WCGS

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Rumour has it that the Gunnersbury Groundlings have written a letter to Shanta. What might they be wishing for?

Please click here to see.

Our Chair, Marie Rabouhans spoke at the meeting of Hounslow Council’s Planning Committee on Thursday, 4^th December on the Chiswick Tower development proposals.

To see our report of the meeting, please go to the ‘Gunnersbury Station’ page on the drop down menu under ‘Environment’ or click here. 

The planning application for Chiswick Tower (P/2025/0794) will be presented to the Planning committee on 4 December.

The Planning Officer Report is available within the papers for the meeting on the Council’s website.

To see the Report please click here.

Our Chair has requested to speak.

Update November 2025: To read the latest Chiswick Tower Development Proposals please click here.

The Society has submitted comments to Hounslow Council’s planning officers.

Please click here to read more.

AGM, The Society’s Annual General Meeting – Tuesday, 11^th February 2026 at 7.30pm.

at the Age Concern Hall, Oxford Road North, Chiswick W4.

All Members are invited to attend this meeting

This is change from the original date of Monday, 10th February, 2026.

Topics to be discussed include:

• The Society’s Annual Report and Accounts

• Election of Officers

• Latest planning news

• Anything else that concerns you.

Amongst subjects for discussion are the development of the Chiswick Tower and the opportunity it presents to make essential improvements to Gunnersbury station.

Further documents including a membership form will be sent to you in the week prior to the meeting.

There will be refreshments after the meeting for which a donation towards our campaign and conservation fund would be appreciated.

Please note that you can pay your subscription at the AGM and bring your completed membership form along to save posting it.

We look forward to seeing you there.

You are invited to attend our next Public Meeting which will take place on:

WCGS committee members have been busy responding to the redevelopment proposals for Chiswick Tower and the surrounding land. 

Our focus is on the well-established need to improve access and capacity at Gunnersbury Station, an issue on which the society has been campaigning for many years, and we are considering the proposals from that perspective.

Please click here to read more.

The Routemaster Reunion (RM 70) will be held in the Chiswick Business Park over the weekend of 20/21 July.

Please click here to read more. 

We are delighted that these iconic buses will be coming home. Not only because the business park was the former site of the London Transport Chiswick Works but also more specifically because Colin Curtis OBE, who played a key role in the design and development of the Routemaster, was based at the Chiswick Works.

Click here to read his obituary in the Guardian

The timing of the event is also fitting as Curtis was born on the 21st July 1926.

We are sure that the event will be very popular with Chiswick families some of whom will have memories of members who worked at the bus works. A founder member of WCGS, the late Beryl Cross, who lived her entire life in Silver Crescent, was proud of her father who worked there including during the Second World War, as recorded in one of her poems about the park (extract below).

Another has a certificate awarded by London Transport to a local man for 53 years and 11 months service! 

As part of the Society’s local history focus, we would welcome more memories of those times. Contributions can be sent to our Secretary, Kate: secretary@westchiswickgs.org

The following link is to an interesting item by Ian Wylie whose photos of Chiswick were much appreciated locally.:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/ianwylie/8173520238/in/pool-2058001@N22/

Extract from:

Autumn Intimations; Chiswick Park by the late Beryl Cross of Silver Crescent

And I shall walk on plank-board pathways

Past glass-fronted, metalled buildings

Sometimes remembering how my father,

In this plot’s previous incarnation,

Helped to rebuild London’s buses;

One, from a direct hit,

Ravaged with blood and flesh.