handovers to Cllrs Lavery and Bridges cause any disruption?
4. Has the promised review of traffic and dangerous driving on Breakspear Road been completed, and if so, what action is being taken?
5. What specific traffic management measures will the Council implement to regain control of vehicle speeds on Breakspear Road following the increase in heavy commercial traffic?
6. With only one employee left to manage 755 acres at Ruislip Woods, can the Council really afford to turn away willing volunteers and ask the Trust to halt recruitment?

Ruislip Lido

1. At the AGM in April 2025 the Leader of the Council Ian Edwards was asked for an update on the Risk Assessment for Ruislip Lido. His response was to acknowledge the “obvious risks” at the Lido and concede that the site’s existing risk assessments “may not be best practice.” He gave his public commitment that a new, comprehensive risk assessment was “a piece of work that will be picked up very quickly”. 
   
   At our last meeting in September 2025, Cllrs Smallwood and Riley told us:
   “The council is in the process of finding external experts to engage with them over the remainder of 2025 and this review will direct the controls and measures in place for the organisation in the running of the Lido. Once the document is approved, the residents will be invited to feed into the review and feed in their experiences”.
   
   We had no such invitation.  In February the new Cabinet Member for Community & Environment Cllr Bridges told residents: “Officers are working on progressing this with specialist external advisors. This work is ongoing but is expected to be completed in time to allow officers to consider and put in place steps to address any recommendations coming from the assessment ahead of when the Lido is expected to reach peak use.”
   
   Lido peak use can be expected to start anytime from Easter, weather depending. Residents and the emergency services have been flagging up safety concerns at Ruislip Lido for years, yet still nothing concrete has been put in place despite the Leader’s assurances.
   
   The Leader promised this ‘very quickly‘ last April. In September, we were promised a resident consultation that never happened. In February, we were told it would be ready before peak use. By Easter, peak use is essentially here. Will the panel commit tonight to a firm publication date for this risk assessment, and will you honour the original promise to let the community review it before it is finalised?
2. What are the Council doing to minimise people swimming in the water? Are you able to share how the council are mitigating this risk and how the principles of prevention are being considered. From what I can see there is some signage which clearly is proving insufficient in managing this risk.  If in the awful event someone were to drown, would the council be able to demonstrate they have taken reasonable steps to prevent this?
3. BBQs are being used on the beach. From the Hillingdon website I can see these are not permitted. How is this risk being managed?  It raises the question around emergency response plans should something go wrong, particularly on hot and dry days and with high traffic around the lido area. Is the Emergency Response Plan publicly available as I couldn’t find anything on the website?

HMOs

General HMO questions

1. Could the councillors clarify the exact process the Council follows when someone wants to start a new HMO?  What is the timeline for applying for planning permission and an HMO licensing application? 
2. How is the ‘fit and proper person’ test for HMO landlords actually measured and proactively enforced? To help us gauge the strictness of this process, can the Council provide the data on: how many HMO applications have been made, how many approved, and crucially, how many have been declined solely because the landlord failed this specific test?
3. The Council’s own recent survey estimated there are almost 2000 ‘hidden’ HMOs operating in the borough.  There is huge frustration regarding the speed of enforcement against those properties that break the rules.  Specifically on Herlwyn Avenue and Torrington Road in Ruislip Manor, we see investigations and enforcement taking so long when the rules are clearly broken. Why?  What proactive resources are being deployed to shut down or properly licence and police these and the other 2000 unlicensed HMOs?
4. What will happen in August when the mandatory licensing comes into force?
5. Residents currently feel they have no say when an HMO is created on their street. Why is the HMO Register made so difficult to read online, be updated so infrequently, and not show lists of known unlicensed HMOs or HMOs with pending applications? Will the council commit to overhauling the register so it operates in real-time, clearly showing pending applications, recently declined licenses, and properties currently under investigation for being unlicensed?
6. Why aren’t HMO licensing applications publicly available for consultation in the same way standard planning applications are?

HMO – Torrington Road

1. Over 500 residents have signed the e-petition against the licensing and use of 29 Torrington Road as a 6-person HMO. What tangible weight does a petition of this size hold in the council’s final licensing decision?  Who will receive and consider the petition?  If this was a planning application we would be able to attend the Planning Committee when a decision is made.  If this was a petition for speed controls on the street, we would attend a Petition Hearing before a Cabinet Member.  Where will the petition go and how will the 500 people be heard? What specific actions will you take to champion our voices inside the Council?
2. There is anger regarding the enforcement timeline at 29 Torrington Road.  We know planning permission for an extension was refused last year, and residents warned the council then about HMO fears.  Yet, the property is currently operating as a large HMO while the council’s enforcement investigation slowly drags on.  Why is a landlord allowed to continue operating and profiting from an unlicensed property during a lengthy enforcement process, and what is the Council doing to protect both existing residents and the HMO’s tenants during this ‘limbo’ period?
3. Torrington Road residents have provided the council with evidence regarding the poor behaviour of the landlord.  However, the council appears entirely focused on the building’s physical structure. Given that HMO regulations strictly require an HMO landlord to be a ‘fit and proper’ person to hold a licence, can you assure us that our evidence regarding their character, behaviour and management will be investigated?  The current system feels entirely skewed in a landlord’s favour – surely this is what the planning permission rules intended to address, but the landlord at No 29 has evaded the planning process so far.  How do we fix this?

Ruislip High Street

1. What is happening with the red staining from ‘paan spitting’ outside McDonald’s?  Why is this still continuing, who and how often is it being cleaned?  Why not more often and why are there no consequences for the perpetrators?
2. Why are motorcycle delivery riders still parking along so much of Ruislip High Street?  What happened to the new parking rules, why are they not in force, and do you still believe they will address the problems?
3. What consideration has been given to users of the Disabled parking bay on Ruislip High Street that used to be where the motorcycle parking bay is now?

Updates Please

1. At our public meetings in both 2023 and 2025, the Leader of the Council, Cllr Ian Edwards, told us that the Council would publish detailed pavement and road inspection data on its website.  He assured us this would rank individual streets, allowing residents to understand the specific priority given to each road chosen for the £12 million resurfacing budget.  However, this twice-made promise has yet to be honoured.  The Council has only published the formulaic “Local Highways Maintenance Transparency Report” required by the government, which entirely lacks the street-by-street detail and prioritization ranking we were promised.
   Can you explain why this detailed data is still being withheld, and confirm exactly when the Council will finally honour the Leader’s twice-made promise to publish the full, ranked street-level information?
2. What is happening with the old care home at West Ruislip?  When you tell us that something is happening but that you can’t say what, we struggle to believe you.  We see people living there, and we see the mess that they make.  We do not believe that the Council is completely powerless.  Is it a resourcing or a priority issue?  What needs to change to address this longstanding problem?
3. Please give an update on The Orchard site.  When is the Spitfire model being returned, what obligations are on the building owner to keep the fabric of the building and the surrounding landscaping in good order, and how is that being monitored and enforced?
4. Please give an update on the Barn Hotel planning application.  We have heard that new plans are to be published soon – is it true that the site will be intensified with more dense flats?
5. The application at the CAB site and St Martin’s Approach carpark for six terraced houses in St. Martin’s Approach has a lot of local interest with many questions raised in addition to petitions against it.   There has been confusion with documents superseded and others added or removed with changing dates for when people can make comments.   When will a decision be made by the Planning department and when will a subsequent public meeting take place when local voices can be heard?

Others

1. The Council declared a Climate Emergency six years ago, and we understand since then has since then spent £21 million in net-zero initiatives. Can we have some understanding and transparency on this spending? Specifically, how much of this came from Hillingdon Council’s own funds, and how much from central government grants?  Are these initiatives generating a tangible financial return on investment – such as reduced council energy bills? 
2. Aside from hitting corporate carbon-neutral targets, how exactly has this ’emergency’ status and the associated spending tangibly improved the day-to-day lives, local environment, and infrastructure for the residents of Ruislip?  Is the Council’s well documented financial position going to affect how urgently it treats the Climate Emergency going forwards?
3. Why did Cllr Martin Goddard resign from the Cabinet between after preparing a report and leaving Cllr Lavery to present it?  What provoked the unexpected change and was there any disruption from the handover between Cllr Goddard to Lavery and Cllr Lavery to Bridges?
4. At our last meeting it was agreed by the Councillors that there would be a review of traffic volumes and dangerous driving on Breakspear Road.  Can the panel confirm if this request was actually processed and if so, what are the actionable results of that review by the Police and the Council’s Highways department.  If it wasn’t, why the delay?
5. The usage of Breakspear Road, from Bury Street to the Breakspear Arms, has fundamentally changed.  It now heavily services the crematorium, builders’ merchants, the Woodman pub, and notably, a football club operating as a depot for HS2 parking and commercial film trucks.  Given this massive increase in heavy and fast traffic, road infrastructure near Ladygate Lane is completely inadequate.  What specific, modern traffic management measures will the Council’s Highways department implement to regain control of vehicle speeds on this increasingly busy stretch of road?
6. Ruislip Woods National Nature Reserve comprises 755 acres of nationally protected woodland and acid grass heathland. A workforce of 4 fulltimers has dwindled to 1.6 and as of December 2024 just a sole Council employee. Our Council is dependent upon volunteers to meet the requirements of the Management Plan agreed by Natural England. Previously volunteer groups were organised on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and a Saturday per month. The Wednesday group was disbanded in early 2025. Numbers of local residents wishing to volunteer have increased. Every local authority would be happy with this free labour force. Instead of agreeing to re-allocate another Green Spaces employee to help manage the increased number of volunteers, the Ruislip Woods Trust was asked to take down their webpage encouraging residents to volunteer.
   Can our Council really afford to turn away willing volunteers?