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Residents up in arms about new 24-hour gym in West Ealing

The Daniels Family persuaded Ealing Council in 2003 to allow them to knock down their 100 year old department store on the Uxbridge Road in West Ealing and build a new one on the same site. Oh, and they were allowed to build 137 new flats on top of it. The flats got built in 2007 but Daniels declined to occupy the store space, as did everyone else for over four years. The space was boarded up until a few weeks ago. 

A gym is planning to open in the space in November 2011. On the face of it, it seemed better have some use of the space than to have the space unused. However we’ve just discovered that Ealing Council is to allow the gym to be open for 24 hours every day. Also the owners of the gym expect 6,000 gym members (paying £15 per month), and 600 of them using the gym after 10:00pm. However there are no plans to employ any gym staff after 8:00pm every evening. 

Clearly some of these gym users will drive to the area. But where would they park? There are CPZs to the immediate north and south and a very small nearby Council car park in Arden Road. 

Apart from the flat dwellers above the gym and five day time opening shops across the road no-one locally was consulted about the 24 hour opening of the gym. Local residents are livid about this. Not only have they had to put up with riots, looting, shootings, stabbings, violence, urinatings, late night noisy drunken revellers – now they have to put up with the comings and goings of 100s of gym attendees all through the night. 

A campaigning group objecting to the plans and the lack of consultation has been set up by local residents. Contact them at www.ResidentsUnite.co.uk

 Eric Leach

14 September 2011

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What Does Ealing Council Have Against Felix Road Residents?

Felix Road runs east /west to the immediate north of Green Man Lane Estate (GMLE) and with the Paddington to Bristol railway line to the north. For years and years traffic congestion, rat running, residents’ parking problems and road rage have all been common along the road.

Famously in 2009 Ealing Council built two new portacabin classrooms stacked on top of each other overlooking houses and flats at the road’s eastern end without going through any public consultation. Now, again without any consultation or notice a huge amount of the road has been yellow lined, making residents’ parking impossible.

Four Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) Public Consultations have been held in the area in recent years. The latest one, completed months ago, voted 61% in favour of a CPZ. However no timescale for implementation has been given to residents.

Finally Ealing Council granted planning permission in 2010 for the 700+ new homes development of GMLE along with increased access to Felix Road. Over the next eight years another 1,200 GMLE residents will attract even more traffic along Felix Road.

Just why isit that Ealing Council consistently wants to pour grief down on Felix Road residents?

 

Eric Leach

 

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Property Developers are Ecstatic about New Planning Proposals. I Wonder Why?

Along with the draft Localism Bill, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) promises to simplify planning law and empower residents to have more say in how land is used in their own neighbourhoods. All very laudable intentions. However all of this draft legislation is based upon and biased towards economic growth. In the NPPF there is a presumption in favour of development. Development in Ealing, as we all know, means demolition and new build (mostly of private sale flats)

Growth is stalled in the UK and none of us really believe experts who tell us that economic growth is just around the corner. So do the plans facilitate us all making the best use of what we’ve got? Oh no. With 1.8 million people on Council Housing lists throughout the country one might expect that the new draft plan to directly address this social housing shortfall – but a sadly it doesn’t.

You can make your own mind up about these new national plans and submit your feedback at:

www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuildings/draftframework

Also Eric Leach has his own colourful slant on the proposals which you can view here.

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New plans for 51 Drayton Green exhibited

St Helena’s Home at 51 Drayton Green has now been completely demolished and the rubble removed. Now the land owners – Notting Hill Housing (NHH) – want to try again and design a residential development which not only Ealing Council Planners will accept but hopefully local residents, the church and school next door will be happy with.

An exhibition is being mounted by NHH at the next door International Presbyterian Church (53 Drayton Green) on Thursday 4th August from 4:30pm to 8:00pm.

The plans feature a less dense residential development than has been proposed prevously. NHH’s first proposal a few years ago was for 91 homes and its current ‘Pending’ application with Ealing Council is for 31 homes. The new plans are for 21 new homes – 17 flats and 4 houses.

The letter circulated to local residents tells us that ‘the proposed development will improve the appearance of the surrounding area’. Well….come along to the exhibition and make up your own mind on that score.

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The Grim Reaper could soon be in charge of Ealing’s heritage

Last night I attended the first Ealing Council LDF Advisory Committee Meeting. The Local Development Framework is our National Government’s ‘vehicle’ for Local Authorities to define their preferred use of land within their borders for the next 15 years.

Attendees attending the meeting who were allowed to speak were seven Councillors and a handful of Council Officers. I was one of a precious, small group of residents who were invited to attend as observers. It reminded me of attending a lap dancing club where you could watch the girls ‘dance’, but you were not allowed to touch them.

Chairing the meeting was Leader of the Council Councillor Julian Bell. He was on his first day of holiday from his day job at The Houses of Parliament.

Continue reading “The Grim Reaper could soon be in charge of Ealing’s heritage”

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Local listing can help save West Ealing’s heritage

As part of conceiving Ealing’s Local Development Framework (LDF), Ealing Council has the opportunity to review its designated Local Listed buildings and open spaces. Local listing status does not guarantee protection from demolition or new development but it affords the lowest level of protection against it. (Much greater protection is provided by Conservation Area status and National Listing status). If St Helena’s Home at 51 Drayton Green, for example, had been Locally Listed it would have been much more difficult for Notting Hill Housing Trust to demolish it.

These local buildings and open spaces we want preserved need to be identified and reasons given as to why we like them and if there is a relevant historical associations to state what these are. Ealing Civic Society has taken on the role of collecting what they call ‘Local Gems’. WEN has agreed to collect details on West Ealing local gems and then pass them on to ECS, who will then merge them with gems from all over the borough and then submit them all to Ealing Council by 21 July, 2011. This is the date of the inaugural Ealing Council LDF Advisory Committee.

West Ealing Neighbours has published at www.westealingneighbours.org.uk the list of existing locally listed buildings and open spaces. Select the ‘Heritage’ button on the left hand Home Page menu. We have begun the process of identifying these buildings and open spaces and we’ve listed them below. If you would like to add to this list please email details ideally before 14 July to WestEalingNeighbours@gmail.com

You might live in a locally listed building! Click here to check our list.

Identified below are some new candidates for Local Listing:

1. The Foresters Public House, 2, Leighton Road, W13 9EP

A fine example of suburban pub building erected in 1909 to designs by T.H. Nowell Parr for the Royal Brewery of Brentford. Parr was a famous Brentford architect who also designed The Kent pub, Brentford Public Library and Brentford Fire Station. The Foresters boasts notable columned porticos, green-glazed brickwork and prominent gables. Internally are a number of Tudor arches, original fireplaces, and delightful floral Art Nouveau-style stained glass panels in the windows. CAMRA claim that the pub’s historic bell-pushes for waiter service are the only remaining ones to be found in any pub in London.

 

2.  156 Broadway W13

This Art Deco building is one of two remaining such buildings in West Ealing centre.

3.  96 to 100 Broadway W13

This second remaining Art Deco building in the centre of West Ealing and was for many decades the site of Woolworths.

4.  Northfield Avenue Allotments W13

These allotments are well used and were first established in 1832.

5.  14 Sutherland Road W13

This is the only remaining unaltered residential building of a group of four, four-storey, slim, elegant  Victorian Villas on Sutherland Road.

6.  91 to 97 Broadway W13

An elegent Victorian residential terrace with shops at ground level. Attractive Cape Dutch style gables, original stained glass windows and handsome chimneys.

 

 

 

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A new Belgravia? Dickens Yard rises in the centre of Ealing

Vice Chair of West Ealing Neighbours, Eric Leach, updates the recent progress in the construction of Dickens Yard in Central Ealing.

Just to jog your memories, Dickens Yard is the land between Ealing Town Hall and the railway stretching from Longfield Avenue to almost Haven Green. In October 2009 developers St George finally overcame all hurdles to ‘buy’ this land (250 year Lease). What local and regional government agreed to was 698 flats to be built; rising in seven tower blocks to 15 storeys; with 20 small/medium sized shops at ground level.

Continue reading…

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Ealing’s targets for affordable and socially rented homes are unlikely to be met

Vice Chair of West Ealing Neighbours, Eric Leach, looks at the housing situation in Ealing and finds few reasons to be cheerful about the future.

Recent research by the School of Medicine at University College London suggests that apart from smoking, the principal sources of avoidable illness and premature death are overcrowding, homelessness, a poor standard of housing and insecurity in housing. (Hansard HC Deb, 5 May 2011). These findings should leave no-one in any doubt as to the gravity of anyone not having a home.

The numbers of Rough Sleepers in London is on the rise. There were 3,673 in London in 2009/10 – an annual increase of 6%. (Crisis CHAIN database). This is the first uplift in the figures since 2002. Rough Sleepers life expectancy is 42 years. (Crisis).

Historically homes for the poor were described as Council Housing. Prime Minister Thatcher began the phasing out of Council House building in 1979. By also allowing Council House tenants to buy their homes that further depleted the stock of homes for the poor. Successive Governments have continued this policy of not building Council Housing. As of now there are three working definitions of housing stock for households whose needs are not met by the market.

  • Affordable Housing -Affordable Housing includes Social Rented Housing and Intermediate Affordable Housing.
  • Social Rented Housing – Owned and managed by Local Authorities and Registered Social Landlords (eg Housing Associations) at rents below market rates and determined by the national rent regime.
  • Intermediate Affordable Housing – Housing at prices and rents above those of Social Rented Housing but below market prices and rents.

The size of the ‘unhoused’ in England and Ealing can be summed up in a string of facts which include:

There are 1.8 million people on Council Housing Waiting Lists in England. There are 17,000 on Ealing Council’s Housing List (Ealing Council, February 2011). Affordable Housing needs in Ealing are estimated at 3,213 homes (Shelter England). The building of Social Rented homes in Ealing is inadequate – only 126 of them were built last year (Ealing Council Annual Monitoring Report 2010). The cost of renting is 51% higher in London than the rest of the country (GLA report).

Government Proposals and Ramifications

The Government is cutting 65% off the budget for Social Home building. The poor are now to be asked to fund the building of new social housing. Rents on new Social Rented Homes (typically built by Housing Associations and by property developers) are to be increased from 40% of market rates to 80% of market rates. The cash raised from the increased rents is to be used to fund the building of new social housing. This initiative pretty much removes the distinction between Social Rented Housing and Intermediate Affordable Housing. If the former is to be 80% of market rents, and the latter (say) 90% of market rents there’s barely any difference between the two categories. I wonder which category will be ‘disappeared’ by the Government.

Many Housing Associations are wary about being able to achieve this uplift in social rents. They may well conclude that taking on the building of new social rented homes is too much of a financial hill to climb and may concentrate in the future on building homes for sale and/or acting as Registered Social Landlords. Family Mosaic, a well respected large Housing Association, has stated that ‘setting rents of 80% of market rent would increase our clients’ requirements for Housing Benefit by 151%.’ (Hansard HC Deb, 5 May 2011). Housing Benefits reform proposals will cost people living in social housing an additional £728/year. (National Housing Federation).

London Proposals

Social Rented Home building starts in London:

  • 2010-11: 2,000 units (estimate)
  • 2011-12: 2,000 units (estimate)
  • 2012-13: 0 units (estimate)
  • 2013-14: 0 units (estimate)

Source: Government’s Homes & Communities Agency

These numbers are pretty scary and seem quite unintelligible.

Ealing Proposals

2011-2026: 14,000 homes to be built of which 50% will be Affordable Housing units (7,000) and of which 60% will be Social Rented (4,200). (Draft LDF Core Strategy, September 2010

Likely outcomes for Ealing

Some people and families in central London boroughs will not be able to afford to live there and will move to cheaper boroughs which will include Ealing. Similarly people in Ealing may also move out to cheaper boroughs to the west, north and south.

Rough sleeping in Ealing is likely to increase.

The number of new social rented homes built over the next few years will be very small:

  • The recently approved Planning Application for Westel House in Ealing centre for example boasts only 33 Affordable Rent units against a total of 225 private sale flats and hotel rooms to be built. (The number of social rent housing units in this 33 figure is unspecified in the Planning Application).
  • The Green Man Lane Estate redevelopment will actually, over a five year period, reduce the number of Social Rented Housing units from 391 to 338. That is of course assuming that money from the heavily slashed social housing fund will be found to fund this social home building.
  • The Dickens Yard development will include the building of 207 Affordable Rent housing units over the next five years. (The number of social rented housing units in this 207 figure is unspecified in the Planning Application).
  • The largest planned housing development is Southall Gas Works where 1,125 Affordable Rent housing units will be built over the next ten years. I can’t find any information on how many of these 1,125 housing units will be Social Rental Homes.

It’s hard to see how and where the 4,200 new Social Rented Homes or the 7,000 new Affordable Homes will be achieved in Ealing by 2026.

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How long must we wait for better lighting on Jacob’s Ladder?

Jacob's Ladder

Following on from his recent post about Jacob’s Ladder Eric Leach follows this up by saying ‘We have been campaigning for improvements to Jacob’s Ladder for over three years. For those who don’t know, Jacob’s Ladder is the ancient footbridge which crosses the railway line from the western extremity of Waitrose’s car park to Manor Road. The bridge is a vital link between Green Man Lane Estate, St  John’s School and the centre of West Ealing and Drayton Green, Drayton Green  School and the Berners Drive Estate.

The bridge is rusting badly; the southern staircase is somewhat unstable; and the lighting is extremely poor. In 2008/9 for long periods only one of the three lights was working.

After much toing and froing involving the Cleveland Ward Forum, money was allocated by Ealing Council to replace the poor lighting system with a much improved one (featuring five lights). Network Rail (the owners of the footbridge) eventually and reluctantly agreed to the upgrade – but only after it was agreed to pay them a fee for the privilege. That was in Summer 2010.

Ever since Ealing Council have been trying to get formal permission from Network Rail to actually carry out the work. Lawyers and paper pushers at Network Rail have held them up now for over eight months. How ironic that at a time when financial cuts are being made we have this funded project with cash allocated and a large company’s intransigence is preventing the project from going ahead.’

Eric Leach

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Jacob’s Ladder to close Monday 9 May to Wednesday 11 May

Signs by Jacob’s Ladder (the ancient footbridge over the railway linking Green Man Lane Estate with Drayton Green) inform us all that the footbridge will close at 9:00am Monday 9 May and re-open at 5:00pm on Wednesday 11 May. The signs don’t tell us why.

It’s unlikely that the works to be undertaken will be the much needed rust proofing and painting of the bridge, as this would surely take more than two days.

Sadly the closure won’t be in order to install a new, improved lighting system on the bridge. Although this work was agreed with Network Rail in Summer 2010 Ealing Council has been unsuccessfully wrestling with bureaucrats and lawyers at Network Rail for eight months. However the Council has still not been able to obtain a licence from Network Rail to carry out the lighting works.

–Eric Leach