Category: Regeneration

The WEN committee will be at the Silva Cafe this Saturday from 11.30am until 12.30pm and anyone is welcome to join us. We’ll have the team working on the feasibility study for a community and business hub in West Ealing joining us to explain their ideas and hear what our thoughts are (see post below). We’ll also be planning our next public meeting which will be about what sort of high stret we’d like to see develop in West Ealing over the next few years. I think West Ealing is on the cusp of change but what do you think?

Building a 60-bedroom hotel on the corner of Melbourne Ave and the Uxbridge Road looks almost certain to mean that some of the traders there – flower stall, card stall – will have to move. The plans for the hotel show a floor to ceiling glass window going part way along the Melbourne Ave side of the hotel. As a result, the traders are fearful of their future. Where will they be moved to? There doesn’t look to be enough room on the hairdresser’s side of the road for them all to fit in. As a result, they have started up a petition against the planned hotel and you can easily find it at the flower stall.

West Ealing Neighbours is considering its response to the planned hotel.  We recognise that this site needs redevelopment of some sort as it’s a bit of an eyesore but is this the best option for the high street? The sort of questions we are concerned about include:

• Do we need another hotel? There are two budget ones half a mile down the road – Premier Inn and Travelodge – plus the revamped Drayton Court Hotel by West Ealing station.
• It’s not likely to create all that much new employment for such a central high street site.
• There is no car park planned. Admittedly, most guests will probably come by public transport but will that bring extra pressure on the nearby roads which are currently CPZ free but getting more and more heavily parked up.
• It will mean more lorries crossing Melbourne Ave to access the rear delivery bays and do we want this? Some years back we proposed that a new access road go through part of the library car park. This was turned down because the mobile library bus was parked there overnight. The bus has now gone so we come back to the idea of lorries delivering to Lidl’s and the other shops by this new route and not across the mainly pedestrianised Melbourne Ave.
• Luckhurst’s the butchers will have to close for at least 6 months whilst the building work takes place. Tony Luckhurst runs one of the few traditional butchers left in the area. Will he re-open?

The long empty shop on the corner of the Uxbridge Road and Melbourne Avenue has a sign stuck to it announcing the application for a gambling licence for a Betfred betting shop. Whilst I’m glad this shop will be re-opened does West Ealing really need another betting shop? I can think of at least two between the Lido Junction and Eccleston Road, so why a third?

I guess Betfred have done their research and, at a time when money is very tight, there is a market for people willing to gamble, hope for the best and turn a blind eye to the saying that you never see a poor bookie.

If I had one wish for the newly established West Ealing Centre Neighbourhhod Forum it would be for it to set down tough guidelines for what sort of shops can come to the West Ealing shopping centre. We have enough betting shops and money lending shops in our shopping centre. What we don’t have is low-cost space for new and small local businesses to be given a chance to have a high street presence to see if they can make a go of their business. We need to find ways to give local businesses and entrepreneurs a start in life and low-cost retail space for, say their first year, would be one way of helping them, creating new jobs and keeping money in the local economy. Through running the monthly craft market and annual Arts and Crafts Fair we know there are plenty of local craftspeople and some would jump at the chance to take this next step.