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West Ealing Family Day 23 October

West Ealing Neighbours, local businesses and traders and the Council have joined together to put on the first ever West Ealing Family Day. Across the centre of West Ealing in Leeland Road, Melbourne Avenue and St James Avenue we will be putting on a series of events and activities for all the family.  The three streets will be differently themed:

Leeland Road will have a specially extended farmers’ market with apples as a theme (it’s Apple Day on October 21st). There will be an exhibition of over 100 rare and different varieties of apple, cider tasting, apple and spoon racing and an apple juicing demonstration

Melbourne Avenue will be for food and entertainment with a stage set up for a variety of local music and dance events as well as children’s entertainment and food stalls

St James Avenue is all about what people local people are producing, whether its crafts or artworks, and will play host to the first ever street craft market in West Ealing.  WEN’s Abundance team will be busy making apple and pear juice all pressed from locally picked fruit and St James Church will house an art exhibition by the Brent Lodge Park Arts Collective  – a collective of artists with and without learning difficulties.  The church will also open its cafe where you can put your feet up and try locally made cakes and sandwiches.

Click here to leave a comment.

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What Will Ealing Be Like in 2026?

Vice-Chair of West Ealing Neighbours, Eric Leach looks at the future options for Ealing and the Council’s role.

This was the title of a public meeting convened by Ealing Council in Ealing Town Hall on Tuesday 21 September, 2010. Over 100 residents attended the meeting which was very well chaired by Bob Gurd, Chair of Ealing Civic Society.

The meeting was the first of a series of Ealing Council events in September, October and November at which the Council will describe its plans for how Ealing’s land will be used over the next 15 years. These plans are variously available for review on the Council’s web site, in Council Libraries and in Perceval House. The formal Public Consultation period began on 17 September and will end on 30 November, 2010. In formal Town Planning jargon these local plans make up Ealing’s Local Development Framework (LDF).

The elephant in the room was that the ‘new’ plans are very much like the ‘old’ plans presented to residents in 2009. 14,000 nw homes will be built with 78 % of these (10,000+) being built within 800 metres of Southall, West Ealing, Ealing Broadway and Acton railway stations. Many attendees expressed dissatisfaction with these plans – as they had done in 2009.

In 2009 it was planned to build 1,900 new homes in the centre of Ealing – now (inexplicably) that figure has grown to 2,600. Three new hotels are currently being built in the centre of Ealing and the proposals revealed plans to allow another six hotels to be built.

100 sites for development are identified in the proposals. Another 32 development sites have been identified but as yet have not been documented in the proposals. This surprised one attendee who described this as over-development and emphasised that Ealing is already a developed community. Further echoes of the 2009 Consultation were heard when attendees expressed unhappiness at the poorly documented infrastructure provisions especially those for education. The proposals quoted the ex-Labour Government’s ‘Building Schools for The Future’ plans for Ealing – which of course have been recently slashed for most Ealing schools.

Of course we all broke up into 10 people study groups – just as we had done in the 2007 and 2009 LDF Public Consultations. Transport concerns stressed transforming Ealing Broadway Station (EBS) into a genuine integrated transport hub (not in the plans) and had the Council really got its figures right for adequate capacity for traffic in and out; within; and parking in Ealing. On the homes and jobs front residents saw 90,000 sq metres of new office space in the centre of Ealing as an over-provision – especially as so much office space is currently empty. Why asked one resident is there so little planned residential growth in Greenford and Northolt whilst so much residential growth is planned for the already more densely populated area of central Ealing, Acton, West Ealing and Southall? Why, asked another, are Ealing’s housing targets so much higher that many other comparable London boroughs? 50,000 sq metres of new retail are planned for the centre of Ealing. Will this space ever be filled was a question which was not answered with any sort of conviction.

Options were described for improving the arrangement of buses around Haven Green. It was made clear that very little money could be found to do this and that the idea of a fully functioning bus station or an integrated transport hub in the centre of Ealing was out of the question. This approach, when seen against the backdrop of the £billions of somebody’s money to be spent on the 100 development sites throughout Ealing over the next 15 years, is truly shocking.

To the surprise of many, four new options for developing the Arcadia site were presented in a full colour leaflet courtesy of consultants Tibbalds. Sadly it appeared that these designs bore little relationship with the sparse revamping plans for EBS just across the roads from Arcadia.

A tall Buildings Policy was alluded to but not quantified!

Ealing Council Officers found no time during the three hour meeting to mention anything about use of land for healthcare, law and order, sporting, cultural, the exploding elderly population, and community centres. No mention was made of alternative plans which had been rejected and why they had been rejected.

More than one resident questioned whether the Council would listen to residents’ concerns and ideas and reminded all those in the room that residents’ feedback in the 2007 and 2009 LDF Public Consultations had been studiously ignored.

Another startling revelation at the meeting was that in order to have your own copies of the four key documents (674 pages in total) you’ll have to pay Ealing Council £55 to acquire one copy of each. However those rich enough to shell out this kind of money will have to wait until at least Thursday for copies to be available from the printers.

In his concluding address Steve Barton, Ealing Council’s LDF supremo, described in some detail the ‘Test of Soundness’ which the Government’s Planning Inspectorate would apply to Ealing’s final LDF submission. What was painfully absent from this shopping list of tests was any notion of acceptance of the plans by Ealing’s 250,000 adult population. This appalling own goal can be seen as both a local and national disaster.

Finally Council Leader Councillor Julian Bell attended most of the meeting. This was encouraging as he has personal responsibility at Cabinet level for the LDF. However Mr Pat Hayes who is Ealing Council’s salaried Regeneration supremo and the Director driving this over-development was glaringly absent from the meeting.

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2010 LDF Public Consultation Splutters Into Life

Vice-Chair of West Ealing Neighbours, Eric Leach has found the consultation for Ealing’s Local Development Framework, but some key documents appear to be issing.

On the Council’s web site click on ‘Consultations’ and then click on ‘Current Consultations’ and then on ‘Local Development Framework’ and you’ll find the 2010 LDF consultation information and documents. Here’s a direct link.

There are lots of documents listed including 3 or maybe 4 response forms.

A quick glance at the document titles suggests that the Infrastructure Delivery Plan is missing. It could be hidden in the Development Strategy document I suppose, but it’s a bit of a worry.

Not all the documents listed are downloadable – because they are not available. How the Council can justify a start date of today when maps for Green Space and Nature Conservation and background papers on Demography, Housing, and Green Space are all unavailable on-line is breathtaking.

The consultation period is six weeks for some stuff (1 November) and 10 weeks for the rest of the stuff (30 November).

Today’s Ealing Gazette carries a Public Notice from Ealing Council telling us all about the LDF Consultation. It tells us that all the documents can be inspected at Perceval House and at all the Ealing Libraries as of today. Copies are even been carried round St Bernard’s Hospital on trolleys(!) The Notice does actually mention the Infrastructure Delivery Plan – so maybe it only exists in hard copy form. If you want your own hard copies of the documents as in 2009 you’ll have to pay for them. But the Council’s Public Notice doesn’t tell us the price. Interestingly enough the notice also informs us that the ‘Regeneration Team’ has been renamed the ‘Economic Regeneration Team’. So for those of you who were looking for cultural regeneration, social regeneration, housing regeneration, community regeneration, retail regeneration or even local democracy regeneration you need to find a different team or maybe even a different town.

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Ealing Council ‘Responds’ To Residents – But Doesn’t Tell Them About It for Months

Vice-Chair of West Ealing Neighbours, Eric Leach has more on Ealing’s Local Development Framework.

Good sleuthing by Judy Breens of Kingsdown Resident’s Association has discovered the existence of a document probably no Ealing residents knew existed. It is called ‘Statement of Representation Second Edition: Published April 16th 2010’. You can view this document at www.ealing.gov.uk/planpol – then click on ‘Local Development Framework’ and then ‘Consultation’ and then ‘Previous Consultation’. (‘Around Ealing’, August 2010 provided the latter link information).

This newly discovered document is based around the heavily précised collection of the 60 responses to the September/October 2009 LDF Core Strategy Public Consultation. Inserted into this document are Ealing Council responses to pubic feedback. The vast majority of the feedback is regurgitated town planning/regeneration ‘speak’ which peppered the original Core Strategy. But at least it’s an attempt at a response.

What is depressing is that Ealing Council didn’t see fit to send each of the 60 organisations and individuals a copy of this ‘new’ document. Nor did it see fit (in April 2010 perhaps) to even write to all 60 of us to say that this new document existed.

Ealing Council Claims Existence of an LDF Document Which None of Us Can Find

‘Ealing 2026 Infrastructure Delivery Plan’ is perhaps the most interesting LDF document there is as it contains future land use details for social and community facilities including those for education, healthcare, law and order, sport, culture, transport, hotels, meeting rooms, community centres, playgrounds, and the elderly. But does the document exist? I can’t find anyone who has seen either a hard or soft copy of the document.  The Council’s LDF web page tells us all that the document was part of the 2009 LDF Core Strategy document set. This is incorrect – it wasn’t anywhere to be found in the document set.

Even more intriguing is that lots of us have tried to download this document from the Council’s LDF web page and we’ve all failed. However Ealing Council Cabinet appears to have approved the contents of the document at its 20 July 2010 Cabinet Meeting. I’ve asked Steve Barton – Ealing Council’s LDF Czar – three times for a copy of this document but I’ve failed to get even a reply from him never mind the document itself.

STOP PRESS!! – Update

After waiting for five minutes while it downloaded from the Council’s web site, I‘ve now managed to acquire this document. Over the next few days I’ll review where our new schools NHS Polyclinics and Police Stations are to be located and report back on this blog.’

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Ealing’s LDF consultation does not meet residents’ needs

Vice-Chair of West Ealing Neighbours, Eric Leach looks at the recent LDF consultation by Ealing Council.

2010 Public Consultation

1. The Wrong Plan at the Wrong Time

The LDF plans are yet again all about home building. S106 and Planning Gain monies extracted from residential property developers have never, and will never, provide adequate finance to provide the education, healthcare and law and order resources to support the new incoming residents.

So one of the net results of adding 35,000 new residents in 14,700  new homes will be to swamp and degrade the existing social and community services for existing residents. This is unacceptable to Ealing rate payers.

Ealing is seemingly not penalised for failing to meet its London Plan housing targets. In 2009/10 it will massively miss its targets and it predicts it will similarly fail in 2010/11:

Year             London Plan Target           Actually Built/To be Built

2009/10           848                                  298

2010/11           848                                  306

(Source: Ealing Council Annual Monitoring Report 2009)

National Government finances are in a shambles (National Debt at £944 billion and the current Annual Budget Deficit at £167.9 billion). So National Government is unlikely to stump up the required monies for new social and community facilities. Even more damning is the possibility that the Housing Association charities like A2Dominion, Genesis, Catalyst, and Notting Hill Housing Trust can no longer expect to receive the tens of £millions annual handouts from National Government for home building.

All these home building plans are not wanted by Ealing rate payers; are unlikely ever to come to fruition; and constitute a waste of all our time and money formulating and discussing them.

2. Residents’ 2009 Feedback Ignored

In 2009 Ealing Council carried out Public Consultation on its Draft LDF Core Strategy. The key thrust of the 300+ pages was to build 14,700 new homes along the A40 and Uxbridge Road corridors by 2026. More specifically 10,000 new homes (let’s face it flats) were to be built 800 metres from Acton, Ealing Broadway, West Ealing and Southall Stations.

85% of the residents, and residents and community groups’ written responses to the strategy objected to this housing densification strategy.

On 20 July 2010 Ealing’s new Council Cabinet agreed a new set of Draft LDF Core Strategy documents. These documents contain the above densification strategy which the public roundly dismissed in 2009. Given this fact surely the planned 10 weeks of further public consultation is a waste of all our time and all our money. How can such an approach be logical, ethical or even legal?

The Leaders of the Council must be confronted with this reality as soon as possible.

3. Single Audience Meetings

The 2007 LDF public meetings (albeit hosted by ECS and ECN) and the Council’s 2009 LDF public meetings ‘broke up’ rapidly in workshop based discussions. WEN chaired three of the workshops in 2007 and looking back at the WEN notes from three years ago none of the three workshop recommendations have been implemented.

There are big issues to debate concerning how land might or might not be used over the next 15 years. The Council’s proposals need to be debated in front of a single audience.

We should insist on single audience meetings this time around.

4. Review Hard Copy Documents in Advance – and Free

In the 2009 LDF public consultation it was difficult for residents to obtain hard copies of the documents in advance of the meetings. Outrageously residents had to pay for copies.

It is unreasonable to expect residents to down load and print out 300+ pages on their own PCs. Anyway not all the relevant documents are available for down load. No resident has as yet been able to down load probably the most important document ‘Infrastructure Delivery Plan, Appendix 1.’

5. Open Attendance at All Meetings

Some of the meetings scheduled (seven in all) are flagged as ‘Invitation Only’. This is an unacceptable part of a public consultation process.

6. Quality of Life is the Number 1 Issue for Ealing Residents

This fact is as lost in the current crop of land use (LDF) documents as it was in the 2007 and 2009 document sets. The asset management plans for Ealing of the Met Police, NHS and whoever runs Primary and Secondary State education should be contained in these documents and I’m 100% certain that they are absent.

The 2007, 2009 and 2010 Ealing LDF documents are all obsessed with building new homes in already heavily built-up areas. Building new homes is not one of the quality of life issues for the vast majority of Ealing residents. There is no room to build 10,000 homes in the Acton to Southall Uxbridge Road corridor – except in tower blocks. There is also no space to build the social and community facilities to support these new residents in this corridor – except in tower blocks. And residents don’t want more tower blocks.

For a country which could well be heading towards another recession and bankruptcy, whatever small amounts of money that can be made available locally for Ealing residents should be spent on maintaining our quality of life and possibly even enhancing it.

7. No Bespoke Meetings in Northolt, Perivale or West Ealing.

What will these towns be like in 2026? Although local meetings are planned for Ealing, Ealing town centre, Greenford, Acton, Southall and Hanwell why are there no local meetings scheduled in Northolt, Perivale or West Ealing?

8. No Bespoke Meeting for Elderly Residents

It’s pleasing to see a bespoke meeting will be arranged for young people. But what about elderly people? There are currently more people over 60 than are under 16 years old in the UK. Of those over 60 the fastest growing group are the over 85s. By 2034 5% of the total UK population will be over 85. So why is there not a bespoke meeting for elderly people?

9. ‘Developer’s Forum’

To involve property developers in a draft LDF development strategy public consultation seems utterly bizarre. One might construe its existence as complete arrogance on the part of the Council that it will go ahead with the draft plans in spite of what Ealing residents think. Alternatively is it really possible that developer feedback would cause the Council to change its plans to suit the precise needs of the developers?

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Book swapping in West Ealing

Are you bored of the Metro? Or, do you rush out the door and forget to take a book with you on your morning commute? Well, WEN has something that might help you, at least at West Ealing Station.

Several weeks ago, we installed a Book Swap in West Ealing Station – and it’s had a great response since. We’ve been inspired by other successful schemes, such as the one in Wimbledon. The idea is to offer commuters the opportunity to read a good book travelling to and from work.

Where is it, and how does it work?

It’s just inside the ticket office at West Ealing Station, on your right, as you enter from the street.

It’s very, very simple. Just have a look at our shelf, if you see a book you like, grab it!

Do I have to return my book?

If you like, yes, but you don’t have to. There are over 60 books on the shelves and we hope some books get returned for other travellers to read but we’ll also keep an eye out and stock up as and when needed.

If you do have any spare books that you think others might want to read, leave those instead.

Any comments and ideas on the WEN Forum about how we could develop Book Swap in West Ealing are very welcome.





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Pygmies Rule OK

A Lancashire lass from Upholland running EU foreign policy – it’s doesn’t get any better than that. And no-one from one of the big hitters of Europe actually becoming President of the EU is OK too. Thankfully war criminal, perma-tanned Tony didn’t get the gig.

At the Gilbert & Sullivanesque Royal Opening of Parliament this week two political pygmies made stunning speeches. Labour MPs Frank Dobson and Emily Thornberry made sincere, amusing and passionate addresses. These must have bought tears to the eyes of those Old Labour Party members, who have felt washed up onto the beach for years. During these speeches the Labour Front Bench couldn’t help but laugh at the jokes but one good look at Gordon and his cohort’s faces reminded us all why a tired and weary Labour leadership will not get re-elected. They already look like yesterday’s people. Dobson and Thornberry came across as believable – a label one couldn’t apply to any of the Labour Front Bench.

WEN is a pygmy too. Formed just four years ago this month, it is just 313 members out of a total West Ealing population of 30,000. However WEN has helped a lot of residents in those four years. We provide a local news and information service and we have quite a few ongoing projects. Our three year role in helping to save Ealing’s antique lampposts has been considerable. Our Abundance project anticipated by over 12 months the Ealing Transition Town initiative which formally launches this month. The work that has already gone into improving pedestrian safety at the Lido Junction has been considerable and we are prepared for a long battle on this front. WEN has invested significant resources in attempting, with others, to save the centre of Ealing. We are also trying very hard to ensure that a redeveloped Green Man Lane Estate is not a gated, densely populated version of what is to be demolished. And, if ever built, we are working hard to ensure that the new Crossrail West Ealing Station is fit for purpose.

Eric Leach
A Lancashire Lad

20th November, 2009

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National Debt at £824.8 billion; Government Borrowing at £12.8 billion/month; is this really the time for ‘Development’ and ‘Growth’?

Put simply what our National Debt actually means is that every man, woman and child in this country ‘owes’ over £13,000. We found out in October that Green Man Lane Estate redevelopment will cost £137 million. The money appears to be coming from A2Dominion, who receive £150 million funding each year from the UK Government. My question is then that given this is our money (or more correctly money borrowed on our behalf by our Government) should we really be spending it in this way or at all? We can’t as a nation (or as individuals) carry on living on ever increasing debt.

Some more numbers (from the Office of National Statistics) to weep over – UK Government borrowing for this financial year will exceed £175 billion; our National Debt is 59% of the UK GDP; and public sector borrowing for the six months to September 2009 was £77.3 billion – the largest mid-year deficit ever recorded since records began in 1946.

Ealing’s new draft Local Development Framework Core Strategy paints a picture of 14,115 new homes being built in Ealing over the next 17 years. If GMLE’s 738 new homes are going to cost £137 million, it will cost someone £2.6 billion to build all these new homes. Just where will this money come from? Do the public and private sectors think they can borrow it? If so, from whom?

Peak Oil and Climate Change are impending, growing problems largely ignored by governments in all countries and at all levels. When the oil price reached almost $150/barrel last year, the price of fertilizer doubled. Pundits are now declaring that we have now passed Peak Oil (ie oil supplies are now diminishing) and are predicting a $200/barrel oil price in 2013. This is likely to treble current prices for fertilizers. Just think what that will do to food prices. It will also bring about a sharp increase in the price of all oil based products and services or oil fuelled manufactured products or services (covers most things).

And just suppose that the recovery from recession never comes….

Eric Leach
4th November, 2009

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Ealing’s Local Development Framework, 27th October 2009

Last night I attended a well run and well attended Hanwell Community Forum (HCF) meeting. The only item on the agenda was Ealing’s LDF and Ealing Council’s Steve Barton was in attendance as main presenter. Steve, an Ealing resident, is Interim Planning Policy Manager for the Council.

HCF’s Carolyn Brown opened the meeting with a short overview on Ealing’s LDF draft Core Strategy. This was most useful to the audience and was sadly lacking from the four previous Council organised LDF Public Consultation meetings. Also well worth noting is that HCF, a volunteer run organisation, managed to attract over 40 resident attendees. This was in contrast to the resident turnout at the Council’s organised meetings in Southall (20 residents) and Greenford (32 residents) – both much larger towns. It does lead one to wonder exactly on what the Council spends its annual £3 million publicity budget.

Steve’s presentation has really moved on since his first stab at this on 9th September 2009. His speech was peppered with references to how the draft LDF Core Strategy would be rejected by National Government in its current state. However the irony of this failing document set being seemingly suitable for 240,000 Ealing adults to review is seemingly lost on him.

He still bangs on about it being a short strategy document at 150 pages what in fact it’s over 300 pages long. He still continues to be confused about the development sites for the 10,000+ flats 800 metres from Crossrail Stations being already ’approved’. Take the central area of Ealing. Here we have 19 acres of putatively ‘approved’ development sites at Dickens Yard, Arcadia and Green Man Lane Estate (GMLE). Of this 19 acres less that 5 acres is ‘approved’ – at Dickens Yard only. Arcadia is the subject of a Government Public Inquiry and GMLE is at least 4 months away from an initial Planning Application.

His line on existing housing estates was to ‘knock’em down before they fell down’. This is an interesting concept and one that residents can’t easily challenge. GMLE, for example, is only 31 years old and Copley Close is even younger. One can certainly a say that over the years the maintenance at these estates has been poor. My house like 1,000s of others in Ealing is 100 years old.

The failure to include any details of social and community infrastructure to support the new 25,000+ residents was explained away by saying that a background paper on the topic would be published on the Council’s web site in Spring 2010. He said later in the meeting that there is no Local Government cash available (see below) and made the laudable commitment to not build on open green space (see below). One is then left with a large slice of unbelief about the prospect of new schools, healthcare centres, Police Stations, sport, culture and community facilities in general ever being built.

Only 45 New Homes in Central Hanwell by 2026
However the elephant in the room soon made its presence felt. Ealing’s draft LDF Core Strategy is primarily about new housing in the so-called Uxbridge Road/Crossrail Corridor. Well Hanwell gets away almost completely unscathed with just 45 new homes being built in and around Hanwell Station/Hanwell centre.

Questions were raised about social housing and the answers from Steve were a bit wishy washy. He was very explicit about there being no Local Government money for almost anything and that all the money would have to come from property developers or National Government. (With the National Debt at £824.8 billion I kind of rejected the latter option and with property developers laying off 1,000s of staff and declaring big losses the former option doesn’t look great either).

Crossrail Might Be Delayed
He was a bit iffy about Crossrail – feeling that it might be delayed and confirming that if it was then housing developments would be similarly delayed. Complaints were made about only two Crossrail trains /day stopping each way at Hanwell Station. Not all Ealing Council’s fault but after all they are supposed to represent our interests so they must shoulder some of the blame.

There were some statements made about ‘designated frontages’ which appeared to be about confining retail to specific areas. There was some colourful geographic language about Hinterlands and north/south transport improvements but Steve cold showered the latter with ‘..but who will provide the funds’.

There seemed to be some consensus about the viable transport future being all about public transport, cycling and walking. Another elephant came into the room at this point – Peak Oil – but its name never got mentioned. A resident called for a Cycling Superhighway but Steve attempted to duck that one.

Climate Change was batted into The London Plan corner as though it wasn’t a local issue.

A retired Park Ranger resident described his dislike of ‘land swap’ deals, whereby public land is ‘swapped’ for possibly less valuable/usable private land. He quoted examples and said that the net loss had not been mitigated. Steve was silent on this point. The resident was also critical that Ealing Council was already one year late in carrying out its promised footpath survey.

Peak Oil Seemingly Not an Issue
Steve eulogised about the Ealing Tories’ commitment to retaining and possibly enhancing Ealing’s green space. Quite where new schools, health centres, Police Stations, cultural and sports facilities were to built – if not on green space – was not mentioned. If we have already reached Peak Oil I can see people suggesting parts of Hanwell’s large green spaces being converted to allotments to grow food well before 2026.

Local historian David Black was disappointed that Heritage considerations had not even been mentioned. This was especially unfortunate given the amount of Heritage in Hanwell. All Steve could do was apologise about this.

Finally, there weren’t any MPs, prospective MPs; regeneration Directors or Councillors at the meeting. Maybe these absences reflect Ealing Council management team’s level of interest in the future of Hanwell.

Feedback on the draft Ealing LDF Core Strategy will still be considered but it must arrive at Steve’s office by Friday 6th November.

Eric Leach
28th October, 2009

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Ealing’s Local Development Framework, 22nd October 2009

West Ealing Neighbours (WEN) made its LDF submission on 16th October, 2009. You can read it on our Local Development Framework web page. There’s also a summary of our main points on our News web page. I submitted my own personal submission on 10th October 2009. The 159 questions and options I answered in hard copy form, as I couldn’t work out how I could submit my answers, option selections and comments on-line and at the same time generate my own copy. I delivered my response by hand to Perceval House. Twelve days later I still have not received an acknowledgement that Ealing Council Planning Policy has even received my response – never mind read or responded to it.

My free form text submission is just 10 pages long and if you’d like a copy just email me at eric@leachet.demon.co.uk.and and I’ll email you a copy. I’ve also been fortunate enough to have copies of the LDF responses from Kingsdown Residents Association, Save Ealing’s Centre and Ealing Transition. It doesn’t surprise me that all of these responses are very critical of the Ealing LDF draft Core Strategy and the LDF Public Consultation process as a whole.

Although we have passed the official deadline for Ealing LDF draft Core Strategy responses, Ealing Council’s Steve Barton is ever willing to talk to residents about the strategy. To this end, Hanwell Community Forum has organised for Steve to address Hanwell residents on Ealing’s LDF. The meeting is open to the public and if you haven’t yet attended an LDF meeting, try and get along there. It’s taking place on Tuesday 27th October 2009 at St Thomas the Apostle Church on 182, Boston Road, Hanwell W7 2AD starting at 7:45pm. I hope to attend and write up my notes on the meeting.

Ealing Council’s draft LDF Core Strategy got a boost on 7th October 2009 when Mayor Boris announced that he wouldn’t interfere in the Dickens Yard housing estate planning application that Ealing Council approved on 5th November 2008. Yes…. governments often work very slowly. So 698 flats (and 20 small shops) can sometime be expected to appear behind Ealing Town Hall and in the ‘Uxbridge Road/Crossrail Corridor’ so beloved by the Ealing Council planners and regeneration suits. So…only 13,417 more homes to build by 2016! One wonders whether property developer St George has the money (or can borrow the money) to build the 105 metre wide and 15 storey high housing monstrosity.

Eric Leach
22nd October, 2009