Working together to make West Ealing a better place for residents, businesses and visitors.
The old Blockbusters stood empty and forelorn for some months and then work on the new Morrisons Local started and it’s progressed very quickly and will open at 9am on Thursday. On the corner of St James Ave and the Uxbridge Road this supermarket should bring some much-needed footfall down this end of the high street and, hopefully, benefit the nearby shops.
I thought I saw signs of action yesterday at the old Blockbusters on the corner of the Uxbridge Road and St James Avenue. Then this morning I had another look and ,yes, work is underway to turn it in to a Morrisons. They are clearing out the store in readiness for the new fit out. I had a word with a man with a Morrisons hi-vis jacket and he wasn’t sure of the exact schedule but thought it would take about 10 – 12 weeks or so to complete.
We need some ideas, energy and enthusiasm to help us develop both our monthly craft markets and our annual arts and crafts fair.
We want to restart our monthly craft market in St James Ave again soon. We learnt a lot from our first year and we now want to take it to the next level. I think we will be helped when the new Morrisons opens in Blockbusters as this is almost certain to bring many more people to St James Ave.
1.30pm today and the shelves at Luckhurst’s are almost empty. I managed to buy a couple more items for the freezer. A sad day for all us regular shoppers at Tony’s but we look forward to welcoming you back in a brand new shop in the autumn (fingers crossed there’s no slippage in building the new shop)
I dropped in just after noon for the official opening of this new charity shop in West Ealing and it was jam packed with people looking, buying and enjoying the free food for the launch. The dressing of the shop window, its design, lay out and feel make it a cut above the average charity shop. A lot of thought and effort has gone in to making it look and feel like a good quality commercial retail shop. It has two main offers – a picture framing service and good quality second hand clothes.
The shop is near the traffic lights at the Eccleston Road junction and is run by Accession, a local social enterprise, and one of its aims is to ‘offer skills training and employment pathways into the mainstream job market, supporting the economically inactive and marginalised parts of the population for whom traditional employment training programmes and routes into work may not have succeeded. Prominent amongst this group are people with severe learning difficulties, people with enduring mental health needs and people on the autistic spectrum. Accession will also work with long term unemployed people from outside these groups.’
On this showing, this Community Shop will be a very welcome addition to West Ealing and help attract more shoppers to this end of the high street.
We’ve been warned! I saw the blackboard sign outside Luckhurst’s this morning saying they’re closing on June 8th whilst a new shop is built as part of the hotel build. They will re-open in their brand new shop in October. That’s pretty quick so let’s hope the build goes to plan and we can welcome Tony back in good time for Christmas. In the meantime, just enough time to stock up the freezer to see out the summer.
Two West Ealing events today:
Update on the Green Man Lane Estate development in the Jubilee Hall in Green Man Lane 4.30-8pm
What’s been achieved so far and an opportunity to see the plans for phase 2.
This is the most important development in West Ealing for a generation and phase 1 homes are now for sale. The development will take 8-10 years to complete and will increase the number of residents from around 800 to some 2,ooo. This alone will have a major impact on West Ealing. Add the coming of Crossrail and the redevelopment of the Sherwood Close Estate and there is a lot of change on its way.
What’s happening on our high street – WEN public meeting from 7.30pm at St John’s Church in Mattock Lane
I think West Ealing is on the edge of change, as I’ve said above, and now is a good time to start thinking about what we want our high street to look like in 5 or 10 years time. I think it will look very different but that’s just my opinion. Come along and listen to some ideas and give us your thoughts and hopes as to what you’d like to see for our shopping centre. Is it different shops, fewer shops, more housing or maybe community services taking over empty shops?
I’ve just had a flier through my door for the new Sushi and Noodle Bar in West Ealing. So, the renovation work must be finished and the one-time Joey’s cafe in Leeland Road next to the Salvation Army is now the Sumo Sushi & Noodle Bar. It’s open from 12noon -3pm for lunch and 6-10.30pm for dinner and they do take-away and home delivery. If anyone tries it do please come back and write a review here for us. Their website is www.sumooriental.com and has their menu and prices on it. Good luck to them.
After weeks of rumour about who is taking over the now-empty Blockbusters shop on the corner of St James Ave and the Uxbridge Road, a simple A4 notice in the window definitely confirms it will be the supermarket chain Morrisons. The notice is about their application for a licence to sell alcohol. This will be Morrisons’ second store in West Ealing. It follows close on their recent opening of a store in part of the ground floor of the old Daniels building . They also plan to have a large store in the revamped Arcadia shopping centre in Ealing Broadway.
As this photo shows, work is already underway on the new hotel in West Ealing following agreement at last night’s (Wednesday 15th May) Planning Committee meeting. The plan is for a new 60-bedroom hotel on the corner of Melbourne Ave and the Uxbridge Road. The concerns about the traders at the top of Melbourne Ave and Luckhurst’s the butchers appear to have all been resolved. You can read the background to this story here.