If you want to read up on the public meeting that took place on 11th July they are available on our main West Ealing Neighbours website.
http://www.westealingneighbours.org.uk/index.php?option=content&task=category&id=70&Itemid=95
Flying visit to West Ealing by Boris Johnson this morning
I’ve just had a phone call from my wife Elizabeth to say she just came out of Wilkinson’s with some shopping and she walked straight into Boris Johnson who was doing a walkabout. I think Boris’s main reason for coming here was to visit the Lido Centre and hear about their London Ambassadors Recruitment project. The volunteer Ambassadors will be welcoming visitors to the Olympics and Paralympics.
David Highton
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
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:
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Friday 15th July Opera screening and discussion from 1-3pm Free
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Saturday 16th July Costume workshop for adults 1-4.30pm Free
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Sunday 17th July Opera workshop for children 1-4.30pm Free
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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
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.
Our first tweetup and meetup was a great success!
Last Wednesday night West Ealing Neighbours had our first Tweetup and Meetup, generously hosted at the Star and Anchor pub.
There was a fantastic turnout considering that it was our very first meetup, with 25 people coming, including three Councillors.
We talked about everything from local recycling, our Abundance project, the impact of High Speed 2 in Ealing, and about designing a peddle-powered apple presser! We kept it going online too, with the #wentweetup hashtag.
Thanks are also to Ash and Kev at the Star and Anchor who put on a whole bunch of bread, olives and deep fried squid – it really helped the night along.
We’ll definitely be planning another event, probably in late September. We’ll keep you posted.
Here’s a gallery of some of the best photos from the night (click to enlarge):
Fancy yourself as an inventor?
The London Orchard Project is looking for someone to design and make a new pedal-powered apple crusher for easy juicing of urban apples.
This is an exciting opportunity to create a really useful product that does not currently exist. The crusher will be used by us and community groups across London harvesting and juicing local fruit. It’s a great opportunity to be part of the future of local fruit production and processing in our wonderful city.
Background
Apple juicing is a 2-stage process. First the apples need to be crushed to a pulp, then they are pressed to get the juice.
Small scale community apple juice producers using hand-operated crushers know through bitter experience that the crushing stage is slow, dull and blister-inducing. There are electric crushers available, but these are too expensive for small voluntary groups, require a power source (not always available at outdoor events) and conflict with the low carbon/ off the grid ethos of small-scale community food production.
The Vigo website shows the crushers currently available on the market with some useful videos of how these work:
http://www.vigopresses.co.uk/store/index.php?cPath=63_77
The brief
They are looking for an intermediate technology apple crusher: faster and easier to use than existing hand-operated crushers, but without need for electricity.
The ideal crusher would be:
- Pedal powered
- Transportable- ideally readily attachable to a bike
- Safe to use- has a mechanism that ensure apples only get crushed (no fingers in our juice!)
- Quick – a small electric crusher by comparison can crush up to 1,000kg of apples per hour (but it doesn’t need to achieve aquite these volumes!)
- Effective – reducing the apples to a fine pulp for optimum juice pressing
- Very sturdy- it will be used by many groups across London
- Using reclaimed materials where possible
- Easy to repair
- Looks cool! (the most discerning teenager will be keen to give it a go)
- Replicable
Ideally (but not necessarily), you’d be up for sharing the design with other groups who may want to make their own.
Prize and Budget
They have a £200 prize for the person who makes us the crusher. And you’ll get the satisfaction of knowing your creation is being put to good use and enjoyed by 1000s of Londoners. And they will make sure to spread the word about the brains behind the crusher.
In addition, they anticipate the budget for materials to be in the region of £200-£400 (but are still very keen to see cheaper or more expensive designs)
To take up the challenge…
If you are interested or have any questions, please contact orchard@thelondonorchardproject.org outlining:
- Your initial design
- Relevant experience in designing, making or working with similar machines
- Budget breakdown for the work
Closing dates for entries is 20th July. The winner will be announced on 25th July.
They would like the crusher on 31st August at the latest, ready for the harvesting season
More about The London Orchard Project at www.thelondonorchardproject.org
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
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.
Come along and see our stall at Pitshanger – Sunday 26th June
For those of you that missed us at Hanwell Carnival we will be at PPiTP for the first time selling our lovely locally picked and made produce – including our best selling elderflower cordial (£2.50) We will also have our chutneys this time – we had lots of requests at Hanwell for these!
You can also find out more on the Abundance project and volunteer too!
See you there.
Diane