One week before a local election on May 6th, the situation now boils down to this: If the incumbent LibDem council is re-elected they will go ahead with the redevelopment plan. If the Conservatives get in they will scrap the development plan, put the land in trust for the public in perpetuity and draw up a plan for the site which involves public use/amenity.

Local campaigners (including it must be said a fair number of Tory activists) gathered at the Barmy Arms on the evening of the 27th April and marched one last time on York House, where the council were due to meet.

Brief video footage of the event is included here for interest.  We’ll return to this issue again, after the election.

An extraordinary event took place in Twickenham yesterday. Prior to a council meeting at York House, at which the Conservative opposition sought to have the Riverside decision-making process reviewed, members of the Save our Riverside group took part in a mock funeral for Richmond Riverside.

There follows a selection of photographs of the event. There’s not much need for text to explain it much further – readers who have read the earlier post on this subject “Save Our Riverside” will be familiar with the issue.

Needless to say, despite the demonstration and many cogent arguments from members of the public and opposition councillors, the LibDem council is going ahead with their chosen scheme for the Riverside.

Anyway, here are the pictures of the mock funeral – the strangest event the town has seen for quite a while.

On Friday 24^th April about 200 people gathered on Twickenham Riverside to protest against the Richmond Council plan to put houses and offices on Twickenham Riverside.

Long-standing residents will know the troubled history of this site. Many will have longed for “something to be done” about it. Well, the trouble is, the “something” that Richmond Council has come up with is the worst of all worlds, and mean this crucial piece of public land will be lost to the public for the next 100 years or more.

In a recent consultation, a clear majority were against the Council’s plans. But the Council is disregarding the consultation findings. They propose to go ahead with the scheme, and say those opposed to the scheme are a “politically motivated” minority.

Take a look at the people in the photographs. Do they look like a politically motivated minority to you?

No, I thought not.

It takes a lot to provoke the rather peaceful residents of this Borough into direct action. But yesterday they demonstrated. The demonstration was good-natured, and good mannered. But there is a deep anger at what the Council is intending.

The rationale for covering the Riverside in luxury housing is to fund the development of a £3 million office building, which will be used as an Environment Centre.

Many people are deeply sceptical about the commercial viability of such a centre. Riversniffers has spoken to a lot of people. Not one person we have spoken to has seen the need for it. Most are at a loss as to its purpose.

Sorry, Trevor - this scheme is not just a wind-up. They mean to do it

Many point out that the Environment Trust that wants to put the centre in Twickenham has been offered alternative premises on Eel Pie Island. Many people also feel that the scheme may just be a Trojan horse for the eventual takeover of the office building as luxury riverside offices for the Council “nomenklatura”

Despite what people think, the Council is determined to push ahead. The next action will be taken at a Cabinet meeting at York House on Monday 27th April at 7pm. The purpose of the meeting is to approve the choice of a developer to carry out the scheme, and to authorise the sale of the land.

We’re going ahead anyway…

The public are entitled to attend the meeting. You may wish to attend yourself, and witness the final act in this deeply misguided exercise. You can at least say you were there when the people of Twickenham lost this crucial public amenity for ever.

Just like the rest of what they do then…

Bibi Persian Cuisine, 157 Heath Road, Twickenham TW1 4BH    Tel: 020 8892 1018

We never go out for dinner on Valentine’s Day.

After a run of bad experiences (overbooking, price ramping, shoddy food, couldn’t-care-less service etc) Mr and Mrs Riversniffer vowed some years ago never again to dine out on that day.

But when Mrs R said in January she’d booked A Cena, and what’s more it would be her treat, Mr R did not offer the slightest peep of objection. The fact is, if someone is offering to take you to A Cena, you don’t look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. It’s usually very, very good.

At this point a slight diversion – why is Richmond unable to support a first class restaurant?

Richmond has always had plenty of choice in the mid-range (say £50-70 for two including a bottle of wine). But despite the town always being portrayed as “affluent” or “well-heeled”, restaurants which have aimed at the top of the market have not lasted long.

Over the last thirty years it is difficult to recall a single first division restaurant that survived and thrived. Twenty years ago one entrepreneur opened an up-market eatery in the then-new Richmond Riverside development. Shortly before he closed up six months later, he observed “nobody in Richmond has got any money.”

I leave out of this the Petersham Hotel. In recent years under chef Alex Bentley it has been consistently very good indeed. However, the Petersham is a hotel, and I’m talking about stand-alone restaurants.

Riversniffers would welcome comments. Can you remember a single first division restaurant in Richmond town in the last thirty years that maintained consistently high standards of food and service and survived for longer than say a year?

Anyway, back to A Cena. We arrived on time at 7:30pm and were shown straight to our table. A brace of martinis and two glasses of prosecco were followed by starters of scallops with anchovy, roast cherry tomatoes, green beans and parsley. Sounds delicious? It absolutely was.

Our main courses were: Pan-roast Scottish Beef rump with Chestnut mushrooms, red wine and white truffle oil mash and Sicilian Style Roast Guinea Fowl with lemon and braised broad beans with speck and olive oil mash. Both were faultless.

Puddings were: New York style vanilla cheesecake with blackcurrants and strawberries in Valpolicella syrup with meringue and cream – faultless again.

All this was accompanied by a bottle of Veneto chardonnay and topped of with a large espresso for him and a glass of iced coffee with vodka for her (highly recommended by the way).

Service was attentive, courteous and, well, faultless.

Did we escape the Valentine’s Day curse entirely? Not quite, because there was a special £50 a head prix fixe menu. We reckoned if you’d ordered what we had on a normal night it would have cost about £32 per head. There was a premium to be paid for venturing out on the dreaded night.

But we didn’t begrudge paying it. It had been a great evening, our third successful visit to A Cena in eight months. Each time it has been a rare treat.

So can we now say that at last Richmond has a well-established (four or five years established, I would guess) first division restaurant? Well, technically no, because A Cena is 100 yards on the left on the Twickenham side of the bridge, as you leave Richmond. So it’s in Twickenham, not Richmond!

Anyway, however you define where it is, it’s a great place and highly recommended. Including a bottle of wine, expect to pay around £60 for two for lunch, £100 to £120 for dinner.

Booking is essential.

A Cena, 418 Richmond Rd, Twickenham, TW1 2EB.

Tel: 020 82880108

http://www.acena.co.uk/

The Mayor of London is giving ten grants of up to £400,000 to London’s most needy parks to make them cleaner, safer, greener, and nicer places to visit. Londoners are now invited to vote for which parks win an award.

There are forty seven candidate parks, which have been divided into five London sub-regions, North West, North, North East, South East and South West.

In the South West sub-region, there are ten candidate parks, and the one on our patch is Crane Park. Statistically, Crane Park will have about a one in five chance of winning  a grant. Unless of course we shorten the odds by getting everyone we know to vote for it!

Crane Park – winter

Crane Park – The Shot Tower

To save you typing in the voting link, it is here. Voting closes on 30th January 2009.

Please forward on the voting link or this post to your friends and ask them to vote for our local park!

Riversniffers’ No 1 son is quick on his feet. In fact when he was younger, a family friend used to call him “Billy Whiz”, after the character in the Beano.

The boy has never trained properly and never had any coaching, but he’s always done well at school and cadet running. Then someone suggested he try his luck in the annual Cabbage Patch 10.

The Cabbage Patch is a pub near Twickenham station, run by Frank Dupree and his daughters Elaine and Jan. 

Frank was for a long time a governor of Clarendon School in Hampton. He is a great supporter of community causes and since 1982 he has helped to promote and organise what has now become a major fund raising event for the school.

As the Cabbage Patch 10 website says:

“The Cabbage Patch 10 mile race is one of the flattest and best 10 milers in the country (Richard Nerurkar set an all time British record of 46 mins 2 secs in 1993). Starting and finishing in Twickenham the course follows a loop, crossing the river in Kingston and Richmond and as always race HQ is the Cabbage Patch pub in Twickenham.”

So on Sunday 19^th October the Riversniffer family accompanied our boy to Twickenham for a 10:00am start.

With approx 1500 entrants the start is quite hectic

Volunteer race marshalls help to organise the event and the police help to manage the traffic

Once the race has started, the runners go down Cross Deep, along to Hampton Wick, across Kingston Bridge, up the towpath on the other side, past Ham House, across Richmond Bridge and back to Twickenham to finish at York House.

The approach to the finish is along the pavement outside York House -  it is zoned off with barriers to keep the crowd from mixing with the runners. This chap had been cycling on the pavement and found himself funnelled across the finish line with the runners…

We managed to get a picture of the first three finishers…

1^st        Time: 0:48:28                         Scott Overall               Blackheath & Bromley Harriers

2^nd       Time: 0:49:23                         Moumin Geele             Newham & Essex Beagles

3^rd        Time: 0:53:13                         James Trapmore          Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers

The rest of the contestants arrived over the next hour or so, and long before the last stragglers finished the Riversniffers party were ready for a drink and something to eat. Where else should we go but the Cabbage Patch?

The Cabbage Patch

The Cabbage Patch is a vast pub. You might expect the service to be perfunctory, especially with the place being jammed solid after the race. But the service is cheerful, and the staff coped really well.

Our party duly got stuck into pints, and the beer was pronounced cracking. After a while we ordered some food – 3 x burgers and chips, 1 x salmon salad, one filo prawn starter and bangers and mash. Simple pub food, but when it arrived we were really astonished how good it was – great prawns, real homemade burgers, fantastic chips and the best bangers and mash that Riversniffer Senior had ever encountered. They might have been cooking for four people rather than the hundreds that were actually there.

The Cabbage Patch is big. But it is friendly and cheerful, the food is done with real care and it is really good value (see the menu on their website here).

In most operations the tone comes from the top, and with a community-minded landlord like Frank Dupree we think we can guess where the Cabbage Patch gets its positive feel from. Highly recommended.

P.S. How did the boy do?

Nonchalent youth. No training, no coaching, no running club. No race strategy either. He just ran round, and finished inside the top ten percent of all the finishers – and he wasn’t even out of breath at the end.

So now he’s joined a running club and with training and coaching we look forward to seeing how he does next year. Riversniffer Senior is looking forward to the bangers and mash already. Hope to see you there.

The Seesh Mahal has been one of Twickenham’s best curry houses since the 1980’s.

To quote from the toptable restaurant review site:

“This cosmopolitan Bangladeshi restaurant on Twickenham’s London Road is renowned for its sleek styling and fresh, authentic food. The dining room at the Sheesh Mahal – with caramel-coloured leather booths and natural timbers – is unashamedly chic, and the traditional menu has a modern twist. Ideal for dates, discreet working lunches and stylish celebrations”

Since February 2007 the owner Monaf has been helping a local Breakthrough group raise valuable funds for Breakthrough Breast Cancer

Jane Cox, a local supporter for Breakthrough organises the curry night on the last Wednesday of every month.

Jane and Monaf

The evening costs just £15 a head and includes pappadums and chutneys, assorted starters, various main courses and all the sundries. A glass of house wine/beer or soft drink is also included.

The menu is varied every month giving the opportunity to try different dishes. Some favourites have been the excellent Chicken Shamee kebab for starters, chicken minced with ground lentils, herbs and spices served with fresh green salad. Fish Bhuna is always popular as a main course . On a recent evening Monaf produced a lamb served straight from the cooking pot at the table, a chef’s special not normally on the menu

The service is smooth and the staff friendly. Additional drinks can be purchased, choosing from Indian beers or from an excellent wine list

A great evening, eating excellent authentic food at a great price in a stylish restaurant, all the while raising funds for Charity. Monaf just covers his costs, and the majority of the money goes to Breakthrough. The restaurant proudly displays a certificate presented when the first £1000 had been donated and they are on the way to the second.

It has to be better than running a marathon!

If readers of Riversniffers would like to more information and/or to attend on any particular last Wednesday in the month, please contact Breakthrough Breast Cancer organiser Jane on 07770 440390.

N.B. Regulars of the Breakthrough Charity Curry Night voted along with many other diners to help the Sheesh Mahal win Best Restaurant in Richmond Borough by the Guardian News Group.

Sheesh Mahal              19-21 London Road, Twickenham, TW1 3SX

                                    Tel: 020 8892 3303