The last tram ran through Ealing in 1936, and the last trolleybus in 1960. The Mayor of London wanted to re-introduce trams in Ealing as part of the proposed West London Tram (WLT) which was to run from Uxbridge to Shepherd's Bush. The Mayor's Transport for London (TfL) department said the Tram was needed to tackle congestion, improve public transport and support regeneration. TfL predicteda huge growth along the Uxbridge Road ‘corridor' - with 45,000 new jobs, 86,000 new homes and 140,000 new residents arriving by 2016. The 'world class' thinking by the Mayor which underpinned the Tram is that he thinks that London is not big enough and needs to grow by another 1 million residents by 2016.

It was planned that the Tram would essentially run along the 13 miles of the Uxbridge Road, traversing the Councils of Ealing, Hillingdon, and Hammersmith & Fulham. The eastern termination point of the Tram would have been very close to the new Westfield White City retail centre whose projected 260 shops spread over a 40 acre site are due to open in 2008.

WLT was but the first part of Mayor Livingstone's vision for the London conurbation to be ‘trammed' east/west and north/south. WLT, initially proposed in 2003, was  the largest, proposed urban tram project in the world.

WLT required that all the public utilities under the whole of the Uxbridge Road be dug up and moved to accommodate the Tram lines. In West Ealing centre it was proposed to divert all of the cars and trucks off the Uxbridge Road and send westbound traffic along Leeland Terrace and eastbound traffic along Singapore Road. Many people predicted that some, maybe all, West Ealing shops on the Uxbridge Road would have closed down. They also expected that traffic chaos wiould have stretched both north and south from the Uxbridge Road to severely reduce the quality of life for many of West Ealing's 32,000 residents and business staff.

In the narrow parts of the Uxbridge Road in Southall, Hanwell, Ealing Broadway and Acton High Street it was proposed to run road traffic and the Tram together. This would likely have posed different but equally degenerative challenges to those communities.

Ken's Tram - Consistently Over Budget , Consistently Late and Consistently Opposed

The estimated cost of  WLT was estimated by TfL at £425 million in 2003, and re-estimated at  £648 million in 2004. 'The Ealing Times' in February 2007. stated that the estimated cost had risen to £1 billion. It was always unclear as to who would pay for WLT and over what period.

When the Tram was first mooted a completion date of 2007 was suggested. The first project plan was made public in summer 2004. Successive project schedules were published and none of the published dates were ever met. In September 2006, TfL's guess as to when the first Tram would run was 2013.

Mayor Livingstone in January 2007 stated that £29.8 million had already been spent on the Tram project of which £14.6 million of this had been spent on consultancy fees since 2002. It was thought that TfL had over 50 staff working on the project. TfL's web page for WLT is www.tfl.gov.uk/trams/initiatives/wlt/index.shtml

The only major public consultation exercise ever carried on WLT was undertaken in 2004. Of the 16,895 people who completed the consultation questionnaire, most of the responses came from the boroughs directly affected by the Tram. 59% of the respondents said they opposed the WLT project. 30% said they supported the project.

The most recent research of people living along the route carried out by Ipsos MORI for the Mayor of London's office in 2006, revealed that 44% opposed the Tram whilst 40% were for it. In West Ealing/Hanwell, 58% were against and only 28% were in favour of it. In every annual ORC or Ipsos MORI poll commissioned by The Mayor since 2003, there were NEVER more people strongly in favour of the Tram as opposed to those strongly against the Tram in West Ealing/Hanwell.

Opposition to the Tram was been consistently strong and many pundits attributed the 2006 defeat of the old Labour controlled Ealing Council (pro-Tram) by the new Conservative  controlled Ealing Council (anti-Tram) to the WLT issue. In fact, as a result of the May 2006 local government elections all three affected Councils are Conservative controlled and anti-Tram. The most comprehensive, local anti-Tram organisation is Save Ealing Streets. See www.ealingstreets.org for more details.

The next major milestones for the WTL project was for TfL to publish its business plan for the Tram and to apply to the Department of Transport for a Transport and Works Act 1992 Order. The last estimated dates for both these milestones (always likely to be missed) was the same day in 2007. The Public Enquiry was expected sometime in 2008. All three Councils said that they would spend whatever money was required to successfully oppose the Tram at the Public Enquiry. Ealing Council  allocated £775,000 to spend on opposing the Tram.

In November 2006, it was reported that The Department of Transport would provide no new funding for major schemes until 2011. Without funding, the WLT scheme would be grounded and Mr Livingstone would have to be re-elected as Mayor before funding might be found make his Tram dream and West Ealing's Tram nightmare a reality.

WEN always opposed the WLT. WEN's concerns about the impact of WLT on West Ealing were submitted to TfL in June 2006 and can be found here. We had twice since then been promised meetings with TfL to discuss these plans, but TfL has never came through with any meeting dates.