December 2009 Archives

Students at Feltham Skills Centre helped build their own workshop by laying a concrete base.

The 16 and 17-year-olds helped lecturers and contractors lay the 60sq m floor for a new brickwork workshop last week to get experience of working on site.

The students at the college in Boundaries Road stopped only once to enjoy a hot drink and pasty made freshly by the centre's catering class.

A campaign is underway to make Queen guitarist Brian May a Freeman of Hounslow.

May grew up in Walsham Road, Feltham and returned to the town last month to unveil a memorial to friend and bandmate Freddie Mercury, who also hailed from the area.

Now politicians want to recognise Brian himself by bestowing on him the highest honour the borough can give and raised the suggestion at a council meeting last week.

A landlord who illegally converted a Hanworth house into three flats and let out its outbuilding has been fined £20,000.

Paul Riat was prosecuted by Hounslow Council after refusing to reinstate the property in Hounslow Road as a single house and stop using the static caravan as a separate home to rent out.

MPs Alan and Ann Keen over-claimed £353 worth in service charges last year, newly-released documents have revealed.

The couple were forced to pay back the money after they had claimed £4,284 between them to pay a bill at their central London flat of just £3931.

The latest in a series of expenses scandals to plague Mr and Mrs Keen has emerged after Parliament published the claims of all MPs over the last 18 months.

A disabled single mum who was denied a nursery place for her 10-month-old son has been offered six months of free childcare thanks to the Chronicle.

Claudia Chambers has been pleading with Hounslow Council to have son Taffarigh put in nursery for two days a week as she is unable to take him out of the house due to her hips collapsing during her pregnancy.

The owner of a derelict pub in Hanworth has been fined for refusing to move building waste off the site.

Sukhvir Singh was ordered to pay £1,000 for repeatedly ignoring requests from Hounslow Council officers to clear the site of the New Moon in Main Street.

The collapse of a rail bridge in Feltham that caused travel chaos last month only came to light when when drivers noticed the track was sagging.

The bridge over the River Crane was damaged by raging torrents late on Saturday November 14, causing the closure of the line between Feltham and Waterloo for more than a week.

Hounslow Animal Welfare Society is holding a Christmas jumble sale at Lindon Bennett school in Hanworth on Saturday December 5.

The event is open from 11am to 3pm at the Main Street school and all proceeds will go directly to help animals in the charity's care.

Victims who have had their rabbits and chickens stolen from a Hanworth allotment fear their animals are being used to train fighting dogs.

Thieves have broken into the Church Road plots four times in two weeks and stolen rabbits, chickens and quails that are kept as pets.

A man has been charged with burning down the Feltham Rugby Club changing rooms in Hanworth Air Park in October.

Brendan Burke, 23, of The Drive, Feltham, will appear at Feltham Magistrates Court on December 4 charged with arson following the attack on October 26.

The blaze was the second at the pavilion in Park Road in just two months. The club have lost thousands of pounds worth of memorabilia and players have been forced to changed at the nearby Hanworth Villa FC changing rooms.

• An earlier version of this article appeared stating the name of the man charged as Aiden Burke when it is actually Brendan Burke. We apologise for this error and are happy to put the record straight.