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Yesterday’s fire in West Ealing

View from Chapel Rd looking north at 7pm

Apologies for not having the time to put up a post yesterday. The fire was in a top floor flat in one of the houses in Chapel Road – just off the Uxbridge Road east of the Lido Junction and not very far from St John’s Church. When I passed by at about 5.30pm I asked the police about it and  they did not know if anyone was killed or injured during the blaze. The area was chock full of fire engines and other emergency vehicles still busy putting out the fire and quite a few roads were still cordoned off and buses parked along the Uxbridge Road.

I don’t know exactly when it started but I was at OPEN Ealing just down the road and we first smelt smoke mid-afternoon, went up to the 4th floor and could see smoke pouring from the fire. As OPEN is opposite the fire station we certainly heard the fire engines heading off!

The last serious fire I can remember in central West Ealing was sometime in the early 1980s (?) when a small factory caught fire off Grosvenor Road – at least I think that’s where it was.

 

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Free opera workshop for children at West Ealing Family Day on Saturday 24th September

Saturday 24th September at St James Church from 1pm -3pm

Opera Viscera and OPEN Ealing present a workshop afternoon of music, drama, and design;exploring the process of making an opera (a story with music). Throughout the afternoon the children will help our performers choose how their characters might move on stage, what sounds they might make, and what their costumes could look like. They will even have a go at conducting our professional musicians! The afternoon will finish with highlights of our opera ‘Narcissus and Echo’; a mythical tale of music, magic and mirrors. We hope that the children might let you  on on some of the day’s discoveries so that you can enjoy the show as much as they will! 

Opera Viscera are a team of young professional musicians, composers and designers who came to OPEN Ealing in July to prepare their new opera. They premiered their opera at OPEN to a packed audience and have since performed it at the Secret Garden Festival and other venues.

 
The workshop will be led by violinist Sarah Hill (pictured)- an experienced music teacher and workshop leader. If you’d like to book a place on this workshop please email westealingneighbours@gmail.com

David Highton

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Dog Ownership Information Day – today in Dean Gardens 12 noon – 5pm

Ealing Council’s Community Safety team will be in Dean Gardens this afternoon from 12 noon to 5pm to give out information about how to look after your pet’s health and will be offering dog microchipping. The aim of the day is to encourage responsible dog ownership following some recent incidents in our parks where dogs have been out of control.

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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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OPEN Ealing launches its autumn season of classes and courses for adults

OPEN Ealing has launched its autumn season of activities for adults. Coming up soon are:

5-week course on introduction to photography

12-week course in creative writing

12-week series of talks on the history of 20th century design

6-week course on printmaking

Alongside these are all sorts of dance and exercise classes for all ages from zumba and pilates to Glee Club, breakdance and ballet.

Visit our new website at www.openealing.com for full details.

David Highton

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Uxbridge Road in West Ealing closed due to shooting

The Uxbridge Road between Culmington Road and Broughton Road is closed this morning (Sunday) following a shooting incident at about 5am this morning.The road is likely to be closed until at least midday. More news when we have it.

Update at 11.10am

Shooting took place at an internet cafe. Three van loads of police have just arrived at the scene so I doubt if the road will be reopened for a while yet.

Update at 1.15pm

The Uxbridge Road has been opened for westbound traffic.

 

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Council helps riot-hit West Ealing traders

I attended a meeting of local traders last night at St James Church called by the Council to help those traders affected by recent the looting and destruction. It was well organised, well thought through and well attended not just by West Ealing traders but also by traders from South Ealing.

Council leader Julian Bell introduced the meeting and said over £100,000 had been paid out so far in the £1200 grants to affected shops and businesses across Ealing. He also talked about West Ealing being somewhat overlooked in the reporting of the looting and damage of that night. He gave a powerful description of the CCTV images of the determination of the looters to break into Seba Electronics and other shuttered premises. He said he has also asked the Borough Commander that the large screen just put up in Ealing Broadway displaying images of the rioters to help identify them be moved to West Ealing when possible.

The heart of the meeting was a mixture of Council staff and independent advisors talking about some of the key isues of concern to traders. Aileen Jones , Head of Planning Services, looked at any planning issues that might arise from traders changing their shop fronts to put in new shutters (Council leader Julian Bell said think about toughened glass – Sainsbury’s in West Ealing survived because the looters couldn’t break through its toughened glass front windows). There was useful information from an insurance expert on claims made under the Riot Damages Act of 1886 under which the Metropolitan Police may be liable to pay some of the costs involved. This one is a bit tricky because the Act is old and simply talks of loss and it’s not clear if that is just physical loss of goods and property but also loss of trading income if a shop has to shut for repairs etc.

Paul Dunn of the Community Safety team gave a very good overview of their work going round talking to the local traders and residents affected. He told of some residents of the sheltered accommodation just off the high street packing their suitcases for fear of having to be evacuated if the shops were set alight. His talk gave a very moving insight in to just how far the impact of the looting and destruction reached in to our community and what he and his team have been doing to alleviate people’s concerns and come to terms with what happened that night.

The final presentation was by Michael Sylvester, chair of the West Ealing traders group (WEB) and myself as chair of West Ealing Neighbours. Michael urged all the West Ealing traders to come to the next WEB meeting on Monday 5th September 6.30pm at St James Church. By working together local traders can have a more powerful voice and be more effective in working with the Council right across a range of important matters. I followed Michael and gave a brief run down of the plans for West Ealing Family Day on Saturday 24th September and how WEN will do all it can to encourage its members and all other residents to shop locally.

David Highton