Father Phil leaves St Mary's Harmondsworth

This evening I attended the evening service and after service party to say goodbye to Father Phil, the vicar of St Mary's Harmondsworth. The church was packed with parishioners and members of the local community coming to say a fond farewell to Father Phil.

He has been the parish priest for 6 years and in that time has gained a strong reputation as an excellent, caring and hard working servant of the local community. At the leaving party many local people and I paid tribute to his hard work and dedication to the local community.

I also paid tribute to his courage in standing up for his parish at a time when it has been under threat from the third runway proposal. Father Phil has played a key role in explaining the implications of the third runway for his parishioners and I recall his many impassioned pleas for the voice of local people to be heard by government.

He is now going to a new role within the church in Newcastle. He will be sorely missed but goes with the best wishes of us all and with the warmest memories of the high regard in which he is held within our community.

Hayes FM Community Radio Station Launched

On Saturday Greg Dyke, former Director General of the BBC and local Hayes boy, and I launched our local community radio station, Hayes FM. On wavelength 91.8 FM Hayes FM will broadcast local news, information about local community activities, and a wide range of music, arts and entertainment based upon local talent. The station will reflect the diversity of our local area with programmes providing music and news from all the local ethnic groups ranging from Irish music to Asian, Polish, Tamil and Somali news and entertainment.

Hayes FM will report local news, views and events. So if your local group, community organisation, school, college or local club or pub has something on let the station know on 0208 099 2225 or office@hayesfm.org and Hayes FM will let people know all about it.

If you have a particular issue you want to raise contact the station and you will be given the opportunity of airing your views.

Haye FM is a community radio station developed and run by local community organisations, based in the annex to St Anselm's church in Hayes town centre. It is a non profit making charity and so needs the support of the local community, including sponsorship and advertising from local businesses. So again if you want to advertise your local business try Hayes FM. The station broadcasts to a sizeable area including Hayes, West Drayton, Yeading, the Heathrow villages, Southall and up to north Hillingdon.

As chair of the Charity which has developed Hayes FM I want to thank all those community representatives who have helped us launch this fantastic venture, particularly Sutish Sharma, our station manager. Sutish is a local resident and a broadcaster who has vast experience of working for the BBC and many other stations. Without Sutish we could not have succeeded in getting on air. Thank you Sutish and thank you to all our funders, especially Hillingdon Community Trust and the London Ddevelopment Agency, for all your support.

Give Hayes FM a listen and let us know waht you think. Above all else, get involved.