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OPEN Ealing is looking for an architect to help with plans for new home in West Ealing

OPEN Ealing will be moving to new premises in the heart of West Ealing in late March/early April. We have identified suitable promises and agreed terms with the landlord. We now need to find a friendly architect who can donate some of their time and skill to help us draw up plans for the building. We will need to make changes to the building’s current internal layout and work out how to make best use of the 8,000 or so sq ft. Is anyone up for the challenge?  If so, please email info@openealing.com and we’ll be delighted to talk to you about the project and our plans for the new building. This is a huge opportunity for OPEN Ealing to make a major contribution to life in West Ealing, so it’s crucial we get this step right as we plan to make West Ealing  our permanent home. You can find out more about OPEN on our website at www.openealing.com

Hope to hear from someone soon!

 

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Man knocked down at West Ealing’s Lido Junction

A man was knocked down at the Lido Junction this Friday lunchtime. Luckily it does not sound as if he was too seriously injured but it comes barely two days after the Council announced the public’s overwhelming support for plans to put in pedestrian crossongs and make the Lido Junction safe to cross.

The online Ealing Gazette has the story – http://www.ealinggazette.co.uk/ealing-news/local-ealing-news/2012/01/20/pedestrian-64-knocked-down-at-dangerous-crossing-64767-30166693/

We look forward to the inplementation of this scheme and, at last, making this junction safe to cross so there are no more such accidents.

 

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Overwhelming public support for plans to make West Ealing’s notorious Lido Junction safe to cross

The public consultation about the plans to put pedestrian crossings at the Lido Junction in West Ealing has met with overwhelming local support.  90% of those completing the consultation were in favour of the plans to make the Lido Junction safe to cross.  We await the decision on whether or not to put in the loading bay and parking bays in Drayton Green Road.

This is a major breakthrough for West Ealing and our thanks to the Council, TfL, all our colleagues who worked on the report two years ago and to everyone who said ‘yes’ in the consultation.

The works should be carried out this year so, after 5 years of lobbying, we are within sight of at last making the Lido Junction safe to cross.

The Council’s press release can be read at – http://www.ealing.gov.uk/news/article/294/lido_junction_gets_thumbs_up_from_residents

 

 

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Armed robbery attempt at Barclays Bank West Ealing

There was an attempted armed robbery at Barclays Bank in West Ealing this afternoon at around 3pm. I happened to be walking along Leeland Terrace at the time and heard then saw police cars and vans hurtling along the Uxbridge Road. Some turned down Leeland Terrace and the others carried on along the Uxbridge Road.

I believe there were three robbers and, according to an eye witness, customers at the bank tackled one of the robbers and sat on him until the police arrived. Again, according to an eye witness, this man had two guns on him.  I can’t verify any of the details yet but will update the story when we have more information.

Update on Thursday morning

A bit more detail coming out. Seems it was three robbers.Two got away and the third was tackled by a bank customer as he left the bank and in doing so some of the money was scattered on the pavement at the top of Leeland Road!  Talk of £8000 being stolen. The third robber was held until the police arrived.

I understand a man has now been arrested (after being detained at the scene) and charged.

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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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Local people to plan the centres of Ealing and West Ealing

According to the new Localism Act local people will soon be able to assemble a Neighbourhood Forum of 21 people or more who will discuss and propose the design of their local area. Save Ealing Centre (SEC), an alliance of 25 residents’ and community groups, has proposed the setting up of two Neighbourhood Forums – one for Ealing centre and one for West Ealingcentre. As part of these initiatives in 2011, SEC sought funding from national government, which if successful would amount to £40,000. We’ll hear soon whether this bid has been successful.

Neighbourhood Forums are required to be made up of a representative group of local stakeholders. I expect residents’ groups, community groups, businesses, faith groups, educational establishments and infrastructure providers to attend and contribute to these forum meetings.

These forum meetings are likely to be a breath of fresh air as they are likely to be the first such regular meetings in modern times at which local people/traders/service providers will be asked about how they want their town centres to be preserved, re-used and /or ‘developed’. These will be difficult discussions in which trade-offs between different needs – like quality of life, culture, healthcare, education, law and order, business and housing – will have to be thrashed out.

Unsurprisingly there are whole ‘rafts’ of planning legislation which the forums will have to wrestle with. At national level we have the newly proposed NationalPlanning PolicyFramework. At regional level we have the new version of The London Plan. At town level we have Ealing Council’s draft Local Development Framework Core Strategy (LDF CS). National government will decide whether it wants to accept Ealing’s LDF CS in early 2012.

All these planning policies contain a presumption in favour of property development, which seems somewhat out of place in a country with massive debts, a depressed construction industry and with no prospects of any significant economic growth for years to come. However it appears that no major political party wants to adopt a common sense policy of making the best use of what we’ve got.

The Localism Act will become fully enabled by April 2012. Neighbourhood Forums have a lifetime of five years. To find out more about Neighbourhood Forums and the Localism Bill you’ll find a useful briefing at www.urbanforum.org.uk/briefings/localism-act-briefing. To track progress of these Ealing Neighbourhood Forum  initiatives see SEC’s web site at www.saveealingscentre.com and West Ealing Neighbours’ web site at www.westealingneighbours.org.uk.

 

Eric Leach

3 January 2012

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Pedestrian Safety at the Lido Junction: The Public Have Their Say

On Tuesday 6 December 2011 some 50 people attended a public meeting to discuss Ealing Council’s proposals to make the Lido Junction safe for pedestrians – for the first time in living memory. West Ealing Neighbours (WEN) organised the meeting and it was WEN (along with Five Roads and Kingsdown Residents’ groups) who researched and published its findings and recommendations on the junction in 2009. This report in fact stimulated the Council and Transport (TfL) for London into action.

We are in the middle of a public consultation on the proposals and Councillor Mahfouz, the Council’s Transport Czar, answered questions posed by the audience on the proposals.

Continue reading “Pedestrian Safety at the Lido Junction: The Public Have Their Say”

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A very busy year for WEN Abundance

It’s that time of year where Abundance goes into hibernation for the winter after a season that started in August and stretched all the way to November! This year we picked around 1.5 tonnes of fruit – apples and pears were by far the most popular, however we saw a bumper crop of quinces too. We mainly picked in West Ealing, Ealing and Hanwell, but also took a trip down to Kent and managed to pick around 400kilos over a weekend.

Our apple juice has been sold by Cheddar Deli as well as The Little Art Room and they have taken the last of our apple and pear juice to sell at Xmas fairs. We have also developed 3 new chutneys this year so look out for them next year, along with yours and our favourites.

We covered more fairs this year, with the addition of Pitshanger Party in the Park. Our second West Ealing Family Day was a great success and it was lovely to see some of the tree owners popping by at the stall for a chat to find out what we had done with the fruit we picked. Talking of which we managed to pick at every location we were requested at – There were quite a few new trees from private back gardens as word of mouth spreads about our project.

We have also now taken over Walmer Gardens Orchard with Ealing Council’s permission and had a very positive response to the consultation of the local area for the renovation of this small Orchard starting in January 2012.

Of course we couldn’t have done any of this if it wasn’t for a small team of very dedicated individuals that devote an inordinate amount of their free time to this project – a big thank you to you all.

So in summary a very successful year for us – and we have plans to expand in 2012, more of which in the next Newsletter after a well deserved rest.

Signing off for a few weeks, a very shattered WEN Abundance Team!

Have a great Xmas and New Year and see you in 2012.