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Residents up in arms about new 24-hour gym in West Ealing

The Daniels Family persuaded Ealing Council in 2003 to allow them to knock down their 100 year old department store on the Uxbridge Road in West Ealing and build a new one on the same site. Oh, and they were allowed to build 137 new flats on top of it. The flats got built in 2007 but Daniels declined to occupy the store space, as did everyone else for over four years. The space was boarded up until a few weeks ago. 

A gym is planning to open in the space in November 2011. On the face of it, it seemed better have some use of the space than to have the space unused. However we’ve just discovered that Ealing Council is to allow the gym to be open for 24 hours every day. Also the owners of the gym expect 6,000 gym members (paying £15 per month), and 600 of them using the gym after 10:00pm. However there are no plans to employ any gym staff after 8:00pm every evening. 

Clearly some of these gym users will drive to the area. But where would they park? There are CPZs to the immediate north and south and a very small nearby Council car park in Arden Road. 

Apart from the flat dwellers above the gym and five day time opening shops across the road no-one locally was consulted about the 24 hour opening of the gym. Local residents are livid about this. Not only have they had to put up with riots, looting, shootings, stabbings, violence, urinatings, late night noisy drunken revellers – now they have to put up with the comings and goings of 100s of gym attendees all through the night. 

A campaigning group objecting to the plans and the lack of consultation has been set up by local residents. Contact them at www.ResidentsUnite.co.uk

 Eric Leach

14 September 2011

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West Ealing Folk class restarts at Drayton Court, Mon Sept 12

If you’re a late bloomer, returner, beginner or just curious – and you have some kind of musical instrument (guitars, ukes, whistles, harmonicas, fiddles, accordions, flutes, and anything else you can think of, all welcome) – consider coming to learn some lovely simple old trad tunes at your local pub/hotel on Monday nights. You don’t need to be able to read music. These term-time classes restart on Mon Sept 12, 7-9pm but you can join any time. We learn new tunes every week. More here: http://ealingsessions.wordpress.com/about/

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The Big West Ealing Event – West Ealing Family Day 24th September 10am -4pm

This will be our second Family Day and it will be even bigger and better than last year!  We have managed to secure Opera Viscera who will be at St James Church running a children’s workshop at 1pm and later on that day at 3.15pm there will be a performance by this exciting collection of young artists.

The Family day will stretch from St John’s Church on Mattock Lane to St James Avenue. There will be food, live music across several locations, an extended farmers market, children’s activities, WEN Abundance will be selling our popular jams and chutneys and for the first time our very own apple juice!

This is a great way to celebrate life and the community in West Ealing after the shock and destruction of the recent riots.

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What Does Ealing Council Have Against Felix Road Residents?

Felix Road runs east /west to the immediate north of Green Man Lane Estate (GMLE) and with the Paddington to Bristol railway line to the north. For years and years traffic congestion, rat running, residents’ parking problems and road rage have all been common along the road.

Famously in 2009 Ealing Council built two new portacabin classrooms stacked on top of each other overlooking houses and flats at the road’s eastern end without going through any public consultation. Now, again without any consultation or notice a huge amount of the road has been yellow lined, making residents’ parking impossible.

Four Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) Public Consultations have been held in the area in recent years. The latest one, completed months ago, voted 61% in favour of a CPZ. However no timescale for implementation has been given to residents.

Finally Ealing Council granted planning permission in 2010 for the 700+ new homes development of GMLE along with increased access to Felix Road. Over the next eight years another 1,200 GMLE residents will attract even more traffic along Felix Road.

Just why isit that Ealing Council consistently wants to pour grief down on Felix Road residents?

 

Eric Leach

 

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OPEN Ealing launches its autumn season of classes and courses for adults

OPEN Ealing has launched its autumn season of activities for adults. Coming up soon are:

5-week course on introduction to photography

12-week course in creative writing

12-week series of talks on the history of 20th century design

6-week course on printmaking

Alongside these are all sorts of dance and exercise classes for all ages from zumba and pilates to Glee Club, breakdance and ballet.

Visit our new website at www.openealing.com for full details.

David Highton

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Uxbridge Road in West Ealing closed due to shooting

The Uxbridge Road between Culmington Road and Broughton Road is closed this morning (Sunday) following a shooting incident at about 5am this morning.The road is likely to be closed until at least midday. More news when we have it.

Update at 11.10am

Shooting took place at an internet cafe. Three van loads of police have just arrived at the scene so I doubt if the road will be reopened for a while yet.

Update at 1.15pm

The Uxbridge Road has been opened for westbound traffic.

 

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Fancy volunteering for some apple and pear picking?

WEN Abundance are coming into our exceptionaly busy phase with apples and pears coming out of our ears ready to be picked. If you are free, particularily during the daytime this week or next I would love to hear from you.

Most of our picking takes place in private gardens, we have equipment for you to use and will offer safety guidelines too.

We use the fruit in a variety of different ways from juicing through to making our own jams and chutneys. Any money we make from the sale of the produce is ploughed back into the project to help us buy equipment.

So if you want to help us reduce waste please offer up some of your spare time.

Contact me on here, or by email to wenabundance@gmail.com

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Street drinkers in West Ealing move to Green Man Passage

Well it looks like the Police have been successful in moving the drinkers out of Dean Gardens; instead they seem to have taken up residence in Green Man Passage.  For those of you not familiar with this cut through, it is accessed via Alexandra Road by Waitrose and takes you in-between the Cancer Research shop and Seba Electronics in West Ealing Broadway.

There are two Happy Child Nurseries based there which makes the experience even more unsatisfatory for those of us that drop of and pick up our children. I often walk in to the entrance of the Nursery passing groups of drinkers sat on the wall by the entrance.  Rubbish is often strewn along the route and in a small passage near the baby Nursery.

At our recent public meeting Paul Dunn talked about potential solutions to this growing problem – including gating and locking this area at night.  This can only be a good idea, but still doesn’t tackle what goes on here during the day, pretty much everyday.

Yesterday at the Alexandra Road entrance I witnessed addtional activity that I won’t go into to detail on here, but leads me to think that it’s not only drinking that is the issue.

If anyone has any ideas on what can be done, I would love to hear them.

Diane Gill