How many more new homes can we fit in?
Plans for the Green Man Lane development show a doubling of the
residents from some 800 to nearly 2,000. The population of the
Sherwood Close Estate may almost double when it too is redeveloped (see
later story). These follow on from the hundreds of new homes in the
developments at Sinclair House next to the Drayton Court Hotel; in
Luminoscity and the old Groveglade market site; on the redeveloped
Daniels site and at Lido House, the one-time cinema. Add to these the
proposal for 13 flats to replace the undertaker's on the corner of
Shirley Gardens and the Uxbridge Road, the new flats above the Cudi
Supermarket, the 8 flats due to be built next to the Grosvenor House
Surgery, the 17 apartments going above the old McDonald's, the 7-storey
block of flats on the edge of Drayton Green and, well, the list is
seemingly endless.
We know we need more homes, but there are knock-on effects in terms of
pressure on our infrastructure and pressure on our community.
The Council is currently working on the 15-year plan for Ealing (the
Local Development Framework 2011-2026) which will set targets for new
homes across the borough. Can we please have a sensible, open and
honest discussion about how many new homes we can fit in to each part
of the borough and not just be led by externally imposed targets such
as those in the London Plan?
David Highton
All we need is a white line!Some months back the Council made the very welcome decision to reduce the length of the westbound bus lane on the Uxbridge Road as you approach the Lido Junction. The idea behind this change is to give road traffic more time and space to move across to the inside lane in order to go straight across the junction or turn left down Northfield Avenue. For years the bus lane here had made it very tricky to move into the left lane and many a motorist collected a fine for straying into the bus lane as they tried to manoeuvre their way over.
Disappointingly, and despite a number of requests to the Transport Dept, there is still no arrow on the road indicating where traffic can move over. The blue road sign marking the end of the bus lane is all too easily missed, so again we ask the Council to please put a white line on the road to make it clear to drivers where they can move over to the left lane.
Worth a second look: Arnolds
Raise your eyes for a moment as you wait to cross the Uxbridge Road at the lights on the corner with Eccleston Road and take a look at Arnolds Leisure You'll see some classic art deco architecture: the angular lines, the green columns, the windows and the geometric decoration between the two rows of windows. There are plenty of other examples of art deco buildings in Ealing. Probably the best known is the Hoover Building on the Western Avenue.
Sherwood Close Estate UpdateAlso known as Dean Gardens Estate, this estate (and the adjacent Dean Court) was built on one half of the Northfield Allotments in the early 1980s. Although its 209 homes make it a bit less than half the size of the Green Man Lane Estate it faces many of the same problems. Sixty-eight percent of its 206 flats are bed-sit or one bed and two of its three two-bedroom house are now owned freehold.
As with Green Man Lane there are serious design and layout problems and there is a fundamental problem over the use of asbestos in aspects of the construction. The Council's conclusion is that the cost of refurbishment is very high and it alone would not resolve the design and layout worries.
So, for the past year and more, the Council has been working with residents on a plan to redevelop the estate and we understand an initial call for expression of interest has been issued to developers. This puts the timescale roughly 18 months behind that for Green Man Lane where demolition is expected to start early 2011. Again, as with Green Man Lane, the only way the redevelopment will work financially is for more homes to be built. The Green Man Lane population will more than double to some 2,000 by the time it's complete in around 2020. Will the population of Sherwood Close also need to double?
We were pleased to hear from the Council that lessons have been learnt from how the Green Man Lane process was handled and this time local stakeholders would be invited to contribute to the plans at an earlier stage. We hope for a more constructive relationship with the Council this time round.
Award Winning AbundanceWest Ealing Abundance is part of Abundance UK, one of three shortlisted finalists in the Observer Ethical Awards. The winners were announced at a ceremony in June and Abundance UK are winners of the new Grassroots Category!
Following on from the success of this WEN and West Ealing Abundance had a stall at Hanwell Carnival on 19th June - our first. We had jams and chutneys for sale as well as handouts asking for volunteers to help us with our project. Our fruit mapping of the area brought us several new key locations of fruit trees, as well as some surprises - wild horseradish anyone! We will soon be plotting these on our Google map on our website, so watch this space.
Abundance stall at Hanwell Carnival
The Ealing Today website has featured us several times over the past couple of months and we have recruited further volunteers and sold more produce.
So Abundance goes from strength to strength, with some great advocates of our project spreading the word on our behalf.
Watch out for further events scheduled later in the year.
Open Ealing is an exciting new arts project soon to be launched by the newly-formed West Ealing Arts organisation.
Following almost a year of effort, patience and negotiation WEN, A2Dominion, Ann Pavett of Ealing Arts + Leisure and Ealing Community and Voluntary Service have joined forces to launch West Ealing Arts. The aim of West Ealing Arts is to foster participation by the local community in the Arts. Its first project, inspired by newly graduated local artist Jack Jones, is in the pipeline and, all being well, will be using an empty shop in the West Ealing shopping centre both as the base for a series of summer arts workshops for all age ranges and as a gallery for showing work of local and up and coming artists.
Watch the www.openealing.com website for more news on this project.
51, Drayton Green: St Helena's Home - Hopes For the Building's Survival
St Helena's House was built in 1896-7. It has had an interesting history. For much of its life it functioned as a Reformatory and Laundry for women. Then it became a Remand Centre for girls followed by it being an outpost of the Chinese Government.
Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT) bought the building and all the land behind it a few years ago for just under £3.5 million. NHHT wants to demolish the building and build 36 homes (mostly flats). WEN does not want the building demolished but wants it converted for educational or residential use.
NHHT applied to Ealing Council on 23 April 2010 to demolish the building. Without any response from the Council, NHHT put up demolition notices on the gates of the building and began removing asbestos on 21 June, 2010.
Permission for demolition, as of 6 July, has still not been granted. In 2009 Ealing Civic Society with some help from WEN attempted to get English Heritage to List the building (i.e. to protect it from demolition). We failed, but St Helena's Chapel - built in 1912-3 - has now been listed by English Heritage. The chapel is currently physically connected to the main building but is now owned by the International Presbyterian Church next door at 53 Drayton Green. ECS's latest information is that because of the chapel's proximity to, and association with the main St Helena's Home building the latter may well be saved from demolition.
Eric Leach
West Ealing and World War TwoOur house in Westfield Road is end of terrace only because several intervening houses were completely destroyed, or badly damaged and subsequently demolished, owing to a bomb that fell in the middle of this row of terraced houses in 1940...so what really happened in West Ealing in World War Two?
Pre-war civil defence initiatives in place prior to 1938 included plans for evacuation of the population of London in the event of war; setting up of Air Raid Precautions (ARP) groups, initially composed of volunteers and the issuing of gas masks. There were also plans for blackout (preventing lights being seen from the air) and trenches for air defence were dug in local parks, including Walpole, and school grounds.
When Germany invaded Poland at the beginning of September 1939, the declaration of War on Germany came from Prime Minister Chamberlain at 11am on 3rd September, but the first bombs were not to fall on Ealing until a year later. In the interim there were several false alarms of air raids, and defensive measures went on, with Ealing Hospital protected with sandbags, a deep underground air raid shelter constructed in Dean Gardens and evacuation of several thousand children to the West Country via Ealing Broadway station.
After Germany's defeat in the Battle of Britain, bombing of civilian targets began in September 1940 and lasted until June 1941; this was the famous London ‘blitz' (from the German for lightning). In December 1940 a parachute mine, exploding in mid-air, on Broughton Road caused extensive damage, killed 14 people and injured 75; in the last four months of this year Ealing saw 73 nights of bombing. By the end of the blitz over 600 high explosive and thousands of incendiary bombs had fallen, causing the deaths of 190 Ealing residents and serious injuries to many more.
The years 1942 and 1943 were relatively quiet in Ealing, but in early 1944 the bombing of London increased greatly again with the launching of the German secret weapons, the V.1, or flying bomb (‘doodle-bug'), and in September the V.2 rocket, the first of which landed in Chiswick. This ‘baby blitz' shocked the residents of Ealing with a series of noisy, dangerous nights, as fewer but much larger bombs fell, and ground defences were fully deployed. The worst incident occurred in Ealing on the 21st July when a bomb on Uxbridge Road between Hartington and Drayton Green Roads caused a huge explosion that destroyed five shops and caused heavy damage over a half-mile radius; 23 people were killed and many shoppers and shop workers injured.
VE Day celebration in Hessel Road - Copyright Ealing Central Library
With the end of war, celebrations were widespread across the borough, with hundreds of street parties, special services in all the churches, and a large bonfire in Walpole Park fuelled by packing cases from Ealing studios, park benches and deck chairs. Incidentally, our West Ealing neighbour Mr. Head survived the bombing of his house in Westfield Road; I have a photograph of him grinning and giving thumbs up from the shattered ruins!
Dave Muir-Bacon
(My father, then 16, and staying with his father at the Carnarvon Hotel on Ealing Common, remembers his first task at the outbreak of WW2 was to sandbag the windows of the hotel bar to keep the drinks safe! Ed)
Log Cabin 30th Anniversary Party on Saturday 17th JulyGames, competitions with prizes, face- painting, arts activities, story-telling, BBQ, refreshments and more at the Log Cabin on Sat 17th July from 1pm. Entry is free and all are welcome. The Log Cabin is at the rear of the library in Northfield Avenue.
WEN Book ClubNext Book Club meeting is on Tuesday 27th July at the Drayton Court starting at 7.30pm. July's book is ‘If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' by Jon McGregor.
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Who, what, where and WENWEN exists to try
and improve the quality of life for West Ealing residents, workers and
visitors. Membership is free and available to anyone in the West Ealing
community, irrespective of background, race, ethnicity, nationality,
sex orientation, political orientation or gender. WEN
was formed in November 2005. The group is run by volunteer local
residents, who are elected annually by WEN members. The group's
Management Committee - which meets up once a month - is made up of: Chair: David Highton Secretary: Diane Gill Treasurer: Andrew Cazalet Vice-Chair: Eric Leach Without Portfolio: - Gill Adams
- Allison Franklin
- Sally Greenbrook
- Sarah Judic
- Chris Gilson
- Nick Greenhalgh
Tel: 020 8621 5411 Email: westealingneighbours@gmail.com Web Site: www.westealingneighbours.org.uk WEN blog: www.westealingneighbours.org.uk/WEN-blog Twitter: http://twitter.com/WENeighbours Facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124290860921562 Postal Address: 32 Regina Road, London W13 9EF Copyright: West Ealing Neighbours, 2010
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