Community – West Ealing Neighbours

April 8, 2025May 7, 2026

Notes from West Ealing Neighbours’ public meeting on Thursday 27th March 2025

Around 150 residents packed into the Ballroom at The Drayton Court Hotel at 7:30pm. WEN Vice Chair Eric Leach chaired the meeting. Four Ealing Council Councillors attended – Councillors Quansah, Driscoll, Knewstub and Manro. The latter two sit on Ealing Council’s Cabinet.

Click here for the notes from the meeting.

West Ealing Community Library (WECL)

Catherine Fitzgibbon, who is leading the Library project, explained that the West Ealing Community CIC (of which David Highton is a Director) is negotiating with Ealing Council to replace Open Ealing (and prior to that Ealing & Hounslow Voluntary Services) as library leaseholders. WECL is run entirely by volunteers and is currently open Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm. WECL Friends was recently established and more volunteers are needed. Contact info@wecl.org.uk. All residents were invited to an Open Day at the library on Saturday 5 April 2025 – which will feature music, poetry, story telling, puppet shows and face painting.

Feeling Safe in West Ealing

Kofi Nyamah, Ealing Council’s Community Engagement Manager discussed the Council’s Your Voice, Your Town (YVYT) and Town Teams initiatives. Up to £9 million of Community Infrastructure Levy could be spent based on Town team’s recommendations 2025 – 2039. The main subject of residents’ concerned revealed by YVYT research in 2014 was ‘feeling safe’.

Awful crime figures for Central West Ealing were announced at the meeting for January 2025:

All Reported Crime: 324 incidents

Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB): 135 incidents

Violent and Sex Crimes: 53 incidents

These monthly figures were worse than any month in 2024.

Resident Dave Randles derived these figures from the Crime Maps at www.police.uk

David Highton, WEN Chair, announced the results of a WEN ‘feeling safe’ survey of WEN members. It was small sample size (230 – 273 replies) but the results are very sobering:

Q1 Is ASB in West Ealing a concern for you?

A1 Yes: 94.14% No: 5.86%

Q2 Do you feel safe in your neighbourhood?

A2 Yes: 23.94% No: 76.06%

Q3 Do you feel less safe than a year ago?

A3 Yes: 78.13% No: 21.88%

Q4 Have you been directly affected by ASB in the past 12 months?

A4 Yes: 72.41% No: 27.59%

Q5 Did you report it to the Police?

Yes: 29.13% No: 70.87%

The Police Sargeant in charge of West Ealing centre spoke about what actions the Police had taken recently. He also pointed out his slim resources and re-iterated the need for residents to report every incident to the Police. The audience showed its appreciation for the Police efforts.

Lammas Park & East Lodge

Exposurebox videos of digging up the park and e.coli in the park were shown.

The number of objections to the East Lodge Planning Application has exceeded 3,100. In the chair’s experience of 20 years examining Planning Applications, this number is the highest number ever recorded.

The Building Preservation Notice for East Lodge has now been granted. This gives 6 month’s protection from demolition. Council efforts to have East Lodge Listed by Historic England are still being pursued by the Council. A Listing would, theoretically, protect the Lodge in perpetuity.

WEN has recently discovered that a London-wide consortium of all London Boroughs, TfL, Thames Water, Thames Flood Officers and the Environment Agency is behind the digging up of Dean Gardens, Lammas Park and more recently Belvue Park in Northolt. They are implementing a ‘Sustainable Drainage Action Plan (LoSUDS)’.

Waitrose Development

A decision by the Planning Inspector is awaited. The Council thinks this will happen imminently but Justine Sullivan of Stop the Towers said it might take some time.

Gurnell Leisure Centre Development

The GLA Stage 2 response to the Council approved Planning Application criticised building on a floodplain and on MOL, the footprint and height and only 35% affordable on public land but….decided to leave the decision to Ealing Council. The £100m housing development will be carried out by an external contractor – probably Wilmot Dixon.

Sherwood Close Development

Residents’ champion Antonia Moutsopoulou detailed safety, security, ASB, maintenance and Clarion Housing problems. Councillor Quansah volunteered to meet Antonia on site and help her deal with residents’ problems.

Dean Gardens Development

Since Henry – the builders – went bust in June 2023 the two unfinished tower blocks have not attracted a new builder to deal with the problem and complete the development. It’s thought if/when a new builder is engaged the blocks may have to be demolished and the Planning Application process begun all over again.

Old Woolworths Building Site , 96 – 102 Broadway West Ealing

New proposals for an apartment hotel with 268 suites has been proposed. See BroadwayEaling.site for details and how to comment. The frontage of the proposed 9 storey building elegantly mimics the frontage of the 1922 Woolworths building.

St Mary’s Cathedral

A wonderful repurposing of the St James Church, which has not been in use for years. The opening of the Assyrian Church of the East Cathedral on 15 February 2025 was attended by 500 people from all over the world. WEN is building up good relations with the Cathedral management.

Green Spaces and WEN Abundance

Green Spaces is a local community initiative for co-ordinating volunteers to recover and re-present small green spaces (westealinggreenspaces.org). Abundance is on ongoing WEN project which involves harvesting fruit in public places and, with permission, in private gardens. The fruit is turned into jams, chutneys and cordial. Both projects are volunteer based and more volunteers are needed.

The public meeting ended at 9:00pm.

February 10, 2025April 25, 2026

St James Church reinvigorated

St James Church has been unoccupied since the summer of 2018. All manner of ideas have been proposed for its use but it looks like the Church of England wanted to keep it as a religious venue.

Just before Christmas we suddenly saw scaffolding going up and builders’ trucks coming and going. It didn’t take long for information to emerge about the building being taken over by the Assyrian Church, St Mary’s Cathedral, which was until very recently in Hanwell.

Their website has full information about their faith and all their activities in the community.The formal opening will be on the weekend of the 15th and 16th February so no wonder there’s so much work going on to be ready in time.

It’s a relief to see the building brought back into use, so we welcome the new church to our local community.

October 29, 2024May 10, 2026

Notes from West Ealing Neighbours meeting on Thursday 24th October 2024

Some of the topics addressed in the meeting:

WEN’s evolving role
Anti-social behaviour
Possible closure of the library
New, major housing developments
Commuter congestion
Electricity and water supplies
Lammas Park

Click here to view the meeting notes.

1.Chair’s report

David Highton, chair, gave a brief report on the past year. He started by saying that when WEN started in 2006 there was very little time spent on considering major developments. In the first years, WEN got involved in activities such as preserving the heritage lampposts, improving pedestrian safety at the Lido Junction and helping establish the arts centre OPEN Ealing. Now, most of our time is spent on major developments – many of which are on tonight’s agenda.

There are two other recent activities he wanted to highlight. Firstly, the efforts made to tackle anti-social behaviour within the O’Grady Court sheltered flats (above the library) which has spilt over on to Melbourne Avenue. A number of agencies were involved and the result is that Peabody Housing which manages the flats has employed security guards to prevent non-residents getting in to the building. Secondly, the library was facing possible closure as it was proving too much for OPEN Ealing to run alongside their arts centres. Neither the Council nor OPEN wants to close the library but a way forward needs to be found. In response to this, WEN helped bring together some dozen interested groups and residents. They met on Monday (21^st October) and out of this came a group willing to look at the vision and appropriate governance for the library. This is an encouraging first step towards finding a solution to keeping the library open and enabling it to be at the heart of our local community.

WEN has also been active in supporting efforts to save Victoria Hall, secure the future of Warren Farm and play a part in Save Ealing’s Centre’s work. Finally, WEN has an active book club and an Abundance project selling its own apple juice through a local deli.

Accounts

Thanks to our treasurer, Andrew Cazalet, for producing the accounts. As at the end of December 2023 WEN has £1324 in the bank. With the cost of this meeting and the one held in February there will be very little left in the bank. Contributions towards the cost of this meeting would be very gratefully received.

Election of committee members

David Highton said the three existing post holders of Chair (David Highton), Vice Chair (Eric Leach) and treasurer (Andrew Cazalet) were silling to stand again. Ian Potts proposed the three and Gillian Brown seconded this.

New committee members

Finally, David Highton thanked all the current members of the committee for their hard work over the past year. He stressed the importance to WEN’s future of new people joining the committee to bring new ideas, enthusiasm and energy.

2. Public Meeting

This part of the meeting was chaired by Eric Leach.

Leeland Terrace

This a part completed development in Maitland Yard/Dean Gardens car park off Leeland Terrace. The builder Henry went bust some time ago. Cllr Manro said the Council is still looking for a builder to take over. In response to a question, he said there are no plans to demolish and start again. No time scale yet for the works to re-start.

Green Man Lane Estate

Phase 4 will be 396 homes and is still being reviews by the GLA. After the first contractor went bust the new contractor building the town houses on Felix Road is nearing completion with the first residents having moved in.

Gurnell

Plans include 295 homes in five towers. The new planning application should be submitted by the Council early next year. Cllr Polly Knewstub spoke about the plans and was confident that a top quality project, including a new swimming pool, would be delivered. She also talked about the different ways funds could be raised to cover the costs.

Kwik Fit

This development is for shared living ( a bit like student accommodation) for people of all ages. It will be 134 co-living studio flats in towers up to 9 storeys. Eric Leach raised questions about how this would work in practice and mentioned a similar development where this idea had not worked and had been dropped.

Cllr Manro said the developers for this site are ones which do get on with the work so likely to start soon.

Faulty Towers

This refers to the three tower blocks being built within close proximity of each other – Waitrose, Manor Road and the Majestic Wine site. The councillors didn’t comment on the likely traffic chaos caused by the three simultaneous developments in Manor Road (tower next to station), Hastings Road (Tide Towers) and Alexandria Road for Waitrose.

Tide Tower

This is the old Majestic Wine Warehouse site. Plans are for 448 student bedsits in four towers up to 13 storeys high. The demolition phase has been completed and building work has begun.

Waitrose

The planning application is for 428 homes in six towers – the tallest approaching the height of Big Ben.

The planning application for this development was not determined by the Council within the required timeframe. As a result, John Lewis Partnership has taken it to the Planning Inspectorate to rule for a decision. The Council has decided not to contest this. However, Save The Towers is contesting it and is seeking funds to help it cover its costs.

In response to some strong views on the Council’s decision not to contest this , Cllr Manro explained that the Council required a minimum of 30% affordable homes on this site. The plans had only 20%. The council believe it was negotiating in good faith with John Lewis only ‘to have the rug pulled from beneath it’ by John Lewis. He went on to say that the cost of contesting this application could run in to some £100,000s and this was considered to be too much and not a good use of the Council’s limited resources. He also added that another John Lewis development had proposed just 10% affordable housing and this had been accepted by the local borough, so this would not have helped Ealing Council’s case.

Cllr Manro then made a wider point about how difficult it is for the Council to meet its own targets for affordable housing. They are only managing to reach half their annual target of 2,000 affordable homes a year. The period of austerity and inflation had pushed a number of builders in to bankruptcy and this had slowed down building these homes. In addition, the costs to housing associations of both the fire remediation work post-Grenfell and repairing existing stock because of mould and damp mean that housing associations have much less money for new builds.

Stop The Towers

Justine Sulliivan, co-chair of Stop The Towers, outlined why they were willing to represent Ealing residents in opposing John Lewis’s plans for the Waitrose site. She was strongly of the view that if this case was lost then the whole borough would feel the impact of these massive style developments and would be powerless to stop them. The Government Inquiry starts on 19^th November. Save The Towers needs financial help to pay its lawyers. Visit their website https://stopthetowers.info to find out how you can help.

Commuter Congestion

Eric Leach commented that the rush hour trains of the Elizabeth Line are already crowded by the time they reach West Ealing. The pressure will only increase with the 7,000 or so new homes being built in Southall on the old gas works site along with the towers by West Ealing station. He put in a plea for the Council to lobby for more trains on this western branch of the Elizabeth Line.

Old Woolworths site

Still a pile of rubble with no sign of action. Cllr Manro believed this site is still for sale and so no timescale when this site will be developed.

Manor Road Towers

144 flats in two towers – 12 and 18 storeys high. Work is back underway after the initial building contractor went bust.

St James Place

144 flats with towers up to 16 storeys. This is the same developer as for the Kwik Fit site so work should start fairly soon.

Electricity and Water Supply

There were some strong views on the potential problems and likelihood of a shortage of these two utilities. A question from the audience highlighted the impact of data centres on electricity supply (one data centre requires on average enough electricity to supply 50,000 homes). What was the Council doing to secure adequate supplies of both water and electricity? Cllr Manro’s argument was that building would continue and the supplies would have to be provided. The Council could not stop trying to build the homes required for the borough because of this.

Lammas Park

A lot of concern as to just what is happening with the drainage works, the lack of information on the scale of the works and the worries about children’s safety near the newly created ponds. Cllr Gareth Shaw explained that the project was being undertaken with the Environment Agency and was about capturing and slowly releasing excess water from the surrounding area. Work has stopped as a new planning application is required to complete the works. Once complete the works will be connected to the Thames Water system. In terms of safety, Cllr Shaw explained that the planting around the edges of the ponds would act as a deterrent to children to stop them getting too close to the water. There were concerns expressed about loss of green space and a lack of consultation.

David Highton for the WEN committee

29^th October 2024

February 19, 2024April 26, 2026

Notes from West Ealing Neighbours’ public meeting on 15th February 2024

Background to Ealing’s housing needs

Cllr Shital Manro, Cabinet Member for Good Growth and New Homes, outlined Ealing’s situation. The borough has a major shortage of housing. It is not meeting its housing target of 2175 homes a year in the London Plan. There are:

169 families in hotels
300+ in bed and breakfasts
2500 families in temporary accommodation
7500 on the waiting list
The Council seeks 35% (going up soon to 40%) affordable homes in new developments

1.Major developments in West Ealing

Arden Road – a legal dispute with the next door church over access to parking spaces so work delayed until this resolved

Chignell Place – quite a few applications put in but none have been acceptable to the Council so far. Awaiting a decent proposal.

Maitland Yard/Dean Gardens car park – Builders Henry have gone bust. The Council is putting the work out to tender again.

Felix Road – An A2Dominion development as part of the Green Man Lane Estate. Again, the builder Real has gone bust. It is the responsibility of A2Dominion and Rydon to find a new contractor.

Complaints about blocked pavement on south side of Felix Road due to stalled development. The Council is trying to resolve this to re-open footpath. Also a complaint about rubble dumped on children’s playground. Cllr Manro not aware of this but will look in to it. (WEN to track these actions)

Green Man Lane Estate – development stalled due to rising costs and builder Real going bust. Complaint about Bramley Road being blocked which Cllr Manro will look in to. (WEN to track this action)

Gurnell – Cllr Polly Knewstub, Cabinet Member for Thriving Communities, said this is the Council’s own site. A new 50m swimming pool will be part of the redevelopment of the leisure centre. The Council will be submitting a proposal for the whole site, to include housing, in mid-March.

Kwik Fit – the developer has now bought the site next door so has submitted a new application. Comments due by 7^th March

Majestic Wine Warehouse– an application is in for student accommodation. Questions asked as to why students and not housing for residents?

Manor Road – builder Henry has gone bust. Whilst looking for a new contractor MTVH have amended the design to include a 2^nd staircase. Aware it’s a difficult site next to railway line. Hope to start work again in about two months. Question about site hoarding blocking footpath – MTVH to check on this. (WEN to track this action)

St James Church – awaiting information from local diocese about its future

St James Place/Artist’s Corner – application in and comments deadline is 21^st February. No comments yet received. Query raised about building over part of St James Ave and creating an unsafe area at night similar to Melbourne Avenue

Waitrose – original application was not supported by the Council as not enough affordable housing. Awaiting new application but doubts raised given the change at top of John Lewis. Will the new management team continue with their housing plans?

Shops near Costa in high street – no application received but suggestion from owner of nearby shop that it will become a special needs school

Woolworths site – long empty and now bought by a new developer

2.Dean Gardens – part way through construction of a rain garden funded by Thames Water. Much unhappiness with its current waterlogged state. A handout made available explaining the next stages of its development

3. Electricity supply

West Ealing has had a series of recent power cuts and a major fire at the Dean Gardens sub station. SSE not able to send a representative to the meeting but have given an update. Cllr Manro explained what the Council has been doing to try to alleviate the pressure on power supply, especially given all the housing development across the borough.

Later: see below for information provided by Scottish and Southern Energy Networks about power supplies.

4. Uxbridge Road – Cllr Polly Knewstub said there will not be a segregated cycle lane as not enough room, She recognized the need for better enforcement on the question of cars parked on yellow lines and hoped this would improve soon with the new in-house enforcement team starting in a few months

5. Leighton Road/Elthorne Park Road

Cllr Paul Driscoll said rumours of road closures and £1.5M to be spent on redesigning the roads are false. He has been talking to a residents group on this road about the problems of the 1 Million plus vehicle movements a year along these roads. Still early days and no plans or proposals yet and no plan to close the road altogether. Worth noting that Swycombe Ave was closed by Hounslow Council and Ealing Council has been unable to persuade them to re-open it.

6. Policing – this was raised by a number of people. A lot of dissatisfaction with the current state of policing in the area with anti-social behaviour and drug dealing a common problem. Cllr Knewstub aware of these concerns. One suggestion is to attend the Safer Neighbourhood police meetings held in each ward. (WEN to publicise these)

7. West Ealing Library

Cllr Knewstub announced that OPEN Ealing is in final stages of negotiation to take on the library from start of April.

8. Section 106 and Community Infrastructure Levy

Cllr Manro admitted that the Council had not had the systems in place to track where Section 106 moneys had been spent. However, this will soon change with new systems coming in. Also, later than most other London Boroughs, the Council will start to charge CIL on new developments.

David Highton for WEN

19^th February 2024

Power Supply – information from SSE provided by Regional Customer Relationship Manager for Scottish and Southern Energy Networks

‘Thank you for inviting us to attend the meeting on 15th February. Further to our conversation last week, we are unable to attend however would like to provide an update below on the issues you raised and discussed.’

Dean Gardens substation

We would like to thank residents of West Ealing for their patience during the disruption caused on January 19^th when unfortunately, one of our assets failed in the Dean Gardens area causing a power outage to some of our customers. We have since replaced this asset and are undertaking a thorough review to understand the cause of the failure alongside a review of our network circuits in the area to see what further reinforcements may be required.

Constraints

Regarding concerns around constraints on our network and connection timelines we have been an active driver of industry-wide connections reform which is aiming to accelerate investment in the grid and cut queue times.

In addition to this collaborative response to this challenge, we have also been trialing an innovative solution in West London which has helped several projects progress. This involves using a ramping approach to connect developments in increments to allow projects to progress whilst capacity becomes available.

We are working closely with both Government and industry to implement recommended solutions and approaches that will make the connections process more efficient and free up existing capacity on our network.

Local Authority engagement

We reached out to Ealing Council last year to engage with us on their net zero plans. We are planning on hosting in person workshops this Spring to support our local authorities on local area energy planning and will be in touch shortly with details on how to register for these. As part of our distribution operating area, representatives from Ealing Council will receive an invite and we would encourage them to attend if possible. This is part of our wider offering to local authorities within our license area to provide support to develop a coordinated and effective delivery strategy for the whole system and net zero initiatives that interact with our network, as part of Local Area Energy Plans. More broadly as part of our wider engagement we have been in regular conversations with the Greater London Authority.

We’re currently rolling out our new tool Local Energy Net Zero Accelerator (LENZA), for local authorities in our network area. This software provides data on network constraints, empowering planners to make better informed decisions about where to install new energy assets in their local area. We’ll be rolling this out to our local authorities in the south of England including Ealing.

If you have any questions on the above or anything else, I am more than happy to organise a meeting to discuss any of the above in more detail.’

June 1, 2023May 6, 2026

June 2023 newsletter

In this edition:

Controversial plans – an update on major development plans including Manor Road tower and Perceval House
Elizabeth Line gets even faster
It’s not just pigeons – plans for a rain garden in Dean Gardens
Solace – work of The Solace Centre and its services for people with mental health concerns
West Ealing’s burgeoning cafe culture
Finding a home in a system that fails us – a review of Kieran Yates’ All The Houses I’ve Ever Lived In

View the newsletter here.

July 4, 2019April 26, 2026

West Ealing Neighbours AGM on 10th July 2019

Wednesday 10^th July at the Welshore Community Hub, 99 Broadway, West Ealing W13 9BP starting at 7.30pm

This is to give formal notice that the Annual General Meeting of West Ealing Neighbours will be held on Wednesday 10^th July at the Welshore Community Hub, 99 Broadway (next to the old Bensons for Beds shop on corner with St James Ave) starting at 7.30pm.

Topics for the meeting will include:

The campaign to save West Ealing’s Library
The plans for the towers near West Ealing station

In addition to the above, there will be a short report on our activities in 2018 and on our finances followed by elections for the following named posts:

Chair
Vice-Chair
Treasurer

All of the above posts can be held either singly or jointly. If jointly, two members, can between them, organise how the responsibilities of that post are to be carried out.

In addition, there is a minimum of two and a maximum of 12 members’ posts available for election to the Management Committee. Some of the areas where we welcome help include:

Publicity, including social media
Writing for and managing the WEN blog – http://www.westealingneighbours.org.uk/
Designing and writing for our newsletter
Attending local meetings
Helping set up local events such as the annual SoundBite Festival and Christmas Fair

If you would like to put your name forward for any of these posts you can either contact WEN by email at westealingneighbours@gmail.com or come along to our AGM and put your name forward there. If there are more names than available posts then election shall be by ballot.

April 30, 2018April 26, 2026

Notes from WEN’s public meeting 26th April 2018

Notes from West Ealing Neighbours’ Annual General Meeting on Thursday 26^th April 2018 at St John’s Church, Mattock Lane, West Ealing

Review of past activities

David Highton, chair, opened the meeting with a brief review of some of West Ealing Neighbours’ activities over the past couple of years:

Following the cancellation of the 2015 SoundBite Festival In Dean Gardens due to an overnight incident in the park, WEN took the initiative to try to start to tackle anti-social behaviour. It brought together local stakeholders such as housing associations, faith groups, residents’ groups, councillors, council officials and police in a series of regular meetings. With financial support a plan to redesign Dean Gardens was commissioned. This plan has been incorporated in to the new Liveable Neighbourhood project for West Ealing funded by TfL.
This group supported the introduction of the Public Space Protection Order which came into force in April 2017 and which has helped reduce anti-social behaviour in West Ealing.
WEN has been on the working group for the co-working business hub due to open later this year in St James Ave.
The Abundance project continues and contributes £500-£1000 a year to WEN’s funds. The projects produce includes apple juice, chutneys and more and the main outlet is Cheddar Deli in Northfiled Ave. Thanks to Elizabeth Highton for all her hard work on this.
In December we started looking after the planters/seats in Melbourne Ave and have cleaned them, replanted some and now maintain them on a regular basis. We have offered to look after the flower beds planned for the pigeon-infested patch of grass on the corner of Leeland Terrace and Melbourne Ave.
We continue to help put on the annual Soundite Festival and Christmas Fair.
Diane Gill and others manage our successful Facebook group which has about 4,500 members.
The bookswap shelf is still active in West Ealing station
Jane Humphreys runs the monthly book club meetings in the Star and Anchor on the last Wednesday of each month.
The 2017 accounts show a bank balance of nearly £7,000. Some of these reserves could be spent for the benefit of the local community and this is an item later on the agenda.

Election of the committee

David Highton, Eric Leach, Diane Gill, Andrew Cazalet, Jane Humphreys were all willing to stand again for the committee and Laura Cross was willing to stand as a new committee member. These nominations were proposed and seconded and accepted by the meeting.

David noted that there were a number of other people interested in getting involved and we will follow up with them after the meeting

Difficulty of dealing with the Council over claiming benefits

Tony Eley talked briefly about his own experiences of how difficult it was to claim housing benefit now everything is done online. He asked the audience to raise this with candidates for the local election and what they could do to help improve this very difficult situation for many older people, non-English speakers and residents not able to access or use the internet.

Public Space Protection Order

Abbi Shaw, Safer Communities Officer gave some statistics about the impact of the PSPO:

As part of the analysis undertaken on the West Ealing PSPO, crime and ASB data from April – October 2017 was reviewed in comparison with the same period from the previous year (prior to the introduction of the PSPO).

The analysis showed that, compared to a borough wide reduction in overall crime of 5% during April-October 2017, crime in the PSPO wards is down 29%. Particularly striking for me are the significant reductions in criminal damage (45% compared to 9% borough wide) and drug offences (77% compared to 3% borough wide).

Reductions in ASB, violence and sex offences and public order are all significantly better than those across the borough too.

Wider analysis was also done around other emergency services data, which showed a 24% reduction in alcohol related calls to London Ambulance Service compared to the same period the previous year.

She then took questions covering problems about the PSPO displacing anti-social behaviour from West Ealing to Northfields, Hanwell and Ealing Broadway. As a result, the Council is working on a borough-wide PSPO with a consultation likely in December.

In reply to a question about the problem of reporting incidents on 101 she said changes were likely to be made to this service. But residents could contact her to report incidents and these would be logged and investigated.

West Ealing Business Inprovement District

Anna Elliott BID Manager explained about how the BID works in West Ealing. Busineses with over a£10,000 annual rateable value contribute 1.07% of the rateable value to the BID. There are some 400 levy payers. All the money raised is used to provide services and other benefits to local businesses such as a waste collection service, pest control services and a wide range of publicity and promotional activities such as the recent and successful children’s craft activities at Easter.

The BID’s first 5 year period ends next year so she is leading the campaign for the ballot in Novemebr when businesses will vote yes or no to renewing the BID for a further 5 years.

She explained a new BID initiative which is a map of the West Ealing shopping centre showing key businesses, cultural events and more on one side and a list of shops by category on the other.

West Ealing Liveable Neighbourhood project

David Highton spoke briefly about this £8.6m TfL funded project. It has only just started and the most useful information is in the FAQs handout which everyone should have. The plan includes a redesign of Dean Gardens (as mentioned earlier) and a range of measures to improve the area along and both sides of the Uxbridge Rd. The improvements are aimed at making it more attractive for pedestrians and cyclists along with improving the air quality. WEN is on the stakeholder group which will meet regularly and help shape and guide the final plans.

Concerns were raised by a number of people about TfL not being car friendly and this could affect elderly and disabled people who need to use their cars to come to West Ealing. Also, concerns about wasteful ideas which may lead to unnecessary changes to pavements and Dean Gardens. Another question raised about ensuring pedestrians are properly considered in the plans.

One key role for West Ealing Neighbours is to give maximum publicity to this project and the plans so as many residents as possible know about them and are able to put forward their view and ideas.

West Ealing Centre Neighbourhood Forum (WECNF)

Eric Leach, Chair of WECNF, talked through the group’s plans for West Ealing which will go to vote alongside the local election on 3^rd May. If over 50% of both residents and businesses who vote are in favour then the plans will become part of the formal planning decision process. The plan can be seen at the local library and on their website www.wecnf.org

Using our surplus funds

David Highton explained that WEN has almost £7,000 in the bank. We don’t need to hold this amount so are there any ideas as to how some of it could be spent to benefit the local community? For example, WEN has spent about £3-400 on the improving the planters in Melbourne Ave. We could, for example, take on planting the flower beds that are due for inclusion in the Council’s redesign of the patch of grass by Sainsbury’s.

Two ideas were suggested: we could fund live music in St James Ave as part of making it a more inviting and attractive space and we could hold more public meetings as there are now only two ward forums a year.

The committee will consider these and any other suggestions and report back on its decisions.

Any Other Business

The meeting closed at 9pm and David thanked the committee for its work and support.

February 4, 2015April 26, 2026

Pilot business hub launched in West Ealing

Having been involved in the initial feasibility study for a business hub in West Ealing I was delighted to go to last night’s launch of Ealing Blueprint – a pilot business hub working with the Chat and Meet coffee shop. Ealing Blueprint will run a free hub in the heart of West Ealing for a five month period from 4 February 2015 to test the hub model. I think this has great potential for West Ealing. Here’s a bit of background from Blueprint’s website:

‘The Ealing Blueprint business hub is inspired by the success of coworking spaces in central London, and will enable entrepreneurs, sole traders, freelancers or start-ups to work alongside one another in a collaborative atmosphere. Creative people can work flexibly in a modern and stimulating environment where ideas can be shared and enterprises thrive. Working independently should not mean working alone.

Located in West Ealing, a 3-minute walk from West Ealing station and many bus routes, the business hub is easy to access. Within the shared working space is Chat & Meet a coffee shop that will manage the hub on a day-to-day basis and will provide the opportunity to grab a coffee and have a chat with those around you. ‘

Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 8.30am to 5.30pm (4 February – 27 June 2015)
Location: Chat & Meet @ Ealing Blueprint, 13 Drayton Green Road, West Ealing, London W13 0NG

Last night’s meeting was also the first anniversary of the Ealing Business Forum which invited high-street expert Bill Grimsey to give his views on the future of high streets in the 21st century. I greatly enjoyed his talk and it offered some compelling arguments for a radical new approach to how we should use our high streets. I’ll put the highlights from his talk in a separate post.