27/10/2026
I'd honestly love for my only concerns right now to be filling our Filipino Food Pop Up next week, enjoying our Mauritian Food Pop Up tomorrow and getting the pub ready for a jolly spooky season...
But alas, here I am about to have an almighty whinge on the internet and for once, it's not got anything to do with the impending budget!!
Regrettably, it's time to publicly call out Ealing Council for what can only be described as a complete catalogue of procedural and administrative failings!
As an independent business owner, I work tirelessly to keep The Dodo Micropub going. My why is because genuinely, this small business is a real magical community. It's a safe space that has real meaning for people and despite all the various challenges we've overcome along our almost 10 years of trading - the people and human connection is what keeps us going.
Behind the scenes, I've been dealing with an ongoing unresolved roof leak issue. This dates back to 2022!! Yes, 4 years ago! I know, I have the patience of a saint and perhaps believe in the good of people and systems too much! My bad!
I've spent significant personal money on remedial fixes in the past which only serve as a temporary resolve to persistent and severe water ingress at The Dodo.
Most recently it's been rather heartbreaking to see the ongoing roof leak issue undermining all our hard work completed during our refurb in January this year. The Hanwell Massive poured hours of their spare time into fixing up the pub and repainting it for it's hopeful new era. The disrespect for the Hanwell Massive's kindness and hard work is really striking my justice nerve!
The short of the story is, I've been emailing back and forth since 2022 requesting a roof repair at The Dodo. Every annual building inspection since then, this issue has been raised and logged with Carter Jonas (the company that manage the Council's Estate). As the issue escalated I took video evidence of the severity of the situation and the damage it was doing to the property. Nothing of note has ever been done to provide a complete resolution.
In March this year, finally, some contractors were sent to inspect the roof. Nobody informed me of their visit. I just happened to be on site on a Tuesday morning to catch them!! I was told they abandoned a sealant repair (temporary fix) because it started to rain and was assured they would file a request for a full roof repair back to the office. I note, the contractor did remark "they won't like that and will probably push back".
In April this year there was a claim that the roof issue had been resolved. Again, no one from a relevant Council Department had contacted me about this to gain access to the property. So I asked for a breakdown of the exact works carried out and to this day - no one has ever been able to provide this. My question has gone dodged and ignored.
Perhaps because objectively and evidently the long standing roof issue was never actually resolved in April. I have an educated hunch that this claim is false!
I insert below a video taken from this Saturday 24th October so you can see the extent of the problem and the damage and health & safety risk this poses.
There is also a whole playlist on YouTube documenting the issue over the years. These videos were sent with every email to Carter Jonas to try and speed up the process. I thought, surely if the powers that be see the video evidence of how bad the situation is, they'll help me out here. How wrong I was - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL01tmi5FrsDe9zbC2bfI9J0muFH45ev9A&si=vxc69WbC_gHbqabx
So here we are. If you've read this far down, thanks for listening. I am utterly frustrated and at my wits end. My unresolved, ongoing roof leak issue has been dragged through endless bureaucratic dead ends, consistently ignored and administratively avoided for far too long!!
It's already an incredibly tough climate for small independent businesses and as I have thus far done everything by the book and in good faith. I've now been left with no choice but to put this diabolical situation out in the open in the hope that a resolution is actually and finally provided!
Many thanks to ward Councillor Andrew Walkely for your prompt response to my email. There are countless other emails that have gone out in the hope of escalating this matter further.
