Category: Community

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Local picture framing with a difference

I’ve been meaning to write this up for a while so have finally managed it.  If you’re ever looking for someone to frame your pictures keep in mind an outfit called Accession. Accession is a local social enterprise that works with highly marginalised long-term unemployed people. So, for example, their picture framing unit is based down at the West London Mental Health unit near Ealing Hospital.

One of our artists at OPEN Ealing uses them regularly and says they are good quality and excellent value which sounds good to me.

You can find out more about Accession at http://www.accessionpartnership.com/

David Highton

 

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Well attended WEN meeting last night on tackling drug dealing

Just a brief report back on last night’s meeting for the moment. We had about 30+ residents come along and we heard from the police and Council’s Community Safety team.

Some useful ideas came up about the importance of high-visibility policing, the need to document local hot spots for various anti-social behaviour (such as the bus stop by Dean Gardens on Friday nights and weekends) and an offer by the Community Safety team to walk round some of these problem spots with local residents so they get a good feel for why people feel able to deal drugs etc in certain places.

As ever, the question is will any of this happen?  WEN wants to keep a close eye on this so we plan to include a progress report on these ideas and initiatives at our next public meeting in the autumn.

We’ll publish fuller notes of this meeting soon.

David Highton

 

 

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Local listing can help save West Ealing’s heritage

As part of conceiving Ealing’s Local Development Framework (LDF), Ealing Council has the opportunity to review its designated Local Listed buildings and open spaces. Local listing status does not guarantee protection from demolition or new development but it affords the lowest level of protection against it. (Much greater protection is provided by Conservation Area status and National Listing status). If St Helena’s Home at 51 Drayton Green, for example, had been Locally Listed it would have been much more difficult for Notting Hill Housing Trust to demolish it.

These local buildings and open spaces we want preserved need to be identified and reasons given as to why we like them and if there is a relevant historical associations to state what these are. Ealing Civic Society has taken on the role of collecting what they call ‘Local Gems’. WEN has agreed to collect details on West Ealing local gems and then pass them on to ECS, who will then merge them with gems from all over the borough and then submit them all to Ealing Council by 21 July, 2011. This is the date of the inaugural Ealing Council LDF Advisory Committee.

West Ealing Neighbours has published at www.westealingneighbours.org.uk the list of existing locally listed buildings and open spaces. Select the ‘Heritage’ button on the left hand Home Page menu. We have begun the process of identifying these buildings and open spaces and we’ve listed them below. If you would like to add to this list please email details ideally before 14 July to WestEalingNeighbours@gmail.com

You might live in a locally listed building! Click here to check our list.

Identified below are some new candidates for Local Listing:

1. The Foresters Public House, 2, Leighton Road, W13 9EP

A fine example of suburban pub building erected in 1909 to designs by T.H. Nowell Parr for the Royal Brewery of Brentford. Parr was a famous Brentford architect who also designed The Kent pub, Brentford Public Library and Brentford Fire Station. The Foresters boasts notable columned porticos, green-glazed brickwork and prominent gables. Internally are a number of Tudor arches, original fireplaces, and delightful floral Art Nouveau-style stained glass panels in the windows. CAMRA claim that the pub’s historic bell-pushes for waiter service are the only remaining ones to be found in any pub in London.

 

2.  156 Broadway W13

This Art Deco building is one of two remaining such buildings in West Ealing centre.

3.  96 to 100 Broadway W13

This second remaining Art Deco building in the centre of West Ealing and was for many decades the site of Woolworths.

4.  Northfield Avenue Allotments W13

These allotments are well used and were first established in 1832.

5.  14 Sutherland Road W13

This is the only remaining unaltered residential building of a group of four, four-storey, slim, elegant  Victorian Villas on Sutherland Road.

6.  91 to 97 Broadway W13

An elegent Victorian residential terrace with shops at ground level. Attractive Cape Dutch style gables, original stained glass windows and handsome chimneys.

 

 

 

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Next up – Blackberry Picking

West Ealing Pickers – you know who you are! (And, if you aren’t in the know, would you like to know more? See below). Blackberries are next on the picking calendar – could be as early as mid-July (but we’re checking out the picking fields shortly).

To stay in touch, there are many ways:

Come to the Star and Anchor, Uxbridge Rd on Weds eve for social eve.

The West Ealing Abundance Blog: http://westealingabundancew13.wordpress.com/

Email: wenabundance@gmail.com

Twitter: @WENeighbours

Facebook: West Ealing Neighbours

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A new Belgravia? Dickens Yard rises in the centre of Ealing

Vice Chair of West Ealing Neighbours, Eric Leach, updates the recent progress in the construction of Dickens Yard in Central Ealing.

Just to jog your memories, Dickens Yard is the land between Ealing Town Hall and the railway stretching from Longfield Avenue to almost Haven Green. In October 2009 developers St George finally overcame all hurdles to ‘buy’ this land (250 year Lease). What local and regional government agreed to was 698 flats to be built; rising in seven tower blocks to 15 storeys; with 20 small/medium sized shops at ground level.

Continue reading…

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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.

 

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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.

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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