Category: West Ealing shopping

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Follow the West Ealing Monthly Craft Market on Facebook

You can find out more about our monthly craft market in St James Ave on its just-launched Facebook page –

http://www.facebook.com/pages/West-Ealing-Craft-Market/387521781287733

Stalls for our market on 5th May include The Buttoneer with her jewellery made from buttons to Nick Lazarow’s locally made wood-turned products including candle holders and bowls. The full list is:

  • Cosmetics & toiletries
  • Candles
  • Hand-knitted clothing
  • Greetings Cards
  • Notelets
  • Soft toys
  • Ethnic clothing & accessories
  • Leather goods
  • Woodturning
  • Cakes
  • Swarovski crystal jewellery
  • Button jewellery

 

 

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West Ealing monthly craft market off to a successful start

After two years of planning and discussion West Ealing Neighbours launched its monthly craft market today with its bright red gazebos signalling its presence in St James Avenue. West Ealing was fairly quiet to day but the craft market got off to an encouraging start. The general feeling was a good first day and we now need to build on this and start to establish the first Saturday of the month as a regular date for the diary.

Our thanks to the Council, St James Church and everyone else who contributed to helping get the market up and running.

Watch out for our next market on Saturday 5th May.

 

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Another loan shop in West Ealing

This morning I noticed yet another cash/loan shop opening in West Ealing. This one is called Cash Generator and comes on top of the various other loan shops and pawnbrokers already operating the length of West Ealing. These tough times clearly seem to  mean there’s enough business to go round for all these shops. Yet, I just wonder if letting the market rule is always the right approach to regenerating the high street?

One of West Ealing Neighbours’ top priorities is to work towards bringing together the key stakeholders for West Ealing and explore new ways to bring fresh ideas to our high street (see our website for details). So, for example, how can we encourage start-up businesses to take space? It’s not realistsic to expect start-ups to be able to afford the full rent and rates on a shop. Are there ways we can work with the Council and landlords to offer start-ups a small low-cost space in a larger shop for a couple of years so the business has a chance to grow and then move on and let someone else have that space? Could we even think about the idea of a community shop where a range of local groups work together to make it a community hub with information, advice, a meeting place for locals and more. It’s not going to be easy but I just feel we need to look at this sort of option and not always hand over control of our high street to the free market.

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Riot-hit Seba Electronics shopowner promises to donate any recovered goods to charity

The owner of Seba Electronics in West Ealing, whose shop was badly hit by the summer riots, has promised to donate any goods recovered by the police to local good causes.  See story at Ealing Gazette online here – http://westealing.ealinggazette.co.uk/2012/03/riot-hit-shopkeeper-promises-t.html

I’ve bought various TVs and other items from Seba over the years and the owner, Mr Sehgal, and his family run a brilliant shop with excellent customer service. I’ve also heard him talk about the impact of the riots and looting and he is just extraordinarily forgiving – a remarkable man and one West Ealing should be very proud of.

 

 

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Try one of the triple smoked hams from Luckhurst’s in West Ealing

Triple smoked hams are a  bit of a strange topic for a blog entry but I hope it will be of interest to some of our readers as they are just fantastic.

We buy a lot of our meat from Luckhurst’s in Melbourne Avenue and I’ve seen these dark-coloured hams hanging up for some years but never gave them much thought. This Christmas however, and with a bit of prompting from my wife, we decided to find out what they are as they seem very popular. Talking to Tony Luckhurst I found out that they are triple smoked hams and come from a specialist supplier in north London. Not surprisingly they take some time to prepare and a whole one will cost around £40 and a half around £20.

So, having found out what they are, we ordered a half one for Christmas. I got some advice from Tony on cooking it and did a bit more research and decided to boil it for half the time and then bake it in the oven for the other half. We had it for dinner one evening just after Christmas and it was by far and away the best ham I’ve ever eaten. It was tasty and moist. It hadn’t dried out at all despite being cooked for about 4 hours. We bought another one yesterday and it was just as good. It does smell a bit like kippers when you take it out of the wrapping but I thoroughly recommend it.

In terms of cooking, I cut off the skin but left as much of the fat as possible. Then I scored the fat and managed to find a large enough saucepan and covered the ham in water and brought it to the boil. I then drained off the water and put in clean water and brought it to the boil again and simmered it for half the necessary cooking time – about 90mins/2hrs depending on size. After this I took it out and put molasses (or treacle) over the scored side, out it in a roasting tin and covered it with foil and in to a moderate oven (160C) to finish and took off the foil for the last half hour. I’m sure there are lots of other ways to cook it but this works well for us.

I know it’s a bit of a treat but if you have a special occasion it’s well worth it and cold ham is still good to eat afterwards so it will all get used.

Do let us know what you think if you try it.

 

 

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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

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The Quiet Opening of Cheddar Deli – Northfields Avenue

New cheese shop on Northfields Avenue

Amongst the mayhem and chaos in West Ealing over the past few days a new cheese shop has opened on Northfields Avenue.  A local husband and wife team opened Cheddar Deli on Monday 8th August and seem to be doing a brisk trade.  I went in yesterday and bought some manchego, jarslberg and quince cheese. Brent (the owner) was very helpful and let me taste the jarslberg as I wasn’t familiar with the flavour. My lunch today was delicious – I’ll certainly be going back for more.

They also offer a monthly, quarterly, twice yearly service. I’m not sure if this is delivered so best to go in and ask.

Cheddar Deli - open for business

Apart from cheese they sell meats, home made tarts and a small range of top quality produce such as crackers, oil, jam.

 

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Time to turn on the power: West Ealing street traders still without power

West Ealing's regular Saturday farmers' market

For well over a year, probably even two, the stalls in the weekly farmers’ market have been waiting to plug in their lights and equipment to the specially installed power points in Leeland Road. Some years back when Leeland Road was smartened up with new pavements power points were installed in some of the street bollards. The trouble is, so I’m reliably informed, the last time someone from the Council turned up to give access to these power points, which was some months ago, they had the wrong key and so this dismal saga still drags on.

On top of this, almost 18 months ago, the Walpole Ward Forum agreed to set aside about £10,000 to pay for power points in Melbourne Avenue for the traders there to use. As with Leeland Road the traders were more than happy to pay for the power they use but, as yet, almost a year after the completion of the improvements to Melbourne Avenue there is still no sign of any power points being put in.

This has been dragging on long enough. Please Ealing Council can this all be sorted out soon!

David Highton

 

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Hitting the high notes – opera comes to West Ealing

Sitting quietly at the reception desk at OPEN Ealing this morning I heard wafting down two flights of stairs the unmistakeable sound of an opera singer practising her scales. She is the lead singer with Opera Viscera, a group of graduate musicians who have moved into OPEN Ealing for three weeks to compose, rehearse and then perform their brand new opera Narcissus and Echo in preparation for the company’s performances at this year’s Secret Garden Party.

Based on the classic Greek myth about love, vanity and decay this new young opera company is throwing open its inner workings and running a series of free opera related events culminating in the first ever performance of their opera on Wednesday 20th July at OPEN Ealing (this is £8 a ticket). The events are:

  • Friday 15th July Opera screening and discussion from 1-3pm  Free
  • Saturday 16th July Costume workshop for adults 1-4.30pm  Free
  • Sunday 17th July  Opera workshop for children 1-4.30pm  Free
  • Wednesday 20th July Performance of Narcissus and Echo 7.30pm £8 adults and concessions apply

For more details and to book your places for any of these online visit www.operaviscera.com

OPEN Ealing is at 113 Uxbridge Road Ealing W5 5TL (opposite the fire station) Tel: 020 8579 5558.

David Highton