Working together to make West Ealing a better place for residents, businesses and visitors.
Northfields Summer Night Market is back with a brand new layout, live jazz and great selection of local businesses selling a wide array of products and food. All under cover so no need to worry about the weather.
Saturday 5th July at Kingsdown Methodist Church in Northfield Ave from 6.30-9.30pm. Free entry.
Saturday is the longest day of the year so there’s plenty of time to come and visit our Abundance stall in the Artisan Food Tent at the Hanwell Carnival this Saturday from 12noon – 6pm. We’ll have elderflower cordial, lemon and elderflower marmalade, and a selection of chutneys on sale. All our produce is made from locally sourced ingredients and hand-made in small batches.
There’s loads more to enjoy at the carnival:
Full details here
Paperback Coffee is a fairly new coffee shop on the South Ealing Rd close to the junction with Popes Lane. It’s well worth a visit in its own right but on Wednesday 18th June they have award-winning crime writer Lilian Pizzichini talking about her experiences of Southall as recounted in her memoir Music Night at the Apollo.
Wednesday 18th June 6.30-8pm
Tea Darling at the West Ealing Pop-Up shop
Tea Darling, the vintage style tea room, was a huge success when it opened for a two week stint at the pop-up shop in West Ealing. It has now linked up with Accession, the social enterprise, which runs the Community Shop in West Ealing, to open a cafe at Horsenden Farm in Perivale. During the day the farmhouse/vintage style cafe will offer a quintessential tea and home-made cake service in a child friendly environment. In the early evening it will be a space that local community groups/parents can hire for just about anything.
The launch of this exciting new step for Tea Darling is on Saturday 1th June from 12noon – 3pm. The nearest tranport is either the tube at Perivale Station or the 297 bus. Free parking is available.
Accession is a social enterprise which offers skills training and volunteering opportunities for people with learning difficulties and/or enduring mental health issues.
Above: Flytipping on Thursday morning
Above: Flytipping on Saturday morning
Saturday morning and yet another dumped bed plus a microwave for company this time.
(Thursday morning: I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning when I saw a bed base and mattress dumped on the little patch of grass on the corner of Melbourne Ave and Leeland Terace. Almost every single morning I see rubbish dumped here, mostly next to the Council bin. It’s normally cleared away very quickly as part of the regular bin emptying round but this was the final straw! We had a pile of wooden shelves dumped there a week or so ago and now this bed. I’ve reported it to the Council and I’m sure it will be cleared away very quickly. My complaint is absolutely not with the Council. In my experience they are very good at clearing away fly tipping once it’s been reported. My complaint is with whoever dumps this and just doesn’t care about our neighbourhood. Please stop dumping your rubbish and get the Council to collect it or take it to the Greenford recycling centre.)
There will be a pop-up market in Melbourne Ave by Sainsbury’s from 11am -4.30pm today and tomorrow (Thursday and Friday). It’s backed by the newly established West Ealing Business Improvement District and is part of the ‘Love Your Local Market Campaign’.
Do please come along on one of the days and have a look. I know there’s a stall selling vintage inspired dresses and on Friday we will have our Abundance stall there selling the first of this year’s delicious elderflower cordial along with apple juice, lemon and elderflower marmalade and more locally sourced and made products.
The OPEN Ealing shop in Drayton Green Road has been transformed in to a bright and relaxing cafe, open from Monday-Saturday 10am-4.30pm. Working in partnership with OPEN Ealing Geoff and Gita have created a lovely space with the aim of giving people the chance to drop in for a first class cup of coffee or tea and have a chat with them or whoever happens to be there at the time. I’ve dropped in twice and bumped in to people I know and had a thoroughly enjoyable half hour. It’s got the potential to be just the sort of community hub and meeting place West Ealing needs.
In the evenings OPEN Ealing will be continuing with its arts activities and events, so it’s great to see the shop being put to good use all times of day.
What is more, Geoff and Gita really care about the quality of their tea and coffee so have sourced some of the very best for you to drink. Do drop in if you’re nearby and try it out.
A group of us went for dinner to The Grosvenor on its opening last night (Tuesday). We expected it to be busy but it was packed- luckily we had booked a table. The decoration, inside and outside, has been carefully thought through with the highlight colour being the green from its stained glass. It’s interesting how they have refurbished it with many original features retained. They have created a very pleasant atmosphere which worked well both when it was packed out last night and at luchtime today when we dropped in for a drink and lunch when it was much quieter, though a steady trickle of people dropped in, perhaps curious to see what it looks like.
I’m very wary of attempting to review its food as the first night was a bit of a dry-run to see how it all worked. Even so, I can say that all six of us thoroughly enjoyed our food and would very definitely go again. We also all thought the staff in the dining area did a great job with a real sense of enjoyment and that helps create a very pleasant experience.
A lot of thought has been put in to the refurbishment and the owners have put in a hefty investment to transform this once run-down pub. The choice of colours works well, the stained glass windows are now a stand out feature and the tables in the dining area have been cleverly set up at various angles, and not too close together, to avoid any sense of being jammed together. All in all, I’d definitely recommend you go and try it for yourself. It’s got off to a fantsastic start and has the potential to be a great success and an asset to our local community and beyond. I wish it every success and we will certainly be going back soon.
Details of booking a table etc are on their website
I really hope it is. I’ve posted before about there being too many betting shops on our high street but I think it’s a really important issue for the future of high streets. I’m certainly not arguing for all betting shops to be closed but it just feels that people are being exploited, especially by Fixed Odds Betting Terminals. It’s getting these FOBTs in to as many high street sites as possible that’s been driving the ever-increasing number of betting shops in high streets. The government plans to give local authorities powers to restrict the number of betting shops. I’ll believe it when I see it but a long overdue step in my opinion. How effective it will be also depends on the willingness of the local authority to use any future legislation. Surely we already have more than enough betting shops for our local population?
I thought a good starting point is to go out and count the number of betting shops and loan shops along the Uxbridge Road in West Ealing to give a base line so someone can count again in a few years time and see what’s happened. As of today I counted six betting shops ( seven when BetFred opens on the ground floor of the new hotel being built in Melbourne Ave), two gaming/fruit machine establishments and five loanshops/pawnbrokers:
Betting Shops
Gaming shops
Loan shops/pawnbrokers
I spoke to Anthony Shrubsall, chair of OPEN Ealing for an update on the latest plans for OPEN and the planned community café on the Green Man Lane Estate. ‘We are going into partnership with A2 Community Involvement (A2 Dominion are the developers) with a view to substantial use of the cafe theatre space for continuing OPEN’s arts activities while A2 Community Involvement run the cafe. We are working with them to submit an Arts Council bid with a view to providing a full programme of professionals doing small scale shows including music, theatre, spoken word, storytelling and poetry recitals. The view is also that we will also provide a range of OPEN workshop activities complementing and expanding upon the range of performances. We are pursuing fine art based activities via a different route although there may be more cross-over once we are actually operating from there. The intention is to open in late spring.
Part of the bid to the arts council also requires feedback from the local community on what people wish to see and how much support there is for the arts in the local area.’ This is where OPEN needs your support. There is an online survey which OPEN needs as many people as possible to complete. Click on the following link to complete this survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GMLResidents. They aim to get the bid submitted to Arts Council by the end of April.