On Saturday, July 12, the community of Hayes and Harlington stood up to be counted and we won. Despite all the attempts by Hillingdon Council to kill off the Hayes carnival, large numbers of local people and local community groups came together and made this year's carnival a success.

The traditional procession had a good number of floats. The community groups and especially the children and young people who decorated the floats and dressed up for the occasion were just marvellous. Lots of wonderful community organisations, the local Hesa arts society, charities and local religious groups set up their stalls and marquees in the park.

Surestart and the Barra Hall Regeneration Committee opened Barra Hall and set up an exhibition on the history of the park and hall. I acted as a tour guide round the hall, explaining its history and the campaign the local community mounted to prevent the hall being bulldozed and sold off by the council. We had quite a lot of local people calling in, really appreciative of the work which had been undertaken to restore the hall.

All this demonstrates that if local people stand up and are counted we can win, whatever is thrown against us.

We have now set up a community carnival committee, chaired by John Chamberlain, a well-known and respected member of our community. Our aim is to start now in encouraging local community groups, schools, sports clubs, charities and religious organisations to participate in next year's carnival and to start planning and preparing their input.

Our aim should be to make next year's carnival the biggest and best we have seen for years. I would like to suggest that we have the environment as our theme for next year. It is one of the most significant issues we face and many of our children are doing school projects on environmental issues and many local groups are working on environmental projects. Next year's carnival could be a community coming together to protect our environment.