H&F Council’s Questionable Funding Of Shepherds Bush Station Propaganda

I remember the night well. It was only a few weeks ago. A cold, dark January evening, and standing outside of Shepherds Bush Village Hall was none other than Cllr. Stephen Greenhalgh (Con), the Leader of H&F Council. He was handing out Conservative Party leaflets (see excerpt opposite) justifying the closure of Shepherds Bush tube station. Fair enough I thought. He’s welcome to his point of view.

Then, along with over two hundred local residents, we went inside and spent that evening of January 24th with representatives of TfL, London underground and local MP Andy Slaughter (Lab) hearing about the station closure; learning how Andy was campaigning against it and how he had won a range of concessions from TfL and London Underground; including extra busses; the setting up of a user group and how he was fighting to have a lift fitted in the station for the elderly and disabled.

Cllr. Greenhalgh was given an opportunity to tell the room what he and H&F Council were doing about the station closure – which centred on concluding H&F Council’s road works to minimise disruption (although he was unable to say when this would be completed).

So! What could be behind H&F Council’s latest tax-payer-funded leaflet to thousands of borough residents? It quotes Cllr. Greenhalgh saying that he would “continue to pressure them [TfL] to get the station open again” and takes credit for the all of the concessions that had been negotiated by Andy Slaughter. Cllr. Greenhalgh didn’t mention any of this at the meeting.

I have written to senior council officials for an explanation to their claims and to find out why they’re spending thousand of pounds of our money promoting this line. Meanwhile, if you’d like to read more about the closure and the details of the concessions won so far then please click here.