West Ealing Neighbours Blog

With a few days to spare the plan for the West Ealing Community Cultural Quarter is up and running thanks to pledges from 169 people and organisations reaching the target of £34,021. The West London Islamic Centre in Singapore Road made the final contribution to reach the target. Congratulations to everyone involved in helping this idea get off the ground.

This now gives the go-ahead for OPEN Ealing and the Ealing Centre for Independent Living to ‘ reopen a closed shop in West Ealing and create an amazing diverse retail and artistic space offering a range of community engagement art activities accessible to all – promoting inclusion, mental and physical wellbeing and independent living within the area. It will be a place where we can meet old friends, make new ones & express ourselves.

We’ll be able to learn about the area’s diverse culture via exhibitions, classes and events curated by the community for the community. The front will be a retail unit selling affordable mobility equipment, refurbished on site by our team of apprentices under the guidance of a qualified mobility engineer. The shop will be the first of its kind in the area.’

Watch this space as further developments are under discussion for the West Ealing Community Cultural Quarter.

Tuesday 4th December 16:00 – 19:00, Telfa Room Ealing Town Hall

Drop in session to talk about construction progress and upgrade works at Crossrail stations across Ealing.

“Opportunity to talk to some of the team responsible for the work on your new stations and hear about our planned Christmas works”

Ealing group’s arts centre bid

Campaign group CEPAC has made a bid for a performance arts centre to be set up in Ealing’s Victoria Hall, which is covered by a charitable trust.

CEPAC’s proposal was lodged with the Council last week, to meet the deadline for bids for Ealing Town Hall under the Assets of Community Value rules. These rules have so far delayed the Council from agreeing a deal to sell the whole building to Mastcraft, a ‘boutique’ hotel developer.

The Council must now consider all the options for the future of the Hall and its related areas. It also has still to get permission from the Charity Commission if it wants to sell any of the Trust property.

The Council’s own figures show that the Trust’s Halls have been producing a profit, which is meant to be retained for charitable purposes. Chair of CEPAC John Hummerston said:  “Studies by our professional consultants show that a properly run arts centre could generate an income at least 50% higher than the Council has managed to achieve, while meeting a long-felt need in the local community.”

Work will need to be done on the Grade II listed Hall to put it into a better state and make it fit for a stand-alone arts centre.  “A new set of trustees should be appointed without delay”, says John. “An independent charity would have access to funds that are not available to the Council, and we know the public will be eager to back a separate Trust as an alternative to the present council-run committee.”

Binfield Property Investment Trust’s Planning Application for Chignell Place, a short cul-de-sac off Broadway in West Ealing centre, proposes 63 flats rising to eight storeys. 59 of these flats are one bedroom flats and many of them look to have a Gross Internal Area (GIA) of about 24sq m.  Both the new Draft London Plan and The Mayor of London’s 2010 Interim London Housing Design Guide specifies a GIA (minimum space standard) for a one person dwelling of 37 sq m. For a bedroom alone the Guide specifies a GIA of 6.2 sq m and for ‘adequate bed space’ 8 sq m GIA.

The flats will be available to rent.

No flats for the disabled are planned and only four of the flats will accommodate a wheelchair. There are no public or disabled car parking space and no able-bodied car parking places.

There is a ’Laundry’ on each floor, with a GIA of 3 sq m. Presumably this would house one washing machine for 10 -12 flats. There are bike stores on each floor but only one small, all purpose lift. A small café is also on the plan.

The plans are perhaps suitable for a student hall of residence, but the Planning Application is not couched in this way. One does wonder whether this 24 sq m living space will become a West Ealing centre standard should this application receive Ealing Council approval

Attached is a section of one of the plans – this shows Apartments 46, 47 48, 49, 50 and 51 on the fifth floor.

It’s quite hard to get a good sense of how the site will look once complete but the image directly above clearly shows the actual area to be developed and the one at the top of this article and below  gives some idea of how it will look from the Uxbridge Road.

The Planning Application reference is 184490FUL and the Planning Application website is here. The deadline for comments is 30 November 2018.

Eric Leach

Vice Chair

West Ealing Neighbours

It sounds a bit trivial but i do think little improvements can make a difference and I think these new litter bins in Melbourne Ave are a great improvement on the previous ones.

Melbourne Ave was re-designed a  few years ago and had new paving, trees, planters and bins.  I have to say I think the whole project was design before function and the bins were exactly that.  They always looked a mess so I hope these new ones will prove more successful. After all, Melbourne Ave is the nearest we have to a town centre and it deserves to look decent.  That’s why WEN took on the maintenance of the planters and will look after the raised flower bed across the road once the plants are in.