A councillor has said he plans to reintroduce surgeries into his ward after a resident turned up to where they were previously held, only to find that it no longer existed.

Cllr Manjibhai Kara, who represents Belmont, held surgeries with his fellow Conservative councillors every Saturday at the Cinnamon Café and Sandwich Bar in Kenton Road.

Community champion David Mackinnon, who lives in the area, wanted to speak to him about a parking issue at a set of allotments run by his father.

But when he turned up at the address – which was advertised on Harrow Council’s website – he found that it had been replaced by a ‘coding academy’ and Cllr Kara was nowhere to be seen.

Mr Mackinnon said: “I was shocked to see that it was a completely different place, this is not how your councillors should be behaving.

“It shows a lack of respect and suggests that he doesn’t want to talk to people. It’s disheartening as a resident when you want to try and get something across.”

David Mackinnon wanted to speak to his councillor

Harrow Times:

He added how he had attempted to contact Cllr Kara online but had not received a response and suggested that he was avoiding the issue. The councillor has since promised to contact Mr Mackinnon to discuss the problem.

He also noted how, budget depending, he and his colleagues would look into reintroducing surgeries to the Belmont ward.

“We used to have a surgery at the café and it was used quite well, but we stopped using it when some people thought it might be risky to keep it open after [Joe Cox] was murdered,” he said.   

“The address was advertised in quite a few places – this has since been removed from Harrow Council’s website but we will have to change it elsewhere.

“Currently we don’t have surgeries but we would look to do them somewhere in Belmont Circle because everyone can get there and there are parking spaces.”