Working together to make West Ealing a better place for residents, businesses and visitors.
Drop in today to OPEN Ealing any time between 11am – 5pm and find out about our autumn season of classes for photography, printmaking, creative writing, ballet, zumba, yoga, pilates and much, much more.
OPEN Ealing is at 113 Uxbridge Road (opposite the fire station).
OPEN Ealing launches its first ever First Friday Music event this coming Friday with an hour of free live music from Midlands-based singer songwriter Robert Lane. Come and join us on Friday (2nd September) between 12.30 – 1.30pm for an hour of relaxing music during your lunch break.
David Highton
Buying my eggs from Tony this morning he told me he’s on TV tonight – Epic Win on BBC1 at 5.25pm. His challenge is to use his feet to identify different types of meat! Can he do it? We’ll find out tonight. Good luck Tony.
I attended a meeting of local traders last night at St James Church called by the Council to help those traders affected by recent the looting and destruction. It was well organised, well thought through and well attended not just by West Ealing traders but also by traders from South Ealing.
Council leader Julian Bell introduced the meeting and said over £100,000 had been paid out so far in the £1200 grants to affected shops and businesses across Ealing. He also talked about West Ealing being somewhat overlooked in the reporting of the looting and damage of that night. He gave a powerful description of the CCTV images of the determination of the looters to break into Seba Electronics and other shuttered premises. He said he has also asked the Borough Commander that the large screen just put up in Ealing Broadway displaying images of the rioters to help identify them be moved to West Ealing when possible.
The heart of the meeting was a mixture of Council staff and independent advisors talking about some of the key isues of concern to traders. Aileen Jones , Head of Planning Services, looked at any planning issues that might arise from traders changing their shop fronts to put in new shutters (Council leader Julian Bell said think about toughened glass – Sainsbury’s in West Ealing survived because the looters couldn’t break through its toughened glass front windows). There was useful information from an insurance expert on claims made under the Riot Damages Act of 1886 under which the Metropolitan Police may be liable to pay some of the costs involved. This one is a bit tricky because the Act is old and simply talks of loss and it’s not clear if that is just physical loss of goods and property but also loss of trading income if a shop has to shut for repairs etc.
Paul Dunn of the Community Safety team gave a very good overview of their work going round talking to the local traders and residents affected. He told of some residents of the sheltered accommodation just off the high street packing their suitcases for fear of having to be evacuated if the shops were set alight. His talk gave a very moving insight in to just how far the impact of the looting and destruction reached in to our community and what he and his team have been doing to alleviate people’s concerns and come to terms with what happened that night.
The final presentation was by Michael Sylvester, chair of the West Ealing traders group (WEB) and myself as chair of West Ealing Neighbours. Michael urged all the West Ealing traders to come to the next WEB meeting on Monday 5th September 6.30pm at St James Church. By working together local traders can have a more powerful voice and be more effective in working with the Council right across a range of important matters. I followed Michael and gave a brief run down of the plans for West Ealing Family Day on Saturday 24th September and how WEN will do all it can to encourage its members and all other residents to shop locally.
David Highton
Local artist, David Stokes an abstract impressionist, launches a one man show at the OPEN contemporary gallery tonight (Friday 19th August) from 6-9pm and then Monday to Saturday 11am – 5pm.
The show features ‘Violet’ from the 2008 series alongside more recent work referencing the countryside close to his home and places he has visited. The show runs until 30 August 2011.
David Stokes has lived and worked in Ealing for twenty five years and has a studio in Norwood Green. He studied Art and Design at Stafford College of Art and Fine Art at Manchester Polytechnic.
OPEN Ealing is at 113 Uxbridge Road, Ealing W5 5TL (opposite the fire station). Telephone 020 8579 5558.
OPEN Ealing’s Jack Jones and friends spent part of Saturday painting a mural on the shutters boarding up the boarded up baby e shop on Ealing Green
.
‘ Yesterday we took to the streets to help reconstruct our community that has been rocked by this weeks events. I turned up at Baby e with a bag full of paints and we all set to work.
We were later unexpectedly joined by “bake for a better britain” who had made some amazing anti riot cup cakes and they did a great job of providing a happy atmosphere and conversation to the public while we busied ourselves with pots of paint and composition tweaking.
The pizza place next door even came out with pizza for everyone, which was equally amazing as the cup cakes. We had set up paper for the public to draw on, and who left many encouraging messages of support. thank you to everyone who came out yesterday to support us. For the first time in a while, I’ve been proud to say I am from Ealing.
You can read the full story and see the photos taken during the day at http://openealing.com/wordpress/
David Highton
I walked up to the West Ealing shopping centre about about 6.45am this morning to see rubbish and glass strewn everywhere. The main targets seem to have been banks and shops with goods that were deemed worth looting and that’s what it was – looting.
I couldn’t count the number of shops with smashed windows and one of my favourite shops, run by one of the nicest men in our community, Seba Electronics had had its shutter ripped down so the looters could get in and steal the goods.
I just hope that the looting isn’t the final straw that finishes off any of our local businesses. Times are more than tough enough without looting by people who don’t care about our neighbourhood or anyone’s else’s neighbourhood.
David Highton
OPEN Ealing is looking for volunteers to help on its reception between 11am and 5pm daily in August and then also between 5-9pm from September. We are also looking for musicians who are interested in playing at our monthly lunchtime events starting in September.
This month we are busy with our 5 weeks of children’s workshops each weekday between 11am and 5pm. Then from September we will launch our autumn schedule for adults which includes a range of evening activities on most evenings in the week so need help on reception between 5pm and 9pm.
Reception is the public face of OPEN Ealing and the role covers:
We are also looking for musicians who are interested in playing at our forthcoming series of monthly Friday lunchtime events. We can pay expenses and provide lunch. We are keen to have a wide range of music from classical, folk, jazz and more.
If you’re interested in volunteering please call us on 020 8579 5558 weekdays from 10am to 5pm or just drop in and visit us at 113 Uxbridge Road (opposite Ealing fire station). We’d be very happy to show you round and explain more about OPEN Ealing and the reception role.
David Highton
Sand castles, spectacularly coloured fish and a pirate ship – all a result of OPEN Ealing’s first week of summer holiday worshops for children.
With the beach theme for our first week we started off with a bang when we were oversubscribed for the first afternoon workshop which saw sand and PVA glue come together in weird and wonderful ways to create some imaginative sand sculptures.
Then on to elaborate and beautfully deocorated fish which would grace any aquarium and we faced fierce rivalry with two teams beavering away to become pirates for the afternoon. They ended up with their own pirate ship painted with a skull and crossbones on our specially constructed indoor beach.
Our only disappointment was that no one turned up to our two interactive storytelling sessions for under 6-year-olds. I think that may be down to us not explaining that it was much more than just storytelling. It would be mixture of storytelling and making all sorts of beach themed items like starfish and shells.
Anyway, I for one welcomed the sight of a cool glass of wine as we relaxed at the end of a busy but enjoyable first week of summer workshops.
David Highton
Following up on West Ealing Neighbours’ recent public meeting a West Ealing resident writes:
The young man had a limp and looked uneasy. As my neighbour watched him from an upstairs window, he crossed and re-crossed Mattock Lane several times, hovering near St John’s Church. After 20 minutes a car drew up, the man got into the front seat. A minute later he stepped back on to the street and headed for Dean Gardens.
A drug deal? Probably. Certainly when I told the police about this incident, and another that had taken place near St John’s Church a few days earlier, you could see the police sergeant’s ears prick up. He wanted to know what time these deals usually happened? What time of day should he send his officers on patrol?
My conversation with the police was at WEN’s recent meeting about drug dealing on the streets of W13. While grateful to WEN for organising the event, privately I doubted that it would achieve anything tangible. Like most opportunities to meet officials, it would be a PR job, a chance for the police and local councillors to tell the public how well they are doing, to pat us on the head and send us home.
I am pleased to say that I was wrong. Of course there was some PR – the police were keen to tell us that their work at the St John’s Church soup kitchen has been effective, which it has. But what I liked about this meeting was that local police officers and a former Met officer, Paul Dunn, now working with Ealing Council’s Community Safety Team, didn’t just pontificate, they listened to the concerns of residents and offered to engage with the community to address the issue of local drug dealing.
I pointed out that the area around St John’s Church attracts addicts for three reasons: the availability of methadone at the chemists on St John’s Parade, the soup kitchen, and the privacy offered by the footpath behind the nearby allotments. Surely the area should have some compensatory policing?
Within days I noticed uniformed officers cycling through the area. I hope this will continue and believe that it will be most useful if the patrols are at random times. Paul Dunn offered to join me and a fellow resident on a walkabout of the area so we were able to show him the footpath, and he could see that it is out of sight of houses and businesses. “I’d like to see a CCTV camera here and signs saying ‘Smile, you’re on camera,’” he suggested. So would we.
We showed him a hedge where drug-taking equipment has been hidden, and he observed the proximity of the chemist, the soup kitchen and a poorly lit alley where there is sometimes anti-social behaviour. We suggested other people in the area to whom Mr Dunn might talk, and he has been as good as his word in meeting them.
I wouldn’t wish to exaggerate the level of drug dealing in the area where I live. But it happens, every resident here is aware of it and we want to stop it becoming a major problem. And now I feel that someone in authority who has relevant expertise is listening and prepared to work with the community. Success will depend on two-way communication but a dialogue has begun
and that can only be helpful.
If you see any suspicious activity, phone 101. This will get you through to
police near you. If you wish to remain anonymous, call Crime stoppers on 0800 555 111. You can also e mail: XB-WARDWalpole@met.police.uk