Eric Leach questions Council ‘regeneration’ on The Avenue in West Ealing.
Way back in February 2010 we reported that the Council planned to spend £280,000 on regenerating The Avenue retail strip. Over a year later workmen are taking up lots of quite serviceable paving stones from the wide pavement on the eastern side of the road and replacing them with new paving stones. This must itself be costing thousands of pounds and there is no obvious regeneration benefit here. At a time when £millions are being cut from Council budgets it seems quite obscene to spend money unnecessarily.
We still await the conversion of the mixed Stop and Shop and Pay and Display kerb side car parking arrangement into ‘free-form’ 30 minutes free parking controlled by car registration numbers. Although budgeted to cost £8,500, the new arrangement is not scheduled to increase the number of cars which will park there. These new parking slots will continue to be dominated by mini-cab car parking – an arrangement that the Ealing Broadway Councillors are quite happy to tolerate even though it works against the best interests of Avenue traders and shoppers.What with this work underway and the conversion of The Drayton Court pub into a hotel in full swing, car parking on the Avenue is even more of a shambles than usual. When the 27 bed hotel opens in June we are promised 18 hotel car parking spaces – 6 in front of the hotel and 12 in what was part of the garden at the back. However the access road at the back via Gordon Road is terribly narrow and will be just one way.
Eric Leach
Actually, my wife is disabled and will find these new pavements much easier to navigate. She pays full council tax too.
Couldn’t she navigate on the old pavement?
No, becuase it was terribly uneven. She’s stumbed and fallen there a few times, and once required hospital treatment. Hopefully, the new pavements will make life slightly easier as she makes her way to the Drayton. (and, no, the stumbles and falls occured on the way, not on the way back, in case you were wondering 😀 ) Words like ‘obscene’ and ‘meaningless’ are strong, and care should be taken when using them. Otherwise, it just sounds like a rant.
I appreciate you don’t like the council very much, that much is clear, but I do think WEN ought to step back a little and consider they are supposed to represent West Ealing Residents.
Just lately, you’re sounding like an anti-council pressure group. Scrutinise, by all means, but any good points you might make are hidden behind the white noise of relentless negativity you generate towards pretty much anything new or different that happens in the area.
I picked up the magazine from the train station. It’s just full of complaints. West Ealing is a wonderful place to live, whoever runs the council, its a shame there isnt a residents association to represent me.
Karl, WEN also do some very positive things – we are not an ”anti-council pressure group”. We actually have worked and continue to work closely with the council on a number of important initiatives in West Ealing such as the Lido Junction and Green Man Lane Estate to name a few. We also have an Abundance wing of WEN that I run (see link at top of blog)
Karl,
I am sorry that WEN isn’t the residents’ group for you.
We don’t like to see our money wasted and we don’t resist changes which we can see will add value. We also react to members’ problems and issues.
We have also worked hard to help set up West Ealing Arts, set up a free book lending service at West Ealing Station, run a successful Book Reading Group and will be heavilly involved in running this years Family Day in the centre of West Ealing. WEN has volunteered to help get the Green Man Lane Community Cafe up and running and sustainable by 2012. WEN also now runs the annual Arts and Crafts Fair at St James Church.
I appreciate your feedback on the unevenness of the pavement being replaced. However as I have an arthritic foot I’m sensitive to uneven surfaces but over the 25 years of drinking in the Drayton and shopping in The Avenue I’ve yet to trip or take a tumble. And I’m 67 years old.
I really like the new pavement and just wish we could get some more quality businesses on the avenue.
It’s a shame that shops remain empty, I’m guessing due to unreasonable rents.
I’m also looking forward to X rail and te inevitable improvements that should bring. The buildings around West Ealing station are a mess.