Very enjoyable history of modern art talk last night at OPEN Ealing

I went to second in a series of history of modern art talks last night at OPEN Ealing. Admittedly, the  talks are given by an artist friend of mine Nick Pearson but he’s always been a good talker and I really enjoyed hearing about the radical impact of the Impressionists and Post Impressionists and how they were rubbished by the press at the time in much the same way as modern artists now.

I’d never realised the impact of Japan on 19th century art and how the influence was initially through some goods imported from the newly opened up Japan being wrapped up in copies of prints by Japanese artists. It’s odd how seemingly trivial things can end up having an enormous influence.  Japanese art was very different to Western art. It was more stylised and, for example, whilst Western art would have its main subject clearly visible and obvious, Japanese art might have its subject, such as Mount Fuji, almost tucked away discreetly in the distance.

I also enjoyed hearing that Constable’s painting The Haywain, which is now used on biscuit tins and goodness knows what else, was one of the most radical paintings of its time. It caused a sensation in Paris when exhibited in 1824 and was praised for its honest depiction of a contemporary rural scene. And it had a major influence on artists and contributed to the birth of Impressionism.  Strange how what was once a ground-breaking painting of a rural scene can a century or so later become almost a cliche of a romantic rural idyll.

The talks (12 in total) will take us up to the ‘Young British Artists’ of the late 20th century so there’s lots to go yet. They are every Thursday evening from 7-9pm at OPEN Ealing (113 Uxbridge Road) and cost £7.50 each. So you can always dip in and out if there’s something you particularly want to hear about.

David Highton

The history of Northfields station

 

Northfield Avenue in 1903 with a cart going south towards the bridge over the railway line

In his second post on local history David Shailes gives a brief history of  Northfields station.

The stretch of line from Acton Town (then called Mill Hill Park) to Hounslow was opened in 1883 by the Hounslow and Metropolitan Railway. The motivation behind its opening was property speculation in the Spring Grove area of Isleworth and the line passed through open countryside. At the time what we know as Northfields was farm land, so no station was provided and the nearest being at South Ealing and Boston Road (Boston Manor).

The line was a sleepy steam-hauled branch line, which was electrified in June 1905 as part of the modernisation of the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR). By the time a station was provided in April 1908 housing development in Northfields had been underway for some time. In 1911 it was renamed Northfields & Little Ealing. The station was on the opposite side of the road to the current station and at platform level the canopies and fixtures were of a similar style to those that remain at Boston Manor today.

By now the MDR was part of the Underground Group (UG) and the District Line with its many branches was becoming severely taxed in terms of line capacity. So the UG resolved to extend the Piccadilly line from Hammersmith to Acton Town and for the Hounslow and South Harrow services to be transferred to the Piccadilly Line. This was funded by a cheap loan provided in 1929 by the Government for the purpose of alleviating unemployment.

Northfields was chosen as the site of a ‘Car Shed’ which required considerable earth moving. Work started in 1931 and the four tracks from Acton Town to Northfields along with the new Northfields Station, in the handsome ‘Adams, Holden & Pearson’ style on its current site, opened in December 1932. Piccadilly Line trains had reached Hounslow West in February 1932 and took over all services (sharing peak hours with the District) in March 1933. As part of further service changes in October 1964 the last District Line train ran to Hounslow West and the line became exclusively used by the Piccadilly services.

David Shailes

West Ealing food blogger listed for blogging prize

Following on from the success of West Ealing garden designer Lesley Faux at the Chelsea Flower Show , it’s now congratulations now to West Ealing food blogger Katie Bryson (thanks to Ealing Today for spotting this story). Katie’s blog Feeding boys and a firefighter has been shortlisted for The Mum and Dad (MAD) blog awards.

Katie’s blog has been shortlisted in the Best Food Blog category. Visit www.the-mads.com for more information and how to vote.

David Highton

 

Invite to launch of new art exhibition at OPEN Ealing on Friday

OPEN Ealing is launching its second contemporary art exhibition this Friday evening from 6.30-9pm. Please do come along. We ask you to bring an open mind and your imagination with you!

The exhibition is entitled Insert Title Here and we have  asked people to give us written descriptions of how they see particular works of art or images and put these on the gallery walls. What we are asking visitors to do is to use their imagination to interpret these descriptions in their own way and, with our help, produce your version of any one of the descriptions. So, for example, one description is ‘Something too beautiful to describe’. How would you interpret that? Others descriptions are more ‘traditional’, so there is something here for everyone. We will then collect these interpretations and use them as the basis for this exhibition and build up these images in the gallery over the exhibition’s three-week run.

OPEN Ealing is at 113 Uxbridge Road (opposite the fire station) and its number is 020 8579 5558.

David Highton

 

Why do people shop in West Ealing? A recent survey gives some answers

‘Why do people shop in West Ealing?’ is the title of a survey late last year of 400 shoppers carried out by Brunel University on behalf of Ealing Council.  The answer – buying food is the main reason people come to shop in West Ealing, but there’s a good deal more valuable information in the results of this survey than  this one answer.

The final report is 20 pages long but here are some of the key findings from this survey:

What’s good about shopping in West Ealing:

1. Buying food was the main reason for people shopping in West Ealing.

2. Buying specific non-food items came second

3. Eating and socialising ranked third as a reason to come to West Ealing

Overall, West Ealing is liked for its varied, multi-cultural location that is good for food shopping, pubs, eating and socialising.

What needs to be improved about shopping in West
Ealing:

1. Better shop fronts

2. Improved cleanliness

3. Better safety and security

Interestingly, in an entry last December in his shopping blog (www.soultsretailview.co.uk/2010/12),  expert retail analyst Graham Soult sees independent shops as West Ealing’s brightest hope. He writes:

‘Arguably, it’s West Ealing’s independent shops that give it the
brightest hope for the future. Walking through, despite the visible problems,
the area has a cosmopolitan and colourful feel, with ethnic food shops
displaying their wares in the street. The West Ealing weekly farmers’ market
in  Leeland Road – which seemed to be well advertised when I visited – also adds to the area’s reputation as a mecca for foodies, and is apparently its trump card in attracting shoppers from other parts of London.’

WEN has been arguing for some years that West Ealing is a great place for food shopping and that we need to build on this strength as a central part of any plan to regenerate the high street. We’d love to hear your views about our shops.  Use our forum to tell us where locally you like to buy your food, why and what you’d recommend others to try out.

David Highton

Join us for the 1st West Ealing Neighbours Tweetup and Meetup – Wednesday, 29 June

Want to get to know your neighbours and your community? West Ealing Neighbours in partnership with West Ealing’s newest gastro pub, The Star and Anchor is holding West Ealing’s first Tweetup on Wednesday, June 29th from 8pm.

It’s a chance to have a drink and a chat with your neighbours in West Ealing, meet some new people, and maybe even make a connection or two! We’re inviting local tweeters, bloggers, foodies, councillors and personalities. There will be locals to talk to about the arts in Ealing, including local film, reading and music. Or, if you’re interested in the bricks and mortar of our community, you can talk to people about local planning issues and regeneration. Maybe there’s a fantastic local restaurant you want to tell everyone about?

So come on down to the Star and Anchor (there will probably be nibbles!)- it would be great to see you there and have a drink with you!

West Ealing Neighbours Tweetup and Meetup

Date: Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Time: From 8pm til late

Where: The Star and Anchor, 94 Uxbridge Road, West Ealing, London, W13 8RA

The pub is situated next to Ealing Job Centre and can be reached by all Uxbridge Road buses (except 607) at the Dane Road stops (83,207,427,E2,E7,E8,E11)

Who’ll be there: Most of the WEN Committee and some other locals with an interest in the community

Click here to RSVP.

 

West Ealing garden designer helps win gold medal at Chelsea Flower Show

I have to declare a personal interest in this as my wife Elizabeth also had a small role in this story. West Ealing garden designer Lesley Faux of Designed Gardens played a key role in Korean designer Jihae Hwang’s Hae-woo-so (Emptying one’s mind) garden which not only won a gold medal but also was voted best garden in the Artisan garden category at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.

Lesley has spent the past few months busily sourcing a wide range of unusual plants for this garden and then, with a little help and moral support from my wife, spent a good deal of last week laying out and planting this unusual garden which has as its central feature a Korean toilet. The RHS website describes the garden as follows:

‘Hae-woo-so is the Korean word for the traditional Korean
toilet. The inspiration behind the garden is that for centuries the Korean
people believed that going to the toilet was a cathartic experience and
considered it to be highly spiritual.

The wild flowers and vintage look of the toilet building are key
elements of this predominantly green-toned garden. The pathway to the toilet
from the garden’s entrance is also a significant feature; the process of
emptying one’s mind takes place on the walk through the centre of the peaceful
garden, enjoying the beauty of nature.’

Congratulations to Lesley. Oh, and somehow or other we’ve ended up with about 12 tea plants so watch out for West Ealing grown tea at some future date!

David Highton

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.

Is drug dealing a problem in West Ealing? Tell us what you think.

The post on the Ealing Today website about blatant drug dealing on the streets of West Ealing has set us thinking again about how to tackle this problem. I’m told the CCTV cameras along the Uxbridge Road have simply pushed the drug dealing onto the side streets.

We’re interested to know what people  think so that we can take this up again with our local Safer Neighbourhood police teams.  Please leave a comment to let us know your thoughts and experiences.

 

David Highton