West Ealing Neighbours fully supported the efforts of the Stop The Towers campaign to halt the proposed Manor Road tall tower next to West Ealing station. In October 2020 the Council’s planning committee rejected the proposal but the developer took it to appeal and in October 2021 it won. Most of the area of the site is now fenced off though the computer repair shop seems to be holding out.
One of the key factors in the developer winning its appeal was the Council’s failure to provide proof it was meeting its annual housing target and had an adequate pipeline of housing supply for future. The developer’s legal team made much of this lack of information. Yet, just a few months later the Council was able to supply these figures having been made to by the Local Authority Ombudsman. Why did it take a referral to the Ombudsman to force the Council to fulfil its statutory duty? Have a read of the response from Stop The Towers below and make up your own mind:
‘Was information withheld from the inquiry?
With
work about to begin on the controversial Manor Road tower, Stop The
Towers (STT) has discovered that key evidence supporting our case, which
Ealing Council said didn’t exist, is in fact available, but
inexplicably wasn’t presented at the inquiry.
At the inquiry an
important issue was Ealing’s housing supply figures; not just evidence
of what had been built in the past five years but also anticipated five
year land supply figures. If Ealing Council had met its annual housing
targets and could prove that there was adequate supply in the pipeline,
then there was little justification for the Manor Road tower. But if
Ealing Council couldn’t show it had met its target, there’d be a
presumption in favour of development(known as the ’tilted balance’) so
planning permission would be granted – a point seized on by the
developers and their lawyers.
Prior to the Manor Road planning
inquiry, STT repeatedly requested these figures from Ealing Council’s
leadership / head of ‘Good Growth’. The Council should have already
published them in an Annual or, recently renamed, Authority Monitoring
Report (AMR) which all authorities have to produce. But unbelievably
Ealing Council have failed to publish any AMRs since 2014 and despite
STTs attempts to obtain information, Ealing Council repeatedly claimed
the figures didn’t exist. In fact conversations were had with senior
Cabinet personnel who implied that were STT to force the issue, then any
figures may show that the Council couldn’t meet their targets
(currently 2,157 units per annum).
Local residents group, Ealing
Matters reported Ealing Council to the Local Authority Ombudsman who
ruled that Ealing Council had failed to fulfil their statutory duties
and that these figures MUST be produced IN FULL by December 2021. In
response, the council published an ‘Interim Authority Monitoring Report’
covering the five year period 2014/15 – 2018/19.
Shockingly this interim report proves that Ealing Council met its housing delivery test results for 2018-2020 with up to 135% over delivery
*. Not only have they consistently exceeded targets (which isn’t
surprising given how many cranes that are visible in the skyline over
the last few years), but over 11,000 new units have been given Planning
permission that are yet to be built. So even without the 2021 planning
approvals or any new pre-application discussions, this should meet the
five year land supply figures.
Why were the figures withheld, and what does this mean?
Ealing
council had a statutory obligation to correctly record these figures,
which it failed to do. It also had a moral obligation to disclose them
to the inquiry, again which it didn’t do. Was this incompetence, or a
deliberate ploy?
Whilst not a silver bullet, had our barristers
had these figures it would have greatly improved our chances of
succeeding at the inquiry. But as a result we lost, and Ealing council
has to pay the developers huge legal bill, possibiy circa £250,000**.
So not only has this incompetence caused the Manor tower to be
approved/built, it’s also cost taxpayers wasted legal fees.
Whilst
the failure to record the AMRs was during Julian Bell’s time as leader,
the person at the helm of housing from 2018-2020 was none other than
Peter Mason, now council leader. He has been in overall charge of the
Council since May 2021. He and Cllr Shital Manro (Cabinet lead for ‘Good
Growth’) refuse to explain the reasons behind these failures. The
Interim AMR still lacks figures relating to a five year land supply and
the full report has not been published in time to meet the Ombudsman’s
ruling.
Such incompetence needs to be called out.
WHY DID EALING COUNCIL LEADERSHIP NOT DEMONSTRATE A FIVE YEAR SUPPLY?
WHAT IS THE COUNCIL LEADERSHIP’s EXCUSE FOR FAILING TO DEFEND THEIR OWN PLANNING COMMITTEE DECISION IN AN ADEQUATE FASHION?
WHY HAVE THESE DECISIONS NOT TO PUBLISH BEEN ALLOWED TO COST EALING COUNCIL TAX PAYERS AN UNNECESSARY HUGE LEGAL BILL?
Questions we will ask the council leadership. If we get answers, we’ll let you know.
I worked at Gypsy Corner in North Acton for over 20 years from 1975. Now, I barely recognise any part of it. WEN received this email from the Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum about yet another planned major development for this already highly developed area close to North Acton tube station.
‘A planning application for a development of seven buildings on site at North Acton has been submitted by Imperial College. The application will be decided by the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation. OPDC has decided on this occasion not to ‘delegate’ the application to Ealing Council. Ealing’s Planning Committee has made the previous decisions on schemes at North Acton, on behalf of OPDC.
If this application is approved and these buildings are constructed, the CGI image below is what the increasingly notorious ‘North Acton Cluster’ will look like. The 55 storey tower at One West Point will be joined by a 56 storey tower in the first phase of Imperial’s development. Outline planning permission is being sought for two further residential towers of ‘up to 50 storeys’.
Image from Pilbrow and Partners Design and Access Statement
Planning permission is not a foregone conclusion. The OPDC Draft Local Plan has not yet been adopted. The Planning Inspector is looking at the implications of new policies on building heights, introduced last year in the 2021 London Plan.
Your objection can make a difference. The Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum is working with several organisations in Ealing, Hammersmith and North Kensington to resist this proposed development. These are some of the reasons why you may wish to send in an objection to the OPDC.
The ‘North Acton cluster’ is fast becoming London’s latest urban renewal disaster – traffic-ridden, windswept, sunless and with empty ground floor shop units and poor public spaces
This is massive overdevelopment of the site. North Acton station cannot cope with this number of new residents.
Who will provide the schools, GP surgeries and other amenities that North Acton has long been promised?
Where does OPDC’s Draft Local Plan say that local residents should expect three more towers of 50 storeys at North Acton?
We had understood that the modified London Plan Policy D9 protects us from further tall buildings of this scale – unless and until a local plan is clear on suitable locations and appropriate building heights. No such local plan yet exists.
Residential towers are now known to use far more embedded carbon in their construction, and more energy in their daily use, than lower rise housing. These are proposals from a past era. We and our children deserve better in the 2020s.
Views and skylines across West London continue to be destroyed by developments which will prove to be of the wrong kind in the wrong place. Please do not repeat the errors of Vauxhall/Nine Elms/Battersea.
It is best if you can put some of these points in your own words and/or add others most relevant to where you live. ‘Cut and paste’ objections tend to be largely ignored by planning committees.
The point about London Plan policy D9 is important. This is one of our best chances of seeing the application refused.
You can find more information on the application on the OPDC website at this link. The stated closing date for comments is 8th January. We have asked for a 3-4 week extension given the scale of the proposals and the fact that the consultation period has been over the Xmas and New Year period.
It is possible to submit a response online via the OPDC’s cumbersome system. Easier to send an email to planningapplications@opdc.london.gov.uk. Or by post to Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation at c/o Brent Civic Centre, 32 Engineers Way, Wembley, HA9 0FJ.
The OPDC rules for commenting on planning applications are below:
You must include your full name and address and preferably an e-mail address, if you have one. We are unable to accept anonymous comments so if you do not provide your full name and address, your comments will not be considered.
Please be aware we cannot treat yourcomments as confidential and they will be displayed on our Planning Register, so they can be seen by other people, but your personal details will be removed. We are not able to acknowledge receipt of your comments.
By law, planning authorities have to take account of representations up until the point when a decision is made. But if you can submit in the next few days, so much the better.
For more information about the work of the Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum, visit our website at www.oldoakneighbourhoodforum.org. If not already a member you are welcome to join by emailing oonforum@gmail.com.
Sadly, the decision by The Planning Inspectorate to give the go-ahead for this tower is no great surprise. The documentation with this decision is long and detailed. These are some of the key points about the Inspector’s decison:
‘The Council’s acceptance that it cannot demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites.’ The Council appears not to have proper records to prove it does not need this site to meet its housing targets.
The area around the site is largely non-residential.
There are already ‘buildings of significant size in the immediate area’ – Waitrose, Luminoscity, Sinclair House, Dominion House and the new station.
The proposed site itself is single -storey buildings of poor quality and under-used.
The starting point to assess the proposed tall building is ‘whether the site is worthy of the gesture. A spine of taller development is evolving along the path of the railway.’ This proposal would be seen as another part of that spine. So the site is worthy of the gesture.
The proposed building (not as high as that originally proposed) would not appear as an alien insertion into the townscape. It would be an indicator of the transition from buildings of lower size and height to the more intensive uses and buildings of greater height around the node or hub formed by the meeting of the roads, their crossing of the railway and the station.
The design, as long as the materials are of high quality, will be an exemplary piece of design that will make a positive contribution to the area.
The proposed building is well outside the conservation area and we should not equate visibility and harm.
The Council is delivering at best 40% of its objectively assessed need for affordable housing. The provision of these 144 units would be all be affordable homes.
There is no unacceptable impact on the living conditions of existing residents through loss of sunlight, loss of daylight, visual impact, overshadowing, overlooking and loss of privacy.
No Blue Badge parking will not be a deterrent given it is next to the step-free access station and the developer will give £10,000 to the Council to provide Blue Badge parking nearby.
There’s a lot more to the survey than just these headlines but these suggestions feature well up the list of people’s choices for how to improve the park. What was not scored high were such ideas as re-aligning the cycle track, installing a cycle repair station and putting in distance markers.
The full results of the consultation are now on the Council’s website. It’s a detailed report, so plenty to read. It’s well worth noting that the consultation had a very good response with 843 replies which compares very well with the response to many other Council consultations.
The report pinpoints the reasons why people go to Dean Gardens. ‘ The most popular reason for people to go to Dean Gardens with almost half of all respondents walking through it on their way to another destination such as school, shops, work or the station. Cycling through the park, the children’s play area, doing informal exercise and using the park for quiet relaxation were also popular reasons. Very few respondents use the park for team sports and dog walking and 60 respondents said they don’t visit the park. Respondents could select more than one answer from the list and could also give other reasons.
Other reasons people gave included attending local festivals and events in the park, walking through the park to avoid the busy main road, playing basketball, roller-skating and skateboarding and using the park as part of a longer walking or running route.’
Following on from this the report gives the responses to the questions asked about what improvements they would like to see from a list provided by the Council. From these responses the report lasy out what improvements will start to be made and when. The first improvements will be made this winter and include:
Rumours about Catalyst Housing Group selling its properties on the high street either side of St James Avenue have proved accurate. Some of these buildings have been empty for a while so a sale has seemed the obvious next step. The buildings which include the Welshore Hub, the addiction treatment agency RISE, the empty corner shops on either side of St James Avenue along with St James House have all been sold to Luxgrove Capital Partners for redevelopment.
10,000
signatures for Ealing
nature reserve presented to London Assembly
21 September 2021
Press release from the campaigners:
Campaigners
asking for Local Nature Reserve (LNR) status for a series of urban meadows in Ealing,
West London presented their petition to London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon
today. The Warren Farm Nature Reserve petition was launched in January 2021 and
now has 10,700 signatures.
The
plan to designate Warren Farm and its surrounding meadows by the River Brent as
a statutory LNR has been put forward by the Brent River & Canal Society
(BRCS), a charity which campaigned successfully to create the Brent River Park
(BRP) in the 1970s. Since Ealing
Council stopped using Warren Farm as a sports facility, the meadows have
rewilded and now form a unique urban grassland. Species of birds, mammals,
plants, reptiles, amphibians and insects which are rare in London have been
recorded thriving on the land. This proposal would preserve the meadows for
future generations and ensure the protection of its rare and endangered species
such as the Skylark, a red-listed bird facing UK extinction.
The
petition was presented by BRCS Trustee Katie Boyles, young conservationist and
wildlife writer Kabir Kaul and CPRE London’s Head of Green Space Campaigns,
Alice Roberts. Campaigners are asking the Mayor and the London Assembly to
support the granting of LNR status to Warren Farm, as part of the CPRE’s Ten
New Parks for London campaign. Not wishing to use paper unnecessarily, the
campaigners presented the petition on a memory stick, held in the beak of a
model barn owl. The barn owl is one of the endangered species found on Warren
Farm and the Barn Owl Trust is supporting the nature reserve campaign.
Other supporters of the campaign include
prominent environmental campaigners, such as Lord Randall of Uxbridge, forensic
botanist Mark A Spencer, West London Ramblers, Ealing Wildlife Group and London
National Park City.
Alice
Roberts stressed the importance of areas like Warren Farm for London’s green
space and biodiversity:
“London has just half the green space it needs
for a population its size. Yet there are many green spaces in the capital
which, if properly managed, could be used as public amenities while, at the
same time, increasing London’s biodiversity. One such is Warren Farm, a large
area of abandoned former playing fields and land in Ealing. It was at risk of
being given away but now, in cooperation with the local charity the Brent River
& Canal Society, CPRE London is asking for the Mayor’s support to give this
unique rewilded space Local Nature Reserve status. We have named Warren Farm as
one of our Ten New Parks for London and hope that the Mayor will help us to
ensure it is preserved for future generations.”
BRCS Trustee and campaign organiser Katie
Boyles commented:
“We are absolutely
delighted to have achieved over 10,600 signatures on our petition. Lockdown has
opened people’s eyes to the importance of local nature and it is clear from the
huge level of support we are receiving that residents want to see green spaces
like Warren Farm protected.
“We simply
cannot afford to lose this vast wildflower meadow habitat of which there are
less than 2% remaining in the UK. The biodiversity loss would be catastrophic
for London. We have red-listed birds, insects and plant species recorded here
that are facing UK extinction. We are in conversation with Ealing Council
Leader, Peter Mason, and now we are asking for support from the Mayor and
Assembly to make this happen. We want Warren Farm Nature Reserve to set a
precedent for what can be achieved.”
Kabir
Kaul, the young conservationist and wildlife writer who came up with the idea
for the campaign, said:
“It has been
wonderful to be part of this campaign and I have learned so much about this
precious green space in the heart of Ealing as a result. This magnificent
grassland habitat is home to several rare and red-listed species, including
Skylarks: it brings me, and many others, great joy to hear their song in the
borough. The meadow also benefits many other bird species, including Mistle
Thrushes, Red Kites, Rooks, Buzzards, and in September, a migratory Wryneck
visited. If Warren Farm and the surrounding Brent River Park Meadows receive
the designation of a Local Nature Reserve, it will ensure that the site’s
important biodiversity can be protected, and encourage more residents to enjoy
it for years to come.”
Caroline Pidgeon will pass the petition to the Mayor and table a written question calling for his support at the October meeting.
Following the results of a consultation about the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods which showed strong opposition to most LTNs, a report recommends that most are scrapped.
LTN21 for the south West Ealing area was scrapped a while back when Swyncombe Avenue was closed for road works. Now LTN20 which covers the area in West Ealing north of the Uxbridge Road to the railway line is one of the seven LTNs set to be scrapped.
The final decision will be made by the Council’s cabinet on the 27th September. The proposed scrapping is strongly opposed by Better Ealing Streets.
Ealing Matters’ latest newsletter has an useful update on the developer’s appeal against the Council’s decision to refuse their application for a tall tower in Manor Road next to West Ealing station.
Planning application for 51-56 Manor Road and 53-55 Drayton Green Road (corner site next to West Ealing Station (202231FUL)
The appeal against Planning Committee’s decision to reject this application for a 20-storey tower block took place online during the last two weeks of July. The appellant employed one of the country’s most respected planning barristers Christopher Katkowski QC, to argue their case. Stop the Towers (STT), whose campaign helped to secure 2,400 public objections including one from local MP James Murray, fought hard to uphold the decision. By contrast, the Council failed to field a single officer, relying instead on a consultant who had never previously worked on the scheme to make its case.
Mr Katkowski seized on the Council’s failure to publish any information about Ealing’s house-building programme for the last six years (the AMRs referred to earlier) to argue in his summing-up that the decision should be tilted in favour of his client, and used it further to lodge a claim for costs against the Council. If successful, not only will it be we as taxpayers who will have to pay for the borough’s negligence in this case, but it will subvert our elected representatives’ ability to reject officer recommendations for other schemes for which there are otherwise perfectly reasonable planning grounds to do so.
Planning application for Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) at Gurnell (201695FUL)
After being rejected by Ealing’s Planning Committee on 17 March by 10 votes to one with two abstentions, this application was submitted to the London Mayor for a final decision. Sadiq Khan chose not to intervene, so this particular scheme is now dead. Since then Save Gurnell has been campaigning for the leisure centre to re-open. Cllr Mason appeared alongside campaigners on BBC London’s Drivetime programme on 17 August to argue that it would cost £18 million to bring the complex up to standard. We are aware that a number of refurbishment options have been considered, but that only the most expensive one has been shared with the public. Are we being softened up for a new planning application?
With thanks to Eric Leach for his contribution to this latest issue. Contributions that you think would be of interest to Ealing Matters member groups are welcome.
Hello
everyone. As the days get longer and spring is in the air, we hope that you are
keeping well. As well as a round-up of what is going on across the borough,
this issue highlights Ealing Council’s ambitious plans for Broadway Living, its
wholly-owned housing development subsidiary, and the conflicts of interest
involved particularly when it comes to development of council-owned land.
EALING
COUNCIL BORROWS £400 MILLION TO FINANCE ITS DEVELOPMENT COMPANY
Broadway
Living is a Council owned residential property developer, whose first completed
development was in 2014 at Eastcote Lane in Northolt. Broadway Living
Registered Provider (BLRP) is a new subsidiary of Broadway Living. It will own
and manage new affordable housing on behalf of the Council. In November 2020,
Ealing Council announced a loan of £400 million to BLRP.
BLRP plans to build 1,192 ‘genuinely affordable’ homes (a mix of London Affordable Rent, London Living Rent and Shared Ownership as defined in the new London Plan), 178 Discounted Market Rent homes and 143 market rate homes for sale or rent on Council-owned land. With these developments the Council aims to fulfil its manifesto commitment to delivering 2,500 affordable homes and generate enough revenue to ‘develop a sustainable and long-term pipeline of genuinely affordable homes’ and ‘re-establish housing development as part of the Council’s core business’. The Council has already earmarked a number of unspecified school sites across the borough and land with potential for a further 6,000 new homes for this next stage.
Perceval House is to be demolished and redeveloped
Ealing
Council will have to borrow to fund the loan to BLRP. Apart from the 50-year
life cycle of the loan, this is a high-risk strategy for the following reasons:
The plans rely on planning approvals for 18 sites, the two largest of which are Perceval House and Gurnell Leisure Centre, which have generated huge levels of opposition locally. Ealing Council’s assertion that this risk will be mitigated by ‘close working with the planning department’ is not reassuring. As the landowner, developer and planning authority, the Council is hopelessly conflicted. (The Arden Road and Dean Gardens Council car parks we highlighted in the last newsletter are also part of the plan, and planning applications for those were indeed recently approved.)
The Council is under pressure to get started on these homes as more than a thousand of them have attracted £100 million of grant money from the Greater London Authority (GLA), which is built into the BLRP business plan. The terms of the grant require that they are started no later than March 2023.
According to the BLRP business plan, repayment of the loan will rely on the Council’s ability to sell the Shared Ownership and market rate homes at a profit, which will be subject to prevailing economic and market forces.
Other London councils, such as Croydon, Bexley and Merton, have got into financial trouble with housing delivery vehicles of this type. Again, it is not reassuring that one of the directors of Broadway Living is also a director of Bexley Council’s housing company.
And if
all this turns sour, who will pay for it? As the sole shareholder in Broadway
Living, that would be Ealing Council, i.e. you and me.
LOCAL
DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Where are we
with the Local Development Plan?
Since
the last newsletter there have been two Local Development Plan Advisory
Committee (LDPAC) meetings, but little progress. Following Councillor Peter
Mason’s resignation, Julian Bell, the Leader of the Council chaired the first
of these, which took place on 1 October 2020 and looked at the implications of
the Government White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’ and gave an update on
Ealing’s Strategic and Local Infrastructure Delivery Plans. A further meeting
took place on 2 December 2020. This was chaired by the newly appointed Cabinet
portfolio holder for Housing, Planning and Transformation, Councillor Mik
Sabiers, who has moved from Environment and Highways. The main subject of this
was also infrastructure. See Ealing Matters’ Guide to the New Local Development Planfor links to the documents from these
meetings.
After
some reluctance on the part of the Council, a representative of Ealing Matters
spoke at the end of the December meeting to ask for a revised timetable (called
the Local Development Scheme) for the Local Development Plan (no answer
forthcoming) and to chase once more the elusive Authority Monitoring Reports
(see below). The draft minutes said only that Ealing Matters ‘raised some
issues which were not regarding the main agenda item’. Judge for yourselfwhether
you think these issues were relevant or not.
Next LDPAC:
Authority Monitoring Reports (AMRs)
Those
of you who have visited our website recently may have read about the ongoing struggle to get EalingCouncil to fulfil its statutory duty and publish Authority
Monitoring Reports(AMRs)for the years 2014/15to 2019/20. In the fast-changing world of planning, it is
essential for planning authorities to assess regularly the implementation of
their Local Development Plan against its objectives and adjust accordingly.
Ealing has not done this since 2013/14 and we can see the results all around
us. To date there have been 28 requests that we know of for this information
dating back to September 2016. A letter from David Scourfield, Chief Planning
Officer, in answer to our recent Stage 2 complaint stated that AMRs covering
2014-20 ‘should hopefully be published before the end of March 2021’. This did
not happen, and we have now escalated the complaint to Stage 3 (internal
review).
LOW TRAFFIC
NEIGHBOURHOODS (LTNS)
In December 2020 Ealing
Council released an interim assessment of the nine LTNsinstalled between July and November 2020 using
Experimental Traffic Orders (ETOs). The feedback received has led to a number
of changes to the schemes:
The replacement of bollards with camera enforcement
An exemption from camera enforcement for Blue Badge holders within the LTN where they live (subject to registration)
An exemption for Council authorised vehicles transporting people with a mobility impairment where there is camera enforcement
A review of advanced warning signage
Specific actions in LTN 20 (West Ealing North), LTN 48 (Adrienne Road)
Some of these changes required a modification to the ETOs, with the effect of re-setting the 6-months consultation period to a new date of August 2021. Campaigners are furious about this, not least because they were part of a multi-borough legal case (with Hackney, Hounslow, Lambeth and Camden), which came to Court on 11 February. This was dropped at the eleventh hour following the Council’s decision to revoke the original Orders and to make new ones. While the Council has agreed to meet the campaigners’ legal costs, not for the first time it is using local taxpayers’ money to pay for its mistakes.
Campaigners are not happy:
During the first ETO Elthorne and Northfield councillors made a public commitment to support the removal of LTN 21 should residents come out against it after six months. The interim assessment shows that residents reject the scheme consistently across three different consultation methods. More than 1,750 residents have emailed said councillors criticising their failure to remove the LTN as promised.
Acton residents were told that no further LTNs would be introduced before definitive conclusions had been reached about the first set, but the Council is trying to go back on this agreement in their area.
Now for a round-up of news from around the
borough.
CENTRAL
EALING
Perceval House, 14/16 Uxbridge Road
The Council’s controversial plans to replace its Perceval House offices with new offices, a new public library and 477 flats in tower blocks up to 26 storeys high have stumbled shambolically in recent weeks. To the surprise of all, after two hours of heated debate the plans were deferred by the 17 February Planning Committee, which was unhappy about the affordable housing proposed. The scheme was sent back to a specially convened Committee meeting on 10 March. While it was approved after four hours of discussion, YouTube failures meant that the public was unable to witness the vote, forcing the Council to annul the meeting. Following an unprecedented third meeting convened on 31 March, and after almost three hours of presentation and debate, the scheme was passed by eight votes to four with one abstention.
The plans, proposed by the Council in partnership with the Vistry Group, were condemned by more than 2,300 objectors, who say it will cram too much onto a very cramped site. They say the resulting development will do serious harm to Ealing’s historic character and several key listed buildings, particularly by setting a precedent for a cluster of high buildings in central Ealing, and by depriving surrounding homes of their natural light.
The
application now has to go to the GLA for approval by the London Mayor and then
to the Government who can ‘call it in’ to decide at a public inquiry.
Dr Rupa Huq MP and ward councillor Seema Kumar spoke against the plans at all three meetings and both are expected to maintain their opposition. The delay complicates things seriously, particularly for the Council’s Broadway Living project, which is dependent on the scheme going ahead. The row also looks likely to get caught up in the campaign for the Mayoral election in May. Parties from all sides of the political divide will be inundated with objections to the plans from its critics.
CP House, 87-107 Uxbridge Road
Dwarfing the Hampton by Hilton hotel next door
The March 17 Planning Committee approved a massive redevelopment of CP House, a 1960s office block on the south side of the Uxbridge Road almost opposite the fire station. The existing 50,000m2 offices will be replaced by a large 235,000m2 block bringing forward the building line and raising the height effectively by three storeys. Views from Walpole Park will be considerably impacted, and the development will visually dominate the homes on Mattock Lane. The developers say they want to open a new pedestrian route between Uxbridge Rd and Mattock Lane. While this would improve permeability, it would need to be done very carefully to avoid harm to the Ealing Green CA.
Victoria Hall
The
saga of Victoria Hall looks likely to drag on. Back in 2017 the Council agreed
to hand over the Hall to hotel developer Mastcraft as part of a deal to dispose
of the whole Town Hall complex for just £2.5 million. At the time they did not
realise that the Hall did not belong to them, but that they were just the
trustees of a charitable gift to the Ealing community to celebrate Queen
Victoria’s jubilee.
The
Council has now spent the past two years trying to get the Charity Commission
to approve their deal in the face of opposition by the Friends of
the Victoria Hall(FoVH),
who want to keep the Hall for the community to use as was intended. For most of
this period the Council has kept the Hall shut down, denying the community use
of it. They admit that they have already spent almost the entire £2.5 million
they hope to receive from Mastcraft on fees and other costs incurred for the
disposal, so little if anything at all, will be left for any future trust
activities.
In
March, and in the face of FoVH’s continuing opposition, the Charity Commission
wrote to say it would allow Ealing’s deal to go ahead. FoVH holds that giving
away a philanthropic gift this way is against charity law. They are expected to
challenge the deal in the courts. Their case is presented in this entertaining 12-minute-long videofeaturingseveral local personalities.
HANWELL
Warren Farm
With QPR pulling out of its plans to use the Warren Farm as a training ground last year, attention has switched to finding a better use for this precious nature reserve. The Brent River and Canal Society (BRCS), has publishedan enticing vision which would include bringing together the neighbouring areas of green space into a nature reserve. A petition calling on Julian Bell and Sadiq Khan to take action to safeguard Warren Farm for wildlife and for people has attracted over 7000 signatures. Why not add your name to it?
SOUTHALL
Turning a community into a building site
Having to put up with the catastrophic atmospheric pollution caused by redevelopment of the Southall Gasworks site, Southall residents are coming to terms with the reality that their town has become a massive building site in which they struggle to live their lives. A walk through the centre soon reveals the horror of it. All five senses are overwhelmed. The noise and disruption of building works never stills, and neither does the traffic congestion, especially over Southall’s only railway bridge. Pneumatic drills and paving stone grinders vibrate throughout your whole body. Dust and debris hang in the air and get into your mouth and up your nose.
Developments so far (in green) and what is yet to come )in red)
Things will only get worse in the years ahead. While 3,750 homes are scheduled for the Gasworks Site, more than 8,700 are planned or approved in other sites around the town – mostly in giant blocks of flats rising up to 29 storeys high. Even when all the disruption is over, few Southall families are expected to enjoy them. Most of the new flats will have just one or two bedrooms which makes them unsuitable for families with two children of different genders. A full 63% of the new homes will be provided at market prices and just 13.5% of the new homes will be ‘affordable’ at London Affordable Housing rents.
What’s in a name?
We have written beforeaboutthe Berkeley Homes development,
aka Southall Waterside, on the site of theold Southall Gasworks. Imagine our surprise to find that the
development has now been rebranded as Southall Green Quarter. Could it be that
news of the air and soil pollution connected with the site, as reported in our
last newsletter, has seeped out to East Asian buyers, or is it a ploy to try and
revive flagging sales by making it look like a new-to-market development?
WEST EALING
51-56 Manor Road and 53-55 Drayton Green Road
(corner site next to West Ealing Station)
Developers southern Grove are appealing against Ealing’s October 2020 Planning Committee’ refusal of a 19- storey tower outside West Ealing station. The October 2020 decision was a major victory for the Stopthe Towers (STT)campaign group, and the 2,359individual objectors including Local MP James Murray, who had opposed it as inappropriate in this location. STT has sprung into action to fight the scheme for a second time at a virtual public inquiry to be held later this year. STT is appointing an expert barrister to argue their case against the scheme, whose scale and density the Council has acknowledged would harm the character and appearance of the low-rise surrounding area.
The case is important, not just for the immediate area, but because, if it goes ahead, it will establish a precedent for ever larger towers all along the railway west out of Ealing. STT needs support to help pay their legal costs. Click hereif you would like to make a contribution.
Leisure Centre victory secures a future for
Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) at Gurnell
To widespread delight and surprise, Ealing’s
17 MarchPlanning Committee on 17 March,
voted by 10-1 toreject the Council’s plan to
redevelop Gurnell Leisure Centre, which has been closed since the beginning of
the Covid pandemic. The plans were opposed by around 1,700 objectors and
Planning Committee member Cllr Ray Wall criticised it as looking ‘like a
warehouse with two chimneys plonked on top of it’.
The
scheme involved what the Council described as a ‘facilitating’ development
involving the construction of 6 huge blocks of flat up to 17 storeys high on
Metropolitan Open Land, which is protected by the London Plan in the same way
as Green Belt. The flats are part of the Broadway Living Registered Providers
business plan, and the risks associated with Broadway Living applied here – not
least because the scheme’s own consultants said it would be built at a
financial loss for them. Add to that the ballooning cost of the replacement
leisure centre within this hybrid scheme and flooding of the site last autumn,
and Ealing’s Planning Committee members could see that the whole project
constituted a very risky bet.
Gurnell
Leisure Centre’s many users are petitioning the Council to reopen the centre,
which has been closed since the Covid lockdown began. You can add your name here.
Majestic Wine Warehouse site, 41-42 Hastings
Road
The
housing association, A2Dominion, announced plans for 183 flats (at least 64 at
London Affordable Rent, the rest private) housed in blocks rising from three to
25 storeys on this site diagonally opposite the Manor Road tower. Since then
silence, no doubt as A2Dominion wait to see what happens with the Manor Road
site. Stop the Towers is also fighting this development, not least because the
proposals bear no relation to the policies for the site contained in the Council’s
Local Plan.
With thanks to Eric Leach for his contribution
to this latest issue. Contributions that you think would be of interest to the
Ealing Matters member groups are welcome.
The long-awaited planning application for the redevelopment of Perceval House on Ealing Council’s own land has been submitted. In brief, the application details plans for 477 flats, the Council’s new and smaller headquarters along with a new library and office space.
The development will accommodate seven new buildings including a 26-storey tower. It looks as if this development will take the same approach as Dickens Yard and put the taller buildings at the back (north) of the site near the railway line.
The above image, taken from the application, shows the planned development from the Uxbridge Road.
Concerns about the number of tall towers already built, being built and planned to be built in the borough were looked at in a special film made by Red Block Rebels back in May of this year. The planned 26-storey tower for the Perceval House site is featured in this film though some of the other details may now have changed slightly.
