Paul Conlan, one of the new Walpole councillors, has posted on the Ealing Today Forum that the votes have been counted and the proposed CPZ for the Fielding School area has been rejected. No further details yet available.

I wrote this short piece for our June newsletter:

‘One sure sign of regeneration?
Walking along Northfield Avenue the other day it struck me that a sure sign of an area changing is when estate agents come in to or leave a high street. Northfield Ave has loads of estate agents with new ones moving in regularly. Will a sign that West Ealing is on the up be when a new estate agent opens on the high street? Anyone willing to say when this will happen in West Ealing?’

Crossrail is already having a significant effect on house prices. You’ve only to look at the estate agents’ adverts in the Ealing Gazette to see the regular mention of Crossrail. Then someone recently said to me ‘we’re being gentrified’ referring to the nearly refurbished Grosvenor pub (which I like).  Change is a slow process but it’s happening in West Ealing.

What are the other signs of regeneration – an artisan baker, new restaurants, improved schools, more affordable housing?  I’m curious what others think or whether I’m imagining change is in the air.

Then I read an article in yesterday’s Sunday Times ( 15th June) about spotting the signs of gentrification.  Apparently, if there’s already a Waitrose and Carluccio’s you’re being gentrified. The signs it’s starting to happen include:

1. ‘When the local boozer suddenly gets rebranded as a gastropub’

2. Cupcake stands

3. Organic food outlets

4. Shops billed as ethical or sustainable open up

5. Companies that trade on being cool or hitting a zeitgeist

6. Charity shops moving out to make way for higher-value occupiers

7. Solicitors and accountants noving from the ground floor to the upper floors as rents rise

I can think of two such signs in West Ealing recently. The tired old boozer The Grosvenor being bought up and refurbished and offering decent food. The Warren Evans ‘green’ bed and furniture store opening in the last space on the ground floor of the old Daniels site.  What next?

The Dr Bike team does a fantastic job promoting cycling and checking out bikes.  If you want to get your bike health -checked or get advice on anything to do with cycling drop in to see them at their stall at the farmers’ market in Leeland Road on Saturday 14th JUne 9am-1pm

Big Picnic 2013

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we manage to see some sunshine on Sunday for the second Big Picnic in Dean Gardens.  Last year we had good weather as you can see from the photo above – so here’s hoping we’re lucky again. As last year, it’s open to everyone and please bring along your lunch and just enjoy the day. It’s a chance to meet old friends, make new friends and just have an enjoyable time. There will be live music, information stalls and a variety of activities – more information to follow.

Looking at the four wards that cover most of West Ealing there has been a clear swing to Labour in the 2014 local election.  The most striking being Walpole which went from being all Conservative for the last two elections to now being all Labour. Northfields remains all Conservative whilst Elthorne which had one Labour, one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat is now all Labour. Lastly, Cleveland has gone from all Conservative to only one Conservative and two Labour. In all, Labour considerably increased its majority on the Council with the Conservatives falling by half from 24 to 12 councillors and the Liberal Democrats lost one councillor, Nigel Bakhai,  on the Elthorne ward.

You can find the full results for all the wards here -but the site is running rather slowly at the moment.

Welcome to Week 13 of our 150 days of community project. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Then click here. We had lots of stuff in for last week, though one of suggestions might have been ‘cut down’ before it could come to fruition!

@WENeighbours When I tried that, the council sprayed them with weedkiller : (

— Vivien Boyes (@vivienboyes) May 13, 2014

Would anyone like to adopt a fish?

Harshini Passmore posted in Coldershaw Community

Harshini Passmore 7:39pm May 13 Hi all, would anyone like to adopt our fish? They are black and orange fan tail goldfish in a bi-orb 30L tank with LED lighting system, air pump and fish food all included. We have a baby on the way and so are looking to find these guys a new home! Let me know if interested, thanks, Harshini

 

Adam Brown 11:45am May 14 Gill – The mains plugs do work and are very good. Only for devices you can cable though of course. To be clear, the device that plugs into it will need a network socket and then network cable to connect the mains adapters network socket. They can be expensive – could be worth asking an electrician about the cost of running a hidden cable from point to point, or even getting an extension of eBay or Amazon. I did that in our house when the floor boards were up.

 

Ben DeVille 10:45am May 14 It sounds like wireless interference wasn’t the issue, sorry for sending you down a rabbit hole! I have tried 5GHz as well, it’s good, but you have to be sure that all your devices are compatible, for example, we found that the wireless infrared camera that we use as a video baby-monitor did not support it. I have one of these wireless extenders Gill Adams, because despite us only being in a 2 bedroomed flat, the wireless signal struggles to get as far as the bedroom. It’s very good, but it does have need restarting every 24 hours or so because it seems to lose the wireless and need the restart to grab it again. This is the one we have: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007SU0BJU/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Adam Brown 10:18am May 14 It does but even an iPad 2 will work like that in my experience

Gill Adams 10:15am May 14 Adam Brown does the 5GHz option require all the receiving device/s to be able to receive 5GHz?

Adam Brown 10:10am May 14 You can try to optimise the channel your router uses (advanced settings). I used some free software called inSSIDer office – it shows the channels your neighbours are using so you can choose the least busy space. That or if your router can do it – switch to 5GHz – that’s an option on the Virgin boxes, and the better ones you buy at PC world.

Diane Gill 10:07am May 14 Hi all I did the test as Ben DeVille suggested and it was the same. I contacted Talk Talk and guess what there’s a fault from the exchange to my house. They have engineers working on it and are sending me text updated on progress. Cheers

Original Post

Diane Gill 6:46am May 13 Hi all I’m with Talk Talk for my broadband and I’ve been having problems recently watching catch up TV on my iPad and computer. I tested the speed last night and it’s only just over 2mb or is that gig? Anyway it’s rubbish! I can’t upgrade to their fibre optic service as it’s not in my area. Who can recommend a better provider with higher speeds? I’ll need to have my phone and broadband together. Any recommendations gratefully received.

Linda Pegg commented on her post in West Ealing Neighbours.

Linda Pegg 3:02pm May 13 Hi Gill , Thank you , we are doing some projects in schools at the moment , The large scarecrow was for the RHS scarecrow competition that a local school took part in , she is constructed out of recycled materials 🙂 that the children worked on putting together :-). We are looking to work with community groups, and lots more schools .Linda

Gill Adams 11:44am May 13 Oooh, Linda Pegg – your website looks good. What a brilliant, community-enhancing business (labour of love?). I imagine scarecrow making might catch on round here. I know when I’ve been to Dorset there’s often a scarecrow weekend and you find these mad effigies lurking around every corner and leaning on bus stops. Are you doing any projects locally?

Linda Pegg 9:45am May 10 .

Original Post

Did we miss anything? Let us know!

We have another great list of seven ‘acts of community’ for this week – see how many you do – maybe you already do them!

• Call an old friend/relative
• Offer to share your table for lunch
• Accept or extend an invitation
• Talk to your kids or parents about their day
• Smile (in an unthreatening way!) at strangers
• Log off and go to the park
• Ask a new person to join your group for a dinner or an evening

We’d love to hear from you if you do any of these things, or anything else that makes people smile in West Ealing. We have loads more suggestions of things you can do, if you want to jump ahead!

Ways to send us your contributions:

Send us an email – 150daysofcommunity@gmail.com
Write on our Facebook wall – https://www.facebook.com/groups/124290860921562/
Tweet at us – @WENeighbours
Add a comment to this blog post (below)