The short version

• The council has served 12 formal notices on shops along Uxbridge Road, telling the owners to fix them up.
• Asked whether any owner had done the work, the council said it doesn’t know.
• All 12 deadlines have now passed. Nobody from the council has gone back to check.
• No owner has been prosecuted, and the council has never stepped in to do the repairs itself and send the owner the bill.
• None of the 12 notices is on Goldhawk Road, even though we asked about both roads.
• For the first 20 months our request covered, the council’s records show no notices at all.

What is a Section 215 notice?

A Section 215 notice is a legal letter a council can serve under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 when the condition of a building or land is harming the look of the area. It tells the owner what needs to be done and sets a deadline.

If an owner ignores it, the council has two options:

1. Prosecute the owner. Failing to comply with the notice is a criminal offence.
2. Do the work itself and bill the owner. This is sometimes called “works in default” and comes under Section 219.

The powers are there. Our question was whether they were being used.

What we asked

Your local Lib Dems submitted a Freedom of Information request to Hammersmith & Fulham Council (reference 26662134). We asked, for Uxbridge Road and Goldhawk Road since January 2024:

• How many Section 215 notices had been served, and on which properties?
• How many owners had complied, and how many had missed their deadline?
• How many owners had been prosecuted?
• How many times had the council carried out the repairs itself and recovered the cost?
• How many other properties had been flagged for possible action in a council survey?

What the council told us

It doesn’t know whether the work was done. In the council’s own words, the information “is not held” and the compliance status of all cases “has not yet been determined”.

No prosecutions. Not one owner has been taken to court over these notices.

No repairs carried out by the council. It hasn’t used its power to do the work and recover the cost, not once.

Nothing on Goldhawk Road. Every notice is on Uxbridge Road.

No answer on the wider problem. When we asked how many more properties the council’s own survey had flagged, it couldn’t say. Its staff had asked the same question internally and never received a reply.

The 12 properties

These are the shops the council served notices on. The dates are as listed in the council’s own spreadsheet.

A note on the dates: for 342 to 348, 350 to 356 and 428 Uxbridge Road, the compliance date in the council’s spreadsheet falls before the notice was served or took effect, so we haven’t relied on them. The effective date given for 416 Uxbridge Road also looks like a typing error. We think this suggests the council’s own record keeping needs attention.

What the council said was wrong

The council’s own descriptions of the problems include:

• 110 to 112 Uxbridge Road: unused timber fixings, untidy electrical wiring, a deteriorated timber fascia board and a weathered side entrance door.
• 204 Uxbridge Road: a weathered timber fascia, a deteriorated corbel and a dirty awning.
• 208 Uxbridge Road: a deteriorating fascia surround, degraded corbels and a significantly faded advertisement sign.
• 324 Uxbridge Road: a damaged roller shutter and shutter box, loose and exposed wiring, a deteriorated awning, a poorly maintained fascia sign, defective timber, weathered projecting signage, advertisement stickers on the window frames, and a satellite dish with its wiring on the front.
• 342 to 348 and 350 to 356 Uxbridge Road: disrepair across the front of the building, including stonework, signage, shutters and rooftop features.
• 416 Uxbridge Road: exposed electrical wiring, a redundant satellite dish, deteriorated stonework, and aged advertisements and stickers on the shopfront.
• 418 Uxbridge Road: exposed electrical wiring giving an untidy, cluttered appearance.
• 424 Uxbridge Road: loose wiring, makeshift timber fixings, a deteriorated cornice, a neglected parapet wall, heavily soiled and eroded stonework, satellite dishes, a damaged shopfront base panel and a long disused advertising hoarding.
• 426 Uxbridge Road: timber planks fixed on without care, a weathered cornice, deteriorating stonework around the arched windows, a neglected parapet wall and a satellite dish at first floor level.
• 428 Uxbridge Road: exposed wiring above the fascia, heavily weathered window cills, a deteriorated cornice with peeling paint, an eroding parapet wall, and redundant satellite dishes and a TV aerial.
• 444 Uxbridge Road: loose wiring and a diagonal cable running to the roof, timber planks crudely fixed to the first floor wall, dirty upper floor window frames, a projecting sign in disrepair, damaged and soiled windowsills, blackened stonework, and a poorly maintained side door on Galloway Road with a crude board fixed over it.

Look closely and the same problems keep appearing. Exposed wiring is on almost every list, and so are old satellite dishes that nobody has taken down.

The timeline

• January 2024: the start of the period our request covered.
• September 2025: the first notices are served, on 10 and 11 September.
• October to December 2025: more notices follow, up to the 3 December notice at 426 Uxbridge Road.
• February to April 2026: the final batch goes out, ending with 208 and 444 Uxbridge Road in April.
• Between December 2025 and September 2026: the compliance deadlines pass one by one. The last, at 444 Uxbridge Road, was 20 September 2026.
• Today: the council cannot say whether any of the work was done.

Why this matters

A notice is only as good as the follow up. A deadline that nobody checks is just a suggestion, and owners who ignore the law quickly learn that nothing will happen to them. That’s how a high street ends up looking like this.

Neglected frontages also pull down the whole street. They make shops look abandoned, put off customers and make it harder for the businesses that do look after their premises.

It’s also a question of fairness. Owners who maintain their shops properly are being let down by a council that doesn’t enforce the rules on those who don’t.

What we’re asking for

1. Visit every one of these properties and check whether the work has been done.
2. Publish the result for each of the 12 cases, so residents can see what has happened.
3. Use the powers it already has, including prosecution and doing the work itself, wherever owners haven’t complied.
4. Track compliance from now on, so this can’t happen again.
5. Tell residents how many other properties are on its list, and make a plan to deal with them.

What we’re doing about it

• We’ve gone to the council with a Freedom of Information request to find out what is really happening.
• We’ve written to the Liberal Democrat group at the GLA to ask what they can do about it.
• We’re running a petition so the council can see how many residents want action.
• We’ll keep watching. If the council does check these shops, we’ll tell you what it finds. If it doesn’t, we’ll tell you that too.

How you can help

• Sign the petition so the council knows how many of us expect action.
• Tell us about shopfronts near you. If there’s a property that needs attention on Uxbridge Road, Goldhawk Road or anywhere else locally, get in touch.
• Share this page with neighbours, shop owners and local groups.

Common questions

Why isn’t the council doing this already?
We don’t know, and the council couldn’t tell us. It did start serving notices in September 2025, but it says it hasn’t determined whether any were complied with.

Does this mean the shops will be shut?
No. The aim is to get the frontages repaired and tidied up, not to close anyone’s business. Most of the problems listed are minor repairs, repainting and removing things that are no longer used.

What if an owner is struggling to pay?
We want to see shops looked after, and we’d rather see owners and the council working together. But the council can’t help anyone if it doesn’t know who has done the work and who hasn’t.

Why only Uxbridge Road?
Because that’s where all 12 notices were served. We asked about Goldhawk Road as well, and the answer was that none have been served there. If you think there are properties on other roads that need attention, please tell us.

Where can I read the council’s answer for myself?
We can send you a copy of the response. Contact us.