Out and about on the Lennox estate and Woking Close

I've spent the past week talking to residents of the Lennox estate and Woking Close, with the help of a large - and growing - campaign team of volunteers.

These are two estates at the top of Priory Lane by Upper Richmond Road, right on the edge of Barnes Common and East Sheen.

A huge range of issues were raised including the visibility of the Roehampton Safer Neighbourhood Police team; problems with public transport and traffic congestion in the area; homelessness and unacceptable overcrowding caused by the council selling off half the affordable rented homes locally without replacing hardly any of them; and the usual, valid complaints about the poor quality of estate cleaning by the Conservative Council's bargain-basement contractor.

Curiously enough, the moment word got round that I was about to spend a week talking to people in the area the Conservatives showed up - a coincidence no doubt. If my visiting an area is what it takes to get the Tories to take an interest in it too all well and good - it's the residents that will hopefully benefit. But yet again we see the stark contrast between my local leadership and the Conservatives following along behind.